A 'faithful' moment...

...oh, and just so you don't think I'm that good - it's not MINE - the moment belongs completely and wholly to God.

We're watching God provide in so many big ways but the main story for today is a smaller one. Yet, for me it feels huge. Something along the lines of the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. God reminding me that he sees. He cares. He provides....in lots of ways...if I will notice.

The story may be a wee bit disjointed but if you follow through to the end - the lines DO connect.

It begins with the house we are staying in. We are house-sitting. In my shift to make it home for us by moving some of their things out and placing ours 'in', I discovered the family has a crockpot. A small one but still - A CROCKPOT. I haven't seen one of these babies in ages. Ooooohhhhhh - I was so darn excited. I cooked a roast the first time I could. Had to figure out where to get the meat first but that accomplished, I set about putting that thing to use! I've enjoyed making soups, salsas, beans, granola, the roast, and many more things.

I remember this - put in ingredients in the morning - smell it cooking all day and VOILIA, you have a fabulous dinner with little effort! When you remember that 99% of our cooking is done from scratch and by hand the time factor saved with using this crockpot has been like being handed a vacation. :) VERY fun.

So - enter 'new year's resolutions' and 'make plans for future needs'.

First we'll start with 'new year's resolutions'. De-cluttering. It's big anyway this time of year but then on a homeschooling forum I'm part of, it's gained new fame through our own version of The Flylady. Each day has a de-cluttering challenge and off we go! Now, having just moved internationally AGAIN I honestly don't have that much to de-clutter, but living in someone else's house I do have some work to do in making it our own. So I'm doing a version of the project.

BUT - the kicker here is, so is my friend and co-worker, JAMIE.

Now to part 2 - 'make plans for future needs' - don't laugh. I am starting a list. IF and WHEN this is where God calls us there will be some things we need to invest in, look for, replace, on and on we go. Normally we do this when in the states because frankly, things are so much less expensive there and the quality is better.

SO - guess what little item got put on my list? A crockpot. I know we won't live here forever and the family will eventually want their house AND the crockpot back, so yes, I put a crockpot on my list.

As we're praying about 'future plans' and me writing down my 'list' I got to musing...'Okay Lord, I DO think this would be a great help in my kitchen work.' So I put down crockpot. Then I thought - 'Well....IF I'm going to choose a crockpot, what would I want in it?? Size, shape, power, lid, on and on.' Actually I didn't get that far. I went so far as to say - 'I would like it bigger, more of a flat, oblong shape instead of the cylindrical type... I like the glass lid and color well...anything EXCEPT blue - probably red or black as those are my favs.' That's about it.

Okay, off to the next thing and I didn't think about it again 'till a week or so later. I was over visiting with Jamie and in the conversation it came up that in her decluttering she found a crockpot she was going to get rid of!!! My ears and eyes perked up and I said, "I'LL BUY IT FROM YOU!! PLEASE!!!" She said, "Sure", and again...off we went with life and all that.

Last weekend we were at her house for church and she said, "Let me get that crock pot for you!" "YYYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!", I inwardly screeched. She pulls one out and I kid you not - it was oval, big, and black with a glass lid. I don't think I screamed out loud at her house...but I can't remember because I was a bit beside myself. :)

Sometimes pictures of God's faithfulness and gifts to us are big ones.

Sometimes they are small little things like crockpots wrapped up in the dreamy package you only imagined they could be.

So the challenge today is to think of the little things that God sends your way to show you that he does care for you more than the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. I would LOVE to hear your stories.

Abrazos,

Faith

So, tell us again what exactly it is you do?? .....

A little bit here about what the world we are actually doing here in Mexico; we made a substantial transition a month ago, and although some people know what we are doing in our new locale, it is quite likely that there are still some left back at the bakery.

When most Americans think of Mexico, they think of tacos, burros, resort beaches and Spanish. Although everyone and their perro knows that they speak Spanish in Mexico, this, in fact, is only partially true. According to Ethnologue, there are 291 'living' languages in Mexico - languages that are still in use - with anywhere from several hundred people to tens of thousands of people speaking any given individual dialect. Of these languages, most are languages of the indigenous peoples of various areas; about half of them are found in the southern state of Oaxaca. The languages within Oaxaca fall into 16 major language groups.

We are in Mexico to help with the recording and distribution of audio recordings of the New Testament, the Jesus film, and a few other works in these indigenous languages. We work closely with Wycliffe Bible Translators here; in a nutshell, Wycliffe sends linguists to the native villages, and the Wycliffe linguists will spend anywhere from 5 to 20 years learning a single native language. Once the linguist is fluent in the language, they will create an alphabet for the language - most have no written language - and then several more years are spent translating the New Testament into the language. The manuscript is painstakingly checked and rechecked, with the help of several native-speakers of the language, and also other linguists. Finally the manuscript is released and printed in the native language, and those people who learn to read the written form of the language are able to read the bible in their native tongue.

Basically, our work here allows the people of these language groups to listen to the New Testament in an audio form, rather than having to learn to read. Once the bible has been translated into the language, we can find native speakers of the language who can read the bible out loud in a recording studio, and then essentially load the whole thing onto the equivalent of an mp3-player which can then be distributed to the people to listen to. Each chapter is read - or in the case of non-readers, spoken by a linguist and repeated back by a native speaker - and recorded as computerized wave-files. The recordings are then edited, and then played back and checked by native speakers. Repeated parts are removed, badly-read or mispronounced sections are re-recorded. It generally takes several weeks of work to produce a single New Testament in a single-voice recording; multi-voice recordings, and tracks for movies like the Jesus film and the Luke video are more complicated and require more time.

A side note - the ethnologue site referenced above is a wealth of world-class information on languages and linguistics for anyone who is interested in such things. It is put together by SIL International, which is what Wycliffe is known as in most of the world.

One of the organizations that we work closely with on various projects here is called Faith Comes by Hearing, also known as Hosanna ministries. They have samples of several projects they have done in numerous languages available on their website for people to listen to. Many of these languages are incredibly complex, and amazing to hear. FCBH's website is full of good information about audio-bible projects around the world.

The town we now live in is located within language group 247 on the second map above. Several of our neighbors here are Wycliffe linguists and translators, or are related in other ways with Wycliffe's work here in Mexico.