Working together around the same table, looking each other in the eye and getting  instant feedback –there is nothing like it! It is good to be back in Côte d’Ivoire working face to face with my Bakwé colleagues, Alexis, Pastor Firmain and Perez. This trip, our work schedule includes doing some evaluation of what we accomplished last year and doing some realistic (we hope) planning for the year to come. Two SIL staff will accompany us to the village where our planning session will include four key members of the Bakwé language association board of directors.

Aside from these meetings, the lion’s share of our time will be spent working through our Bakwé translation of Acts and Romans, getting them ready for a verse-by-verse check by a Wycliffe/SIL translation consultant. What time we have left I will use for a number of things, including the following: training the Bakwé team how to maintain the Bakwé web site; instruction on audio recording technique; the use of a couple of programs; re-installation of original software on a laptop; and much more.

Please keep us in your prayers. Thank you!

Thank you for your continued prayers for Côte d’Ivoire and the Bakwé. Things have finally settled down over there. Our Bakwé colleagues and their families are back in the village and, praise the Lord, nothing was looted while they were gone! Their houses, the office and our house were not touched! Perez’s older brother who was severely beaten by soldiers is recovering from his wounds. The funeral for the chief of the village, who was found dead, will be in early August. They still do not know how he died. Apparently he was running from the soldiers and hiding in the bush at the time. Some think he may have died of an heart attack. He was a Christian.

Alexis, Perez and Firmain are back in the office and the work continues. While Alexis is working on the second draft of Romans, I have been taking the time to do some needed grammar analysis of Bakwé relative clauses and their use in Bakwé narrative. After I finish a short write-up of my findings I will begin working on our next book –1st Corinthians. Pastor Firmain continues to do the bookkeeping for the Bakwé Translation and Literacy Center as well as some Bakwé book production. He also pastors the local church in the village and oversees another church plant. Perez is currently working on back-translating our translation of Acts into literal French in preparation for a consultant to check our translation.

Please visit the private page of the Bakwé Mission web-site for more specific prayer requests. Click here to enter. If you don’t have the password, you will need to email Csaba and request it –thanks.

A lot has happened since our last post. The most exciting thing has been Lisa’s being restored to full health and Hans’ engagement and upcoming marriage!

(Lisa writes): A lot has been happening with us this year. Hans graduated from the University of Idaho with a Masters degree in Mechanical Engineering this past June. He then became engaged in August to a lovely girl from our church named Justine. Now this is the tough part. Hans then left for Boise to take his new job with Hewlett-Packard in September. He now drives up to Moscow twice a month (5 1/2 hours drive) to visit his fiancée. Both are eagerly awaiting January, when they can finally be together and married in Montana, her home state. The rest of the kids aren’t changing quite as drastically. Noai is working in the office of a local Christian ministry and enjoying life after graduating from NSA –our church’s college. Andreas is now in his third year at the same college. He just got a new camera and has been enjoying taking picture of the fall colors. Jeremiah just finished up his cross-country season and a good season. It was a joy to see him run again after a major injury last spring.

Finally, the other amazing change in our family is that, as far as I know, I am now healed! In less than one week I went from doing still poorly, but functioning lightly, to completely normal. It was pretty amazing and so simple a fix too. We just didn’t see it, nor could we put together the many small clues that were there, until we went camping in July. Email us if you would like the longer version. The short story is that we just recently found out that I was suffering from severe obstructive sleep apnea all this time. Now I sleep with a CPAP machine and get all the oxygen and REM sleep that I need! We are very thankful and praising God! Thank you for your prayers!

(Csaba writes):For more specific news on the Bakwé work and prayer requests, please login to the “private” part of this website. To get there, you will need to email us for the password. When you get the password, you get to the private area by clicking on the word “login”, which is barely visible on the top right-hand corner of the web page, just above the words “Bringing the Word to the Bakwé”. My email address is on the footer of the Bakwé Mission web page.

Solar panels

Scott and Benjamin installed a solar backup power system for the office when the city power goes off. The solar panels charge four 12 volt batteries. An inverter converts the 12 volts from the batteries to 110 volts, allowing the office to keep on working for several days if needed.

Cobra kill

We arrived safely in the village after a safe uneventful road trip, thanks to God. Just after we parked the truck behind the house, we heard a yell from Moïse, the night watchman: “Snake, snake, cobra …” We all ran down to where he had set a trap and caught five cobras recently. Sure enough, there was another one, still caught by the head in his snare. The young men ran around and got a long stick and whacked it thoroughly in the head. It was probably just over seven feet long. I’ll put up a picture here when I can get it uploaded.

Moïse took it home to eat. Later in the evening he brought over some for us. We tried it; it tastes like chicken! I’ve had it before, but for Scott and Benjamin it was a first! They thought it not too bad!

This morning we went out and greeted the village at 6am by going around house to house greeting people as they woke up. This is a Bakwé custom and very important to do. It was a misty, foggy morning. There were many people surprised to see four white guys going from house to house greeting! They were happy to see us. Everyone asked about Lisa and the kids and how they were doing. For me, it was good to be back and see so many familiar faces and everyone’s children who have grown so much since the last time I saw them.

We got back at about 7:30am and had breakfast of coffee and French baguettes before starting our work day. Kjell prepared for teaching the small business seminar that starts tomorrow. Scott and Benjamin worked on getting the solar powered back-up power system ready for installation. They were able to test part of it by the end of the day.

It is wonderful to have so much competent help! Today I mostly spent time visiting with people.

Scott and Csaba

My hard drive died after the first day of translation checking. When Scott arrived he lost no time in getting my laptop back up and running with a new hard drive. He recovered my data.

Scott is making progress configuring the new computer equipment we brought out.

Checking Luke

Here are Csaba, Perez and Alexis working on checking their translation of the Gospel of Luke into Bakwé. Cracking jokes in French and Bakwé from time to time helps relieve the intense hours of focusing on verse after verse.

Tomorrow we should be done with chapter 12 by noon; praise the Lord!