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Press Release: June 28, 2024
Friday Field Notes
Check out the latest updates from our missionaries!
AN INSIDE LOOK AT OUR TRIP – NATHAN AND SARAH FEDERWITZ
From the beginning of February through early May we were fully focused on partnership development. We met with established supporters, new supporters, and hopefully future supporters in an effort to make a big dent in our budget needs. We cannot be sent to our overseas assignment (we have not been assigned a country yet, but hopefully one will be chosen soon) until we reach our full budget goal. These have been some tiring, fruitful, wonderful months of connecting with countless individuals across the Midwest.
Over three and a half months our family visited 21 churches, stayed with 15 host families, attended one LWML district convention, and had a total of 25 scheduled speaking opportunities. We prepared a presentation to discuss how we plan to serve with Lutheran Bible Translators and JAARS. In addition to these presentations, we spoke with countless individuals, some of whom had never heard of missionary aviation. It was a joy to share our passion for Bible Translation with them.
MOBILE RECORDING IN TANZANIA – ROB AND ESHINEE VEITH
Rob leads a training in Mwanza for a diverse group of aspiring recording engineers.
They were pastors, church musicians, recording engineers, and Bible translators and they had this in common: they all wanted to learn to use the mobile recording gear provided to the Lutheran Church of Tanzania by Lutheran Bible Translators. As I have worked with exactly this type of equipment for nearly 20 years, LBT and the denominational leadership asked me to come to Mwanza, Tanzania and lead a crash course in mobile recording.
I recruited my friend and colleague Stephanie Biggs to co-teach. Stephanie and I have done three prior projects together involving recording technology, including co-teaching a week long workshop on a very similar subject in 2022. She has the additional advantages of speaking fluent Swahili and living a two hour bus ride from Mwanza (it takes me two days to get there by plane!). I had a challenge in designing the material for the four-day workshop. I knew the Bible translators intended to use the gear for oral Bible translation and oral Bible stories. The church musicians on the other hand intended to record choral material, both to encourage local choirs and to distribute new songs through the region. The studio engineers wanted to expand their skill sets with more complicated recording setups and the ability to flourish outside the studio environment.
A SUMMER VISIT TO THE U.S. – TIFFANY SMITH
I have very exciting news, I will be in the US this Summer for 6 weeks! My reason for traveling back to the US after 18 months in Africa is threefold:
-I will spend every weekend I am back visiting my supporting churches and thanking them for all they do, while also updating them on the work here in Tanzania.
-In July I will be traveling to Missouri for a special LBT gathering to celebrate our 60 years as an organization and to attend some meetings.
-I plan to use all the time in-between these events to relax with my family and friends. I haven’t seen any of them face to-face in over a year, and I have a nephew who was born last August whom I’m dying to meet!
I trust that God has a plan for my visit, despite all my worries. To be honest, I’m really just excited to walk into Costco again or Chick-Fil-A or Barnes and Noble! Sincerely, I am looking forward to sharing stories with my family and my supporters once again. You forget how much of your daily life and observations are different in Tanzania than they were in Iowa! I can’t wait to see the look on my nieces’ faces when I tell them that I have to wait for cows, goats, sheep, donkeys, and even camels to cross the road here and do most of my grocery shopping outside!
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