by Donna

On April 25th we celebrated Benjamim’s 21 years on the planet! Ben is a tremendous blessing, a fact that can be verified by all who are touched by his unique music, witty humor and contagious smile! He is an artistic soul who continues to write new songs and improve his photography skills while finishing up his second year at uni. We pray he be blessed this coming year, with wisdom to see him through all the challenges that will come his way!
Cristy continues to be the indefatigable globe trotter, flying to varied corners of the earth when necessary! She has a new hobby-surfing- in the waters of Carcavelos! Great to see all her exciting pics and keep in touch with her on line! Over in Seattle, little Zach is enjoying all things in spring and is becoming quite the agile gymnast! He is incredibly social, even on Skype! Isabel is an enthusiastic little beach bunny ! She enjoys countless moments in the sand, retrieving and delivering her precious cargo in bucketfuls! At 21 months her verbal skills are increasing rapidly as she engages in conversation, naturally inventing new words whenever necessary! She is also very keen to read…God is good-all the time! Life is beautiful, and we thank Jesus for the gift of life!

Benjamim 21st birthday

Cristy on the 25th of April, in Portugal

Zac – joys of Spring

Bel Bel: word time

During our visit to Sanya, we met with Wei Hong, our friend who had received Jesus as her savior a few years back. She shared with us the difficulties in finding Christian fellowship and the struggles with Buddhist doctrine which is widely believed in that area. She mentioned about an old friend of hers (and ours) who died last year and just recently the local Lama has been spreading the news that she (the friend that died last year) has already reincarnated (?). We have no idea how that is possible, because reincarnation is not an option provided in the Bible. We shared with her that this Lama is definitely deceiving them, giving them hope that they will reincarnate after they die when actually, without Jesus they may find themselves in Hell – she understands now that the huge difference with Christianity is that you do not have to work on your good karma to get a good reincarnation… but rather: Jesus did the work for us, dying on the cross so that we may live by His grace: Eternal Life, not reincarnation. We told her another reason why she should tell people about Jesus: ‘if one is going down the road and finds two roads and does not know which way to go, and there are two persons lying there: – one is dead and the other is alive – which one should one ask for directions?’ Jesus is Alive. Anyway, we had a very illuminating talk that one evening – Gloria was a  great blessing in translating and also sharing her own convictions on different matters. Wei Hong was happy to receive one of our Audio Bibles to help her to have more Word time and enabling her to share with others the Truth about the afterlife.
Closer to home here, we shared an audio Bible with Raj’s friend from India who came to visit him this past month.

Gloria and Wei Hong

Gloria and Wei Hong

Jorge sharing wordproject app with Beena R.

This month we made progress in the audio recording department. Raj delivered 10 sections of the Tamil selected audio verses. Yonas Hailemeskel, from Ethiopia, sent the recordings of 20 sections of Amharic selected audio verses. All these will be uploaded soon while we wait for the next batch hopefully coming soon. Anil, in India, recorded several books of the Punjabi Bible and he is near to finish the New Testament. He has been making a tremendous effort and he shared this testimony:

Thank you brother, let me tell you fact behind this commitment. You might be remember three years before, we had a talk on the same matter changing text and on better audio. And I was silent because you had no budget for this kind of job. And you gave me challenge that being a Punjabi you should do something for your Punjabi community. Still I was silent. That time I had a good job in Punjabi Bible translation Project. Then also I was silent. Suddenly that project close down and I become jobless (still I am job less). I get few translation job and run my family. In the beginning of this year 2017, I saw my senior Pastor got sick and not able to speak and move. After seeing this I thought I should  break my silent and help Word Project in Punjabi Language God has given me already recording equipment So here I am at His service with you. This is fact behind this recording and doing keying in Punjabi Bible. Thank you for your prayers.

Anil recording the Punjabi New Testament

Anil recording the Punjabi New Testament

On the other hand, our Cantonese recordings did not take off yet. Pray for brother Eddy who is finding it difficult to find a quite location to record. We hope to receive good news from him soon.