Pam showing pictures of a Bible story in the Bayash language at last summer’s VBS in Croatia
We are very grateful for your prayers and financial support for Bible translation! If you would like to give a special year-end gift, you can use the giving information at the bottom of this page. Donations can be given for our regular missionary support (account #110250) or to send our family to Croatia next year for our summer outreach (account #151420). We have already received $3,400 of the $11,200 total needed to send us to Croatia and run a VBS in June 2025.
Gurbet team at a weekly Bible translation meeting on Zoom
I’m proud of our Roma Bible translation teams. We have completed 22,962 verses covering 96% of the New Testament in the Gurbet, Arli, and Chergash languages! That means we only have 909 verses left to complete the NT. I hope to finish my part in January and then move on to the Old Testament in those languages.
A new translation project has recently begun in North Macedonia
In addition to my role as an International Bible Translation Consultant, I have also been appointed as Regional Consultant Coordinator for Europe. This means that I am now responsible for training and supervising new personnel as they learn to become Bible translation consultants. This will include helping with training workshops, having them shadow me as I do consulting, supervising their sessions as they practice consulting, and ensuring that we attend the needed seminars and have access to the necessary academic tools and books. It will also include more Zoom meetings and in-person conferences, including upcoming conferences in Sri Lanka, Albania and Thailand.
The Gospel of Mark recently published in the Aromanian language in Albania
Pray for me in this new role and for all the current translation needs, to make sure we have enough consultants to cover the needed books of the Bible in the needed languages. At present, our region is doing translations in five languages (in Croatia, Serbia, Albania, and North Macedonia) with plans to begin another language in Croatia and perhaps in Montenegro.
Timothy’s 34th birthday
Ariela in musical showcase
On the home front, we enjoyed celebrating Timothy’s 34th birthday together. Ariela did a great job performing in Might Roots Academy’s Fall musical showcase. And Daniel has been diligent in making repairs and improvements on our house outside before the weather gets too cold.
Thank you for your faithful prayers and financial support!
We enjoyed seeing some of you in October when we spoke at Lancaster Baptist Church, Lancaster, MO, and Metropolitan Bible Church, Oklahoma City. Thank you for your warm hospitality, attentiveness to our update reports and my sermon (pictured above) and for your faithful financial support.
In October, Elizabeth ran a marathon in Kansas City–an amazing accomplishment (see pictures below)!
Our church in Blue Springs, MO, hosted a fall festival. Pam sang on the worship team, Daniel helped run the sound, and Ariela did face painting (pictured below). We’re thankful that the weather was beautiful, the turnout was very good, and the Gospel was clearly shared.
From the fall festival, we drove to Atlanta to spend most of the week with Matthew. We helped him do renovations and updates on his house and were with him for his surgery (pictured below). He had his arm stump shortened by three inches which will be better for a new electric prosthetic he plans to get soon.
After being with Matthew, we drove to Oklahoma City to speak and are thankful for a really good visit with Todd’s mom, Geri. She was very attentive and engaged with us during our visit, and we enjoyed singing hymns together and having Daniel and Ariela tell her about their school and home projects.
I (Todd) am consulting the Arli, Gurbet and Chergash Bible translation teams, currently in 1 Corinthians. Next we’ll translate Hebrews which will finish up the NT by early next year!
I will also begin training others to become consultants for other languages in Macedonia, Croatia, and Albania. Thank you for your faithful prayers and support!
Thank you for your faithful prayers and support. You all are a joy and encouragement to us in this ministry!
Since I last wrote, I celebrated a birthday (see picture above). Can you guess which one? It’s not 39, that’s for sure! Nor is it 6, as the candles might indicate. The real number of candles would have been a fire hazard.
This past weekend, we traveled to Whitney, Texas, to give an update to one of our supporting churches, Cedar Creek Baptist. We enjoyed a warm welcome; I preached (see picture below) and gave a detailed update on our Bible translation work. On that trip, we also took a day to celebrate our (belated) 35th wedding anniversary, which we really enjoyed. (Our actual anniversary was this summer when Pam’s mom was sick and right before she passed away). One of our stops was in Afton, Oklahoma, where my mom grew up and where we often went to a gift shop where my great-aunt worked. That gift shop was famous for its trained buffalo back in the day (hence the furry friend in the picture below).
This weekend, we’ll speak at Lancaster Baptist Church in Lancaster, MO. The following week, we’ll drive to Atlanta, GA, to be with Matthew, help him with some house renovations, and help him when he has his scheduled arm-shortening surgery on October 24. He is having the stump shortened to lessen shoulder strain and be a better fit for an electric prosthetic, which he hopes to get soon. From Atlanta, we will drive to Oklahoma City to speak at Metropolitan Bible Church on October 27 and visit my mom in the nursing home.
We praise God that Pam has completed clearing out and cleaning her mom’s former apartment and storage unit. She continues to sort through and organize some of her mom’s things that we have moved to our house, to serve our church with the girls in our youth group, and for an upcoming Fall Festival outreach.
Ariela and Daniel enjoyed a recent discipleship weekend with our church and continue to be involved in our youth group and their weekly classes at Mighty Roots Academy (MRA). Daniel is enjoying his Jiu-Jitsu classes, and we are hiring him to make repairs and improvements to our house. Ariela is enjoying her drama class, preparing for this Fall’s musical showcase at MRA.
My schedule has been full with elder meetings, leading a Wednesday study at our church on Revelation, and attending a monthly men’s gathering.
Bible translation is going very well. I am working with the translation teams in the Arli, Chergash, and Gurbet languages, currently in 1 Corinthians 11. Another consultant is checking 2 Corinthians. I have Hebrews left after that, which will complete the entire New Testament in those three languages.
Let me leave you with these prayer requests:
Pray for Todd and the translators to have much wisdom as we translate 1-2 Corinthians and Hebrews in the Arli, Chergash, and Gurbet languages.
Pray we can finish the NT in these languages in the next few months and publish them next year.
Pray that we can get a good start on the Old Testament in these languages.
Pray for translators for the Bayash Roma language and that they can make good progress translating the New Testament next year. (A few years ago, we completed 50 chronological Bible stories and the Gospel of Luke in Bayash and are eager to see the whole NT translated into that language.)
FAMILY UPDATE: In September, we enjoyed four days of family reunion with Pam’s three sisters, Ruth, Val, and Kim, and their families. Very kind friends gave us the free use of their beautiful lakeside house, which we thoroughly enjoyed (see pictures above).
Daniel (16) enjoyed fishing at the lake. Recently, he has been working hard to make repairs and paint parts of our house, grow things in his garden, and train in jiu-jitsu (see pictures above).
Ariela has enjoyed spending time with cousins, rehearsing for her school musical (see first day of school picture above), hanging out with her sisters (see picture above of a tea party with Kirsten), thrift store shopping, helping our neighbors with their five children, and active involvement in American Heritage Girls.
Elizabeth and I (Todd) recently visited my mom (Geri) in her Oklahoma City nursing home. Geri will be 85 this December and spends the majority of her time sleeping (see picture above).
A huge answer to prayer is that Pam has finished clearing out and cleaning her mom’s apartment and storage unit. This has been a massive job for the last two months (see picture of U-Haul above), and Pam has put in very long hours. She is very grateful for God’s strength and help!
MINISTRY UPDATE: I’m currently consultant-checking 1 Corinthians in three Roma languages (Arli, Chergash, and Gurbet [Zoom call pictured above]). We have completed 89% of the New Testament in these three languages. Another consultant will check 2 Corinthians, and I will check Hebrews to complete the NT by the end of this year. Then, we will move on to the Old Testament in these languages. There are also plans to translate the rest of the NT into Bayash, which we started a few years ago and for which we finished Luke.
This month we will begin our speaking schedule at our supporting churches and we hope to see many of you at some of our churches in Texas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Iowa and Illinois over the next several months.
Thank you for your faithful prayers and financial support! You are a great blessing to us and an important part of getting God’s Word to the languages in Europe that still lack it.
FAMILY UPDATE For the first time in over 33 years, we don’t have any “children” living at home. Ariela turned 13, so we only have teenagers at home now (Daniel is 16). Ariela really enjoyed her birthday celebration and her recent camping trip with her American Heritage Troop (pictured above).
Daniel flew to Atlanta for three weeks to help Matthew finish the basement of his house so Matthew can live in the lower level and rent out the upper level. This has been an excellent experience for Daniel in learning new contractor skills and a huge help to Matthew. We’re so glad they could spend brother-bonding time together doing this important project (pictured below).
TRANSLATION PROGRESS: We are finishing up checking Romans, so we are done with the consultant checks for over 85% of the New Testament in three Roma languages (Arli, Gurbet, and Chergash). Another consultant and I only have 1-2 Corinthians and Hebrews to check, and then the NT will be done, and we will move on to the Old Testament!
Not surprisingly, Romans has been one of the more difficult books to translate so far. A well-known verse in Romans 14, for example, can be easily misunderstood when translated too literally. Verse 23, literally translated, says, “But the one who doubts is condemned if he eats, because not from faith. And everything not from faith is sin.” As always, we must keep in mind the context and flow of Paul’s argument. He has been talking about situations where some believers think it is wrong to eat certain foods, undoubtedly referring to Jews who still feel bound by the OT kosher food laws and Gentiles who do not. So one “who doubts if he eats” is referring to someone who thinks it is wrong to eat a particular food (e.g., pork) but goes ahead and does so against his conviction.
To make these verses clearer for Roma who may not understand the bigger context, we translated this in the Arli Roma language as: “And whoever eats in doubt, condemns himself, because he does not do that about which he is convinced. And all that is not done according to conviction is sin.”
For the Gurbet language we tweaked it even more in order to be clearer: “But the one who is not sure and eats what he thinks he should not eat condemns himself because he did not do what he believed in. If someone does something about which he is not sure whether it is sin, he commits sin.”
It is our hope that these translations flow more smoothly and make the meaning clearer to our future Roma listeners. Please continue to pray for wisdom as the translation teams and I look over and edit the next books (1-2 Corinthians and Hebrews) and that the teams can finish the NT in 2024.
Thank you for your prayers and kind financial support! Todd & Pamala (Daniel & Ariela) Price
Above: A summer teamer from our home church gives Bayash Roma children the Gospel of Luke and 50 chronological Bible stories in their language. Your financial support and prayers made that possible, PTL!
We praise God and thank you for your kind and generous financial support, which enables us to translate the Bible for Roma in the former Yugoslavia. We currently have 103% of our monthly support needs pledged. Praise God!
Pam has been working hard lately with her sisters, sorting through the belongings of her mom, who passed away in June. Ariela has recently enjoyed a camping trip with American Heritage Girls, celebrating her 13th birthday with family and friends and spending time with cousins visiting from out of state. Daniel is in Atlanta for 10 days, helping Matthew finish out his basement as Matthew prepares to rent out the upper floor of his house. I (Todd) recently finished checking the drafts of Romans chapter 12-14 (much easier than Romans 1-11!) in three Roma languages.
The following excerpt is the third and final point of a sermon I preached at our home church in April on Luke 10:1-7, entitled “Sharing in the Harvest”. This final point covers the last several verses and brings out a few points about giving for missions, as well as highlighting a few of the details about how we translated this passage in the five Roma languages when we translated the Gospel of Luke.
(Click below to watch the sermon; this sermon point begins at 55:00. Or read the synopsis below.)
When Jesus sent out his 72 short-term missionaries, he gave them the following instructions: “3 Go your way; behold, I am sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves. 4 Carry no moneybag, no knapsack, no sandals, and greet no one on the road. 5 Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace be to this house!’ 6 And if a son of peace is there, your peace will rest upon him. But if not, it will return to you. 7 And remain in the same house, eating and drinking what they provide, for the laborer deserves his wages. Do not go from house to house.” (Luke 10:3–7 ESV)
“Behold” is an archaic word that we don’t use anymore. The meaning is “Listen up!” or “Pay attention!” In three of the Roma languages, we translated this literally as “Look!” since that works well in their languages. But in the Bayash language, we translated it as “but listen!” and in the Ludari language, we translated it as “beware,” which captures the idea well. Jesus is telling them to be careful and to go into this with their eyes open. This mission will not be a walk in the park; there will be opposition. There will be wolves, and they will be sheep; while the sheep pray for them, the wolves prey on them.
Jesus sent them out completely dependent on him and the good graces of those they would visit. They were not to take along extra money and provisions. Rather, they were to trust God to meet their needs along the way. The beginning of verse 4 literally says, “Do not carry a moneybag.” This is a metonymy. He mentions the word “bag”, but that represents the money they would carry in the bag. It is not the bag that matters, but the money it implies they will have in the bag. Jesus does not want them to take their own money and provide for their own needs.
But when we translated this, we wanted to ensure that the Roma knew that the issue was not that they could not carry a wallet per se, but rather the money that the wallet would be used to carry. So, in the Arli and Gurbet Roma languages, we translated it as “Do not bring with you a bag with money”. In the Chergash and Ludari Roma languages, we translated it as “Do not take with you any money” because, again, the point is not the container—the bag—but the contents—the money.
As they traveled, God would provide welcoming hosts, or as it calls them here, “men of peace.” They would find places to stay, and people would feed them. But they also needed to be content. They were not to go around from house to house, looking for better accommodation. If they left their host and went to other places, looking for better accommodation, they could easily offend the family that first took them in. They might think their house or food was not good enough for the missionaries.
So, once they found a willing host, they were to stay there, content with where they would sleep and content with their food, until it was time to go on to a new village or city. The missionaries were to be grateful and content with what their hosts would provide. Perhaps you have heard of the missionary hymn: “Where you send me, I will follow; what you feed me, I will swallow!”
They should be content and eat what is set before them. This would also allow the missionaries to focus on healing and preaching the kingdom of God rather than wasting their time looking for different accommodations. Another reason Jesus may have said this is that they would meet many non-Jews in Perea and the Trans-Jordan areas, and perhaps he is telling them not to quibble about whether the food was kosher.
They had a larger concern, which was to give out the gospel. As the Lord showed Peter in a dream later in the book of Acts, when the sheet full of unclean animals was lowered in front of him, God told Peter to kill the animals and eat them. The point was that not only were unclean animals no longer unclean, but unclean gentiles were no longer off limits. They need to be given the gospel, and Peter and the others should not let things stand in the way of getting it to them, including being unwilling to be with them and have fellowship with them in the case that their food is not kosher.
Also, when it says that they were not to carry sandals, notice that the verb is “carry”, not “wear”. I don’t think it means that they were supposed to travel barefoot; only slaves traveled barefoot. I think it means not bringing an extra pair to replace the ones that wear out. So when we translated into Arli and Ludari, we said, “or extra sandals”. The idea is that they were to rely on their hosts to provide not only housing and food but, when needed, replacement footwear. This probably means replacing other clothing, too, since we know they didn’t bring a bag full of extra clothes because they were not allowed to take along a bag.
Why were they told not to greet people? It was not to be rude. It was to emphasize the urgency of the task. They were not to stop and chit-chat. They needed to focus on getting the gospel out. In some cultures, such as in the East, a greeting would not just be saying “hi” and waving your hand as you go by on your way. It would mean stopping and engaging in conversation that could take quite a while
When we translated this, we did not want to translate it so literally that the Roma would misinterpret it. So, in the Bible translation for Arli Roma, we said, “Do not lose your time by stopping to greet people”. In the Chergash language, similarly, we said, “On the way, do not lose your time by greeting people and talking with them.” In the Gurbet language, we rendered it, “And when you are walking, do not stop to talk on the way with anyone and lose your time”
Perhaps their culture was like that in Bosnia, where we lived for many years; in that culture, if someone comes to your door, you are culturally obligated to drop whatever you are doing. You invite them in, serve them coffee and something sweet, and talk with them as long as they want to stay, which could easily be an hour or two. They weren’t to have those Midwest goodbyes, or, as Pam’s family says, the Norwegian goodbyes that take 30 minutes, where you start saying goodbye in the kitchen, keep it up through the living room, stop again at the door, and again in the driveway, etc. In the Bayash Roma language we translated this as “and do not stand around a long time and talk with people so as not to lose time”.
Every farmer knows that when the harvest is ready, you’ve got to jump in and get the harvest done. You hire extra workers. You pull out all the stops. You start work from early in the morning until late in the evening. And you bring in the harvest before the crop rots or before bad weather ruins it. There is an urgency to world missions today. As I’ve mentioned before, 1.4 billion people, speaking about 5,000 languages, still need all or some of the Bible translated into their mother tongue.
Now, vv. 5-6 are admittedly difficult to understand. What does it mean “first say, ‘Peace be to this house’” … “and if a son of peace is there, your peace will rest upon him”.
The Bible often uses an “of” phrase when describing someone or describing their characteristics. A “son of thunder” means someone who has a thunderous personality, meaning that they get angry easily. An “offspring of vipers” means someone with the evil disposition of a venomous and dangerous snake. Here, a “son of peace” means a peaceful person who is willing to listen to the message about Jesus. In the Arli, Gurbet and Bayash Roma languages, we translated this as “a person who wants peace”. In the Ludari language, we translated it as “If in that house there is a person who wants peace with God”
Peace is not just the lack of war. It is wholeness and spiritual blessing from God. It can even be used as shorthand for peace with God or even for the Gospel, which is the source of peace with God. Like Luke had said in Luke 2:14, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”
This is not just any peace. In the broader context of the Bible’s message, we can see that it means there will be someone at that house who is open and positive toward having peace with God and hearing the message of the Gospel. Such people would be open to the gospel message
Jesus says you are to do that first thing when you are looking for a place to stay. Don’t waste time. Make sure that the people want to hear about peace. Make sure you are giving your time to an audience that is open to the Gospel of peace.
We don’t have time to look at the following verses, but Jesus goes on to say that if the people of a town will not accept the disciples’ message of peace, the disciples should wipe the dust from their feet and leave. This action of wiping the dust from their feet was a visual way to communicate that the disciples were not going to waste time there and would no longer have anything to do with those people. They are under God’s judgment
Probably then, these 72 would report back to Jesus, informing him which villages and places had accepted their message and were open to the message of peace. Then Jesus would know to go to those places but not bother going to the places that had rejected the message of peace. As he sought to fulfill his mission and visit as many places as possible, he would want to go to those who had shown openness to his message of peace.
Notice how Jesus sent them out with an urgent message. They were not to take time to earn or gather provisions, and once they were on their way to preach the gospel, they were not to get sidetracked by other tasks. They couldn’t take the time to stop and get jobs along the way. They were dependent on the hospitality of those who were favorable to their message and wanted to help them. Jesus said, “The worker is worthy of his hire”. In other words, the missionary should be compensated for the work he or she is doing so that they are free to give their full time and attention to it.
This is a biblical principle mentioned several times. “The worker is worthy of his hire” is mentioned also to the 12 apostles in Matthew 10. Additionally, Paul said it twice: In 1 Corinthians 9:14 (ESV): “In the same way, the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel.” And in 1 Timothy 5:18: “For the Scripture says, ‘You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain,’ and, ‘The laborer deserves his wages.'”
That leads me to an application point: GIVE. The short-term workers Jesus sent out needed support. They were busy going and preaching and preparing the way for Jesus. They needed supporters who would provide housing and food for them
The same is true in missions today. While we are spending our full time giving out the gospel, or in my case, and in the case of the Roma Gypsies that I serve, translating the Bible. It is not possible for them or me to have another full-time job to earn a living.
This is our full-time job. Our income must come from men and women of peace who give out of the goodness of their hearts. Whether they open their homes, provide food or provisions for the journey, or give in some other way, giving is an important part of fulfilling the mission
There is room and need for the whole body of Christ to be active in sharing in the harvest. We can all be involved in global missions, praying, by going and by giving.
Thank you so much for your prayers and financial support. Soli Deo Gloria!
