Experiences of a Lifetime

00:15
Rich Rudowske
Welcome to the essentially translatable podcast brought to you by Lutheran Bible Translators. My name is Rich Rudowske. I’m the Chief Operating Officer here at LBT. I recently sat down with my long time colleague, Jim Laesch. Jim joined LBT as a missionary to Liberia in 1973 and has worked in LBT international programs in several capacities since then. Nearly everyone in our organization, myself included, have been mentored by Jim at one time or another, and his long standing service and experience are a gift to us all. So sit back, relax, and enjoy hearing from a legend. 

00:48
Rich Rudowske
Glad that you’re here on the podcast today, Jim, and it’s a real privilege actually to talk to you and get your thoughts on things and for our listeners. Jim has worked with LBT for a number of years, 46 years. And he was my boss when I joined LBT as a brand new missionary. In fact, when we came, my wife and I came to LBT’s recruitment event called Idiom in 2003. I remember being really impressed with Jim. We meet a lot of people, things like that. But Jim was so much fun and just the way he talked about language. And we had our little son Matthew there with us. He was a toddler, and Matt liked to make noises, kind of blow bubbles out of his lips and like. So he did it to Jim. And Jim goes, “What a great bilabial trill.” 

01:38
Rich Rudowske
And so that was my first linguistics lesson. So, Jim, it’s great to be with you, and thanks for sharing your time with us today. 

01:46
Jim Laesch
Well, thank you, Rich. It’s wonderful to join you here today and to talk about Bible translation and how God is at work through that ministry. 

01:56
Rich Rudowske
Thanks. So tell us, how did you get started in mission and connected with Lutheran Bible Translators? What were you doing before? How did God lead you to serve with LBT? 

02:06
Jim Laesch
Well, I grew up in a Christian home, and actually I was in college training to be an industrial technology teacher here in Illinois, United States. And I learned about Lutheran Bible Translators and some of their missionaries. And my wife and I were praying and supporting a couple of those missionaries, but one in particular sort of challenged us and said, “Well, what about going yourself?” We got so many groups of people and languages, and they were in Liberia. John Dutzman is his name. And so he says, well, why don’t you go to the SIL school in the summertime in North Dakota and just give it a try? And so I was working at the time at one of, actually the Laesch Dairy in Bloomington, Illinois. My uncle was the owner of that establishment and kind of extended family affair. 

03:08
Jim Laesch
And he said, “Well, tell you what, why don’t you go ahead and go to the school? I’ll keep giving you a paycheck during those eight weeks.” And so he said, well, how could we not say yes to that? And so I went to the linguistics school run by SIL International, and it was just a whole new picture of foreign language. I tried studying a foreign language, actually, in college, and one of my prayers was like, once this is over, Lord, I don’t want to study another foreign language again. Kind of see where it got me. But it was just a whole new way of looking at language and how languages work. And it was a tremendous Christian atmosphere where our teachers were experienced Bible Translators and made learning…it was really hard, but it was also a great blessing, and it was kind of like a door opened up after this. And so that was a career path I followed and went on to finish my degree in Linguistics and then go to Africa with Lutheran Bible Translators. 

04:17
Rich Rudowske
Yeah. So what did you do your bachelor’s work in? Had you been…you’d been to school before? 

04:23
Jim Laesch
Yeah. So, no, I switched majors and switched to Linguistics at that point. 

04:29
Rich Rudowske
Okay. Gotcha. Very good. So then you went to Liberia, did not go to the Vietnam war. So that’s kind of part of the story, right? 

04:38
Jim Laesch
It is. So while we were in our second round of linguistics training, we did one in North Dakota, and then were in Dallas, Texas. And because I’d switched majors and switched schools and everything, my draft deferment for going to the Vietnam war was canceled. And so I got this letter in Dallas, Texas, saying, you got to go down to the federal center and report for a physical exam. And so I got in a car, and actually, one of my LBT colleagues went with me. And that day, it snowed in Dallas. Well, there was, like, a couple inches of snow, and what’s a couple inches of snow for us from Illinois, Iowa? We just like saying, ok, let’s go on down there. And we got down there, and I walked up to the building, and the guard said, “What are you doing here? This place is closed. You should not be here.”  And so ee said, okay. And so everything had to be rescheduled. But in the interim of that rescheduling, then President Nixon canceled the draft. And so I was, like, off the hook there, and I could continue with my linguistic studies and then eventually getting to. 

05:53
Rich Rudowske
Yeah, so. So when did you go to Liberia, and how long were you there? What languages did you work with? 

05:59
Jim Laesch
So my wife Laura and I went to Liberia in November 1973 with our one and a half year old and the first language we worked with was northern Grebo languages, and there were a few other things we did in preparation for that, but we did that for about eight years. 

06:22
Rich Rudowske
Okay, so eight years there in the language work, and then you were working in administration part of that time. 

06:29
Jim Laesch
So we worked with the northern Grebo people. We were there about eight years, but I had other duties also during that time. I also worked with a language in western Krahn where translation work was going on. We also taught at workshops and other events for the mission. And then I made this turn while serving in Liberia to coordinate all the scripture programs in Liberia. So I moved away from, eventually from the Grebo work, and someone else picked up that task, and I had the great privilege to work with about 14 or 15 scripture projects in Liberia with our missionaries and the national colleagues at that point. So it was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed that because things that I had learned in my project in early years, I could help other missionaries and also interact with their translators. 

07:37
Jim Laesch
Maybe they were gone for a while, and so I would be the point person to sort of oversee that work and connect with them. Many great blessings because of that. 

07:47
Rich Rudowske
Yeah. So right now, Lutheran Bible Translators has a little more, just over 50 missionaries worldwide. How many missionaries were in just Liberia at that point? 

07:59
Jim Laesch
So if we think of, like, a missionary family or a missionary single worker, I would say there were about 26. 

08:07
Rich Rudowske
Yeah. So how was LBT’s approach different at that time, and how was it the same? Maybe. How would you kind of compare? 

08:16
Jim Laesch
Well, some things that are the same is that we always gave a lot of good training to our missionaries, and so that they knew about the Bible, they knew about biblical languages, they knew about linguistics, they knew about the language and culture where they’re working, and that has been a value that has stayed strong through all the years. What was different was as a mission and missionaries, we made a lot more of the sort of decisions, whether to start a translation, where to start it, when to start it, what kind of research needed to be done. And today it’s different than that. 

09:00
Jim Laesch
I like to think that we now serve in a role of walking alongside of our partners, whoever they are, and we’re responding to needs and requests and things that they are aware of, and so that we work together to see that God’s Word is available for all people. 

09:18
Rich Rudowske
Yeah. So then anyone who worked with you in Liberia at that time or even in the years since then, knows about the very famous Joe Cool stories. So how did Joe Cool stories get started and tell us a little bit about that. 

09:36
Jim Laesch
Yeah, that’s interesting. Actually, this was one of the very first things I did when I arrived in Liberia. I said it was November ‘73. And then about six weeks later, our mission collaborated with the University of Liberia to run a vacation institute for training in Applied Linguistics. Vital, it was called. And so, I was the new greenhorn young missionary, and actually I was taking some classes at that school. And then in the afternoon, missionary kids of our other missionaries were out of school. They had been in school in the morning, but the school day has a different structure. And they said, well, these kids’ parents are still busy with things, running the Vital program, but you have time. You now entertain and play with these children. And so that was one of my first jobs was childcare for elementary age kids. 

10:33
Jim Laesch
And we played games. And so out in the tropical heat, it’s like you couldn’t play games outdoors all that time. So we’d say, ok, let’s take a break. And went under the palm tree. And that is when Joe Cool began. And so he’s the main character in stories that I tell to kids, and he has all kinds of adventures and he solves problems, mysteries and crises. And I’m sure he could have a solution for the coronavirus, too. 

11:06
Rich Rudowske
Yeah, just somebody’s got to take the time to ask for a story, I guess. Probably. 

11:10
Jim Laesch
There we go. 

11:12
Rich Rudowske
Do you have a favorite one? A favorite Joe Cool story? 

11:16
Jim Laesch
Well, I’ll just say the fun part of Joe. I don’t have a particular story. In fact, I don’t even remember them all. I have not recorded them. I have not written them down. Actually, all the missionary kids who have listened to them through the years can remember many of them better than me. But one of his, the fun parts of it, is that he has the Joe Cool mobil,e and the Joe Cool mobile, it can turn into anything. It can burrow underground, it can go in water, it can fly, it can even go up into space. And it always gets new enhancements as different stories are devised and whatever the need is. 

11:55
Rich Rudowske
Yeah. So somebody is very mechanically gifted behind the scenes, working on that Joe Cool Mobile. Any idea how many Joe Cool stories you’ve told over the years? 

12:06
Jim Laesch
Yeah, that’s a good question. So one of the times I used to tell them a lot was we’d have sort of a missionary conference or meetings twice a year sometimes, and all missionaries and missionary kids would gather together. And so that was the time everybody said, “Can we have a Joel Cool story?” We would tell several stories during those periods of time. So I’d say that maybe there’s been anywhere from ten to thirty in a year. Okay. Times forty-six years. Do the math. 

12:43
Rich Rudowske
Serious math. Yeah. We have leaders in this organization now who are missionary kids who will still stop what they’re doing if they get the chance to listen to a Joe Cool story. So it’s pretty cool. So Jim has been part of the administration at LBT, you started in ‘73 and then did some administrative duties on the field by, is it 1985? 

13:08
Jim Laesch
I came back in and I’ve served in a couple of different roles in the headquarters of LBT, but it’s always been in the area of sort of equipping missionaries and working with our partners and the programs that we run. So that I never finished a translation, I helped one get started, and I worked on a couple of different languages at various points, but I figure my role is to help other missionaries and partners, translators, so that they can do their job, so that translations are done with good quality and are acceptable in the community and done in a way that it’s going to provide God’s Word for a long time for a group of people. 

14:03
Rich Rudowske
Yeah, that’s really a great perspective. There are some folks who are gifted, and the time that God allows them is to work in that one translation, and that’s great. And then you’ve had the privilege to be able to use your gifts to multiply those efforts. And in the time that LBT has existed, about 55, 56 years, we’ve published 44 publications, milestone New Testament, or full Bibles, in some of the most remote languages in the world. And you’ve been in administration for 41 of those 44, which reach about 12.4 million people. So it’s a real blessing, a testament to God at work. And I don’t know… any reactions or thoughts. 

14:45
Jim Laesch
It’s actually kind of humbling. And as I look at the list, I can probably tell you a story about something that took place in each one of those particular languages and the people that were there. A lot of LBT work is in Africa, but we also did work in South America for many years in a language called Cañari. And I’ll never forget visiting our missionaries there. And we were actually out one evening and they were doing a film showing of, I think, Jesus Film or something like that, and while we’re at that film showing, there was a large group of people, and as we’re coming away and coming back to the missionary’s car, other people in the area came and pushed boulders down onto the road, blocking it so people could no longer leave. 

15:42
Jim Laesch
And it was like, I felt like, okay, this is opposition to the work here, and it’s trying to discourage the Word of God to come through, but nevertheless, we found a way to get around those boulders, move some of the boulders, and it just gave me a perspective that not everyone is always wanting to see the Word of God go forth, be proclaimed in the language of the people. And yet it just sort of gives us strength to keep on going. 

16:18
Rich Rudowske
So you recently were traveling in Tanzania, where we are working on a more emerging partnership with the Lutheran Church there, and maybe talk some about the partnership in Tanzania and some of the work that we’re doing at this point. 

16:38
Jim Laesch
Sure. Well, this is one of the things I’m most excited about is this partnership with the Lutheran church in Tanzania, and it’s a very large Lutheran church. And they contacted LBT some years back saying, hey, we have these languages here. They’re minority languages, and people really aren’t understanding the Gospel and the Bible and the work of the church in Swahili, the national language. Can you help us? And so after visits by a number of people, and I and Dr. Michael Megahan have been going there kind of regularly and working with the so one translation program has begun in the Kerewe language, and we also had meetings on this trip to open up discussions about another language down in the north central diocese, which is a whole nother area. And these are usually very remote people groups. 

17:40
Jim Laesch
Some of them are nomadic, and they just have their own language, their own culture. This is how God has created them and how they live today. And so it’s great to see the Lutheran church, and even, like the Bible Society, want to make the Gospel available in that language. So we’re there to work alongside of them and help provide training and equip the work to get organized and training to take place so the Bible can be written. 

18:17
Rich Rudowske
Yeah, it’s such a blessing to think that there’s that church who’s saying, we have this drive, this goal given to us by God, that it’s kind of moving us to want to reach out to these folks, and we recognize the need for Scripture as part of the invitation to come and work. The door is already open, or, you know, the Scripture is going to be put into someone’s hands and it’s going to be used. So that’s a huge blessing. 

18:45
Jim Laesch
It is, really. And at one of the programs, I think it was last year, I saw that the choirs have always had songs in their local language, but when they sing those songs in their local language, they’re so meaningful. And now to hear God’s Word, it’s just beginning. But to hear that also in the heart language, it just brings to life, actually, the worship, the preaching and people’s response. 

19:21
Rich Rudowske
Yeah. So while you were on that trip, we got news here that the coronavirus, we’d already been preparing for it and had some contingencies. In fact, you led the effort on that while I was doing some traveling earlier than that yet. So we got the word that it had come to the United States in a bigger way than was planned. And our leadership at the United States government announced they were closing borders and things started to change out where you were, so kind of walk us through what happened, some of your experience with that and how you got back home. 

19:58
Jim Laesch
Yes. So Dr. Megahan and I were there for about three weeks, and that was the original plan. But after that first week, it’s just like every day there was a change. And then we began to see that, okay, maybe we should come back quicker. So we rebooked our flights, and then some of those flights were canceled. So we rebooked again with a different routing, and then those flights were canceled or pushed on to a later date. And we got thinking, well, if they get pushed off to a later date, what if they’re canceled? What’s going to happen? So I called back to you, Rich, and said, well, I think we should try to leave here as soon as possible, and maybe it just has to buy a new ticket rather than trying to use our existing tickets and the carriers that we had. 

20:53
Jim Laesch
And you gave us the go-ahead, so we were able to secure those tickets and fly back the next day. 

21:01
Rich Rudowske
Yeah, just for what it’s worth, I don’t know, inside information for the folks listening. But that was the one time, probably in LBT history, where everybody flying just about was flying in first class because that was what was available to get people home. Everything was just coming down. It felt like being in movies that you watch where you see all the contingencies, not holding up, and you’re trying to figure out where to go next before it all just comes falling down. 

21:31
Jim Laesch
Yeah. Well, the nicest part of flying, it was in a business class section. We got to the airport, and it’s like, whoa, here’s this big, long line of people who were, like, waiting to go through this security check. And I said, was that true for business classes? No, you can go to the short line over here. We were very thankful. 

21:49
Rich Rudowske
That’s another lesson for everyone listening. Sometimes you just got to know the right questions to ask at the right time. So, yeah, you talked about being excited about your work in Tanzania. Anything else that you’re feeling really good about, excited about in your current work? 

22:09
Jim Laesch
Well, it’s just the notion that God is at work through His people and throughout the whole world in ways that we cannot imagine. And so we always need to be listening to saying, okay, what’s my role here? To do a witness in this situation. And our brothers and sisters in Africa, in particular, they have such a zeal for mission, for carrying the Gospel and the Good News to people. And the bishop of the ELVD in Tanzania, Bishop Gulle, he just has this passion and drive for carrying the gospel to every person, and that’s contagious. That’s just so exciting to work with. And we don’t have to be apologetic. We can actually say, well, praise God and let’s get to work. 

23:12
Rich Rudowske
Yeah, it’s so true. He’s really amazing. I saw this video of him where he’s talking about the passage in Luke, and he’s saying, we interpret this in our language. You go. Go into deep water and let down your nets. And he’s just so passionate about that. It is really refreshing to see how the church in the areas of the world that maybe a lot of our listeners might think of as places where there’s still a need for a missionary to go. They’re the most effective missionaries and really have embraced the faith and taken fully on the idea of the great commission to go and share that with others. So what are some things that you wish worked better even now or at any point in your career, as you think about this is work that has its complex. 

24:04
Jim Laesch
It is. And so I want to sort of balance our talking about the Tanzania situation. In many other countries, like in Liberia, Sierra Leone, parts of West Africa where I’ve worked, the eagerness to use the minority language is often not so great because language is a great gift of God. And so I believe that all of these diversity of languages were created by God as well as people’s cultures. But it’s also important for people to get education, to be unified as a nation. And so we find that in countries, there really are multiple languages that are used and in use in any given time and place. And sometimes the church, Christians and educators don’t always see the value of the minority language. And so they insist on using the majority language, the language of wider communication or the national language. 

25:17
Jim Laesch
And those are important languages, don’t get me wrong, but they should not be used at the expense of a person’s own heritage. Language and their own mother tongue, because when people use their mother tongue, it just, like, makes a connection. It’s part of their identity. So my wish, I guess, if I could have one, is that people would stop and think that, too, is a treasure. These languages and cultures of people’s heritage and of their origin, they should not be tossed away or forgotten about or lost. They should be used for the purpose that they can. Now, it’s not my final decision to say, you must use this language. It’s up to the people themselves to decide what they want, but they should be encouraged, and we try to do that. 

26:12
Rich Rudowske
Yeah, it’s true. I can remember the first time, I guess, the message of Pentecost hit me a little bit differently. It was, again, one of these recruiting events I was at LBT for, and one of my predecessors, Walt DeMoss, was giving devotion for the staff and the recruits. And it was from just the story of Acts 2 and Pentecost. And it’s almost second nature to me now. And probably a lot of our listeners have heard this story before, but just that it was so clear at that time, in that moment, how the removal of barrier of language, to really just go straight to the heart of everybody listening was what God did and how he decided to act. And that’s just such a beautiful story. 

26:51
Rich Rudowske
And then later in Acts, when Paul, there’s a riot and he’s arrested, and then the crowd’s about to go crazy, and the guard says, well, you better get out there and say something. And so Paul starts speaking to them in the Hebrew language, it says, and then everybody was just quiet to hear him. And these stories of speaking in the second or third or fourth, but the language that’s closest to the heart for people are powerful stories, and those are testified even in Scripture. 

27:18
Jim Laesch
One of the things that gives me great joy is when I see that actually happening. And here’s an example. Pastor John Bundo is one of our partners in Sierra Leone. He’s the leader of the Lutheran church there and has also been a literacy teacher. So he came to know Christ as a young boy in Liberia, actually, and then moved to Sierra Leone, but it was all centered around the teaching of the Bible in the local language, his Kissi language. And as I worked with Pastor Bundo through the years, it was just such a joy to see how God had given him this huge motivation and love for his language and love for his people and love for the Bible in his own language. And so he just went out. 

28:18
Jim Laesch
He would just walk into the forest and train people how to read, how they could come to know Christ. He organized congregations, he’s training them, and they have a whole group of teachers and lay preachers and leaders who only use the Kissi Bible, they’ve not had any other education, but they’ve developed this curriculum and how to train them in reading and writing of Kissi. And even though he, Pastor Bundo had no role in making the Kesey Bible, he’s like on the user end, on the promotion end and the teaching end. And that’s another Bible that took like 40 years to complete because of all the civil wars and disruptions and so forth. But it’s a complete Bible, Genesis to Revelation, and God is using that. And that really is why Lutheran Bible Translators exists, so that God’s Word goes forth and touches people’s lives. 

29:28
Rich Rudowske
Yeah, what a privilege to see the fruit of that work. I think that’s one of the things about Bible translation, is the process itself can take a while, but then the seeds taking root and growing also takes a while. So it’s a privilege to be able to see some of that work at the beginning and now how it’s bearing fruit. And this is the same Pastor Bundo who’s now the president of the Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church, right in. 

29:55
Jim Laesch
Yes. Yeah, that’s correct. 

29:56
Rich Rudowske
So, Jim, you’ve got a lot of experience. You’ve seen a lot of things. And I think one of the privileges of being and working in mission and cross-cultural is just a bigger perspective. And one of the gifts that we can give to the church is to kind of speak into the church from a perspective of having seen a different horizon. What do you think is an important message that the Western church needs to hear today? 

30:23
Jim Laesch
Yeah, that’s a great question. One thing that comes to mind, one of the blessings that I had by living and working in a mission context internationally, is that I learned from my brothers and sisters in Christ that God is sovereign, God is in control of all things. God is God, and I’m not. And that He can work all things out for good eventually, even when there’s hardship, even when there’s war, even when people have lost their life through unjust means. You know, my long experience in Liberia, just when I think back, these are some of the strongest sort of bonds of friendship that I have. And yet all Liberians that I know, they just have this sense of very common greeting there. It says, well, how are you? And they’ll respond saying, I thank God for life. 

31:35
Rich Rudowske
Yeah. 

31:38
Jim Laesch
It acknowledges that by God’s grace. Here we see another day, this day and breathing and living and walking is a gift from God and let’s thank God for it. And so that sort of God perspective is already there. And as a Christian I can say, “Yeah, that’s right, I do not need to worry.” I do not need to be the one to solve every problem. I can call upon God for his protection. I can call upon God for maybe not calling upon God, but just thanking God for the way He protects and placing myself into His hands, knowing that He cares for me. And if something bad happens to me, He knows about it. And certainly through the years there have been things that have been bad that have happened to us and also for, you know,  friends that I’ve known through the years. 

32:38
Jim Laesch
And yet this notion of, well, God is sovereign, He can and will work all things out for good. That’s something that I find reassuring. And I think the Christian church here in the West do well to study and reflect and ask God to teach us that. 

32:59
Rich Rudowske
Yeah, that’s so true. I think that we have the perception that quite a bit is under our control, to you know, manipulate the situation or make it turn out our way, and then situations arise that prove that not to be the case. And the current situation for some folks, even right now in the coronavirus situation in the states, is something that I think has had the effect of removing that facade that we actually had control. But when you go to places like Liberia, you see that’s how people live every day. And so their relationship with Christ just moves them that much closer and they just have to be more conscious of their dependence on God. That’s really important. 

33:40
Jim Laesch
Well, that and our dependence upon one another too. And I remember one time my family were, I can’t remember all the circumstances, but we had gotten up to one of the regional headquarter cities and were to catch a flight in Liberia to go down to Monrovia and the flight was canceled and we were just kind of stuck there. It’s like, okay, now what do we do. And so we knew some other missionary people and went there and said, oh no, but we really don’t have any place we can go. And then we went to then one of the pastors I worked with on the Grebo translation and this was before the day of cell phones. We just had to say, okay, where does Pastor live? We’d walk there, right? And he says, well, we’re kind of stuck here. He says, “Oh no, come on in!” 

34:33
Jim Laesch
And this family just opened their doors and I and my wife and three boys and they had young school age boys as well, and they just had a great time playing, and were actually stuck there for about two days before were able to get another flight. But that learning to be dependent on one another, to care for one another as fellow Christians, as fellow human beings, just meant so much. We were on the receiving end, and it just created a very tight bond of friendship, and that still lasts all of our days. 

35:18
Rich Rudowske
That’s really great. Now, I don’t know how it was in the time where you were first thinking about getting connected to LBT or to do mission work, but in today’s world, it seems like there’s just a proliferation of opportunities to be involved in different causes and things in the world called mission, and they’re all a number of really good things. But if somebody’s thinking about why they should get involved in mission or how they should get involved in mission, why is Bible translation ministry an important way to go about doing that? 

35:56
Jim Laesch
Yeah. So for me, I have to say, one of the things that made sense to me was, well, this is the Bible. And of course, I grew up with the Bible, went to a Lutheran school for a number of years and studied. But actually what really changed my sort of whole perspective on the Bible and God’s Word was being challenged to actually read it, okay? Not just study for the test, so to speak, but to read it and say, okay, I’m listening, Lord, what are you saying here? To me? And it was in my sort of formative years in high school, actually, and I made this commitment to read through the whole New Testament, and if you do one chapter a day, you’ll get through it in a year, okay. Or less than a year. 

36:52
Jim Laesch
And I just made that commitment and I read it in a translation, a more modern English translation, and it was just amazing to see that, oh, this is that story. And here’s what God is saying. And it just sort of changed my perspective. It just gave me a different way of looking at life and what my purpose was in life. And so I guess my first word of advice would be, well, listen to what God is telling you through the scriptures and then through any other means also, I think God spoke to me through John Dutzman, who said, hey, why don’t you just go give this a try, see what opportunity and door opens. That would be my word of advice, is to listen to what God is speaking to you. 

37:54
Jim Laesch
And when you see an opportunity that you think you should try out, then do that and see what God, whether He opens that door or closes that door. 

38:06
Rich Rudowske
Yeah, that’s really great advice, and I think that’s important to listen to folks that God puts in our life. I love that somebody challenged you to read through the Scripture. I mean, that’s really powerful. I can think of so many times where I’ve gotten out of the rhythm of regular reading and get back to it. And when I do, I think, why have I not been doing this? God’s Word is living and active. It’s not just words on the page. And so that’s a great encouragement, maybe even in this time, for somebody who’s out there listening. Maybe this is a time where you could also get back to, or for the first time, take up reading the Scripture, even in bite-sized pieces, and discover for yourself how God works through His Word. 

38:51
Rich Rudowske
And I think that’s a huge motivation for why we do what we do. If we experience that, then for me, that was one of the drivers that said, well, I want other people to have this chance, too. 

39:03
Jim Laesch
The other thing about Scripture is that it teaches us that the Holy Spirit is the one who teaches us. God’s Spirit is our teacher. So there’s always something new that the Spirit can teach. Just during this past Easter season, I was, like, reading the Easter story, and just like there was this little illumination, a little light bulb going on about, oh, I never saw that before. Right. And I’ll tell you what it is. It was just, I think when the two ladies went to the tomb on Easter morning, and it said they left the tomb with fear and joy. And then soon after that, they meet Jesus. And then Jesus says, no, don’t fear. Don’t fear. Go and tell the others. And then they left with joy. It’s like they left their fear behind. 

39:58
Jim Laesch
Jesus took their fear, and it was just a really neat insight, and God will illuminate and show us the things that are important to us. And so it was important to me to hear that this Easter, don’t fear, but let’s be joyful. 

40:16
Rich Rudowske
That’s so great. And, Jim, I think on that note, that’s a good place to end. And I really appreciate you being on the podcast with us, sharing some of your experience, and just a real privilege to work with you, to have learned from you, and to have been able to share in God’s ministry together with you. 

40:34
Jim Laesch
All right, Rich, it’s been a great experience. Thank you. 

40:42
Rich Rudowske
Thanks to Jim Laesch for being our guest on the podcast today. As this podcast is being released, a number of us are looking forward to getting back to some sense of normal activity. A challenge that Jim brings to me is that reminder not to lose those habits I restarted during this season to be more intentional about timing God’s Word and prayer. In the same way someone challenged him and his youth to regularly read the Bible and to experience the Spirit at work through the Word. I want to encourage you to do the same in this season. Thank you for listening to the essentially translatable podcast brought to you by Lutheran Bible Translators. Look for past issues of the podcast lbt.org/podcast or on Apple, Google Play, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Follow Lutheran Bible Translators on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. 

41:30
Rich Rudowske
Or go to www.lbt.org to find out how you can get involved in the Bible translation movement and put God’s Word in their hands. The essentially translatable podcast is edited and produced by Andrew Olsen. Executive producer is Amy Gertz. Music written and performed by Rob Veith. I’m Rich Rudowske. So long for now.