Blog
Press Release: October 4, 2024
Friday Field Notes
Check out the latest update from our missionaries!
PRESENTATION AT TRINITY LUTHERAN CHURCH – Serena Derricks
I had a wonderful morning sharing at the Sunday Bible study at Trinity Lutheran Church in Walton, Nebraska. It was my first presentation at a congregation since taking on this new position! Everyone was welcoming and interested in hearing about the importance of literacy to support Bible Translation efforts. I am excited to present or visit more congregations and LWML groups as my schedule permits. Please call or email me if your small group or church might be interested!
Prayer Requests
- Praise the Lord for safe travels to Missouri
and Nebraska. - Praise the Lord for meaningful conversations
with LBT colleagues during the gathering. - Pray for discernment as I seek to serve the
various needs for literacy in LBT projects. - Pray that I can continue to manage my time
well with my LBT work as the school year
begins. - Pray for continued health as my family begins
a new school year here in Montana.
A MISSION TO MAINE – Nathan and Sarah Federwitz
“One of the most outstanding experiences I have had so far in my training was flying to Maine for a Mission at the Airport (MATA) event in Pittsfield and Bangor, Maine. This was a flying experience unlike any I have had before. Most of my flying has consisted of training flights that don’t get more than 25 miles away from the airport where I started—and these usually focus on honing precision skills for handling the aircraft. Flying to Maine from JAARS was completely the opposite! This journey was a 925 mile, 7-hour long Cessna 206 airplane ride one way.
This takes a completely different mindset to devise a flight plan and execute it so that the flight can be brought successfully to the place it needs to go. But this is all part of why I am here at JAARS–to get more experience in different aspects of flying so that I will be best equipped to serve Bible translation once we go overseas.
Part of my training in flying up to Maine was to learn to operate the aircraft during the different phases of flying: climbing higher in altitude, cruising with longer stretches between waypoints, and planning descents from further distances. Also, part of the learning was communicating with Air Traffic Control on our plan and following their instructions for aircraft flow. On the way back from Maine, I was able to see how much I had learned from the flight north. I had grown in efficiency and was able to do better flight planning on our trip back down to North Carolina.
NEW RESOURCES FOR PNG – Michelle Gillard
Before you have a difficult decision to make, or before you speak, or before you purchase something substantial, you take a minute to stop, consider, and pray. God is there even before you ask. This is what we are seeing in PNG. God has been working and he is doing amazing things. We have so many answered prayers in recent weeks; all we can do is sit in awe that we get to be part of what he is doing.
After months of research, the laptops and solar kits have been purchased for the Suena, Zia and Yekora translators, adding two laptops and two solar panels for doing work in each language. For the past year and a half, they have had one laptop to share, and it could only be used when they fired up a generator a few times a month. Now, with the solar panels, they can have power to work anytime of any day. Suena Translator, Helen Ausua said, “We have good sun, and
these solar panels are transportable so they can be taken to different locations and used at a family home. We will do the work much faster now!”
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