Thank you for your prayers. Below are pictures from the first day of Vacation Bible School in the Roma village in Sisak, Croatia.
On Saturday, we prepared the crafts and practiced the songs and Bible story skit. Then in the evening we went to the village to let people know that VBS would start the next day and invite them to come. At about 7 pm, we left the village to go back to the ministry house. At about 8 pm, a man with a history of mental issues set two houses on fire and shot with a machine gun, in an area about a mile away from the Roma village. One person was killed and eight injured. The gunman was on the loose until captured around 1 am.
Many people in the Roma village were understandably afraid, so we were not sure what to expect the next day and were even unsure whether we would be able to hold VBS there, especially since VBS is held outside in a field in a very public place. To add to the complicated situation, unrelated to the shooting and arson, a woman in the village had died a couple days before and according to their custom, the Roma do not play music for three days during the wake. Singing loud, fun, VBS songs is a big part of our program, so we weren’t sure what to do.
Thank you for praying. On Sunday morning we went for worship at a local Croatian Baptist Church, and enjoyed Croatian cuisine (ćevapi) for lunch. In the evening we went to the village and everything seemed normal. We held the VBS just as we had planned, except that we did not do the songs. Everything went very well. We had about 60 kids come. We acted out the story of Daniel in the lions’ den, played games, prayed and made handcrafts.
We’re thankful that the weather was not too hot and also that it did not rain. The summer teamers did a great job acting out the play, even though they don’t know the language, and playing and interacting with the kids.
Thank you for praying for us. We are grateful that we all made it safely to Croatia and were able to sleep well the first night. Our flights and one of the flights for the college students were delayed, which made for an extremely long day, but we are thankful that we, they and all the luggage arrived safely.
Here are some praises and prayer requests:
Please pray for health for Pam, Ariela and especially Daniel as they have colds and need to get over them quickly. Daniel seems to have it the worst.
The Pioneers team in Croatia used to go once or twice a year to this Roma village in Sisak, which included a VBS like we will be doing. However, due to COVID and the earthquake, they have not been back to the village for four years (since 2019). We are not sure what to expect since some of the momentum from going each year has been lost. Please pray that the Lord will open heartsand that there will be a very warm welcome to our team and the gospel from the Roma kids and adults.
Pray the Lord of the harvest will sow the seed of the Word in the hearts of many Roma in Sisak through this week of ministry. Pray for the Vacation Bible School, the Roma teen day camp, and for open doors to share the Bible stories and passages from the Gospel of Luke in the Ludari (Roma) language. This is the first year we have had Scripture materials in the language of this village.
Praise that the team is getting along really well, for good orientation meetings and craft and skit preparations.
Praise for little blessings that are very meaningful: we were able to check our carry-on luggage which made it easier since we didn’t have to lug it from plane to plane; we got a little sleep on the plane; all our luggage came through; our flights were delayed but we had long layovers planned so there was no stress trying to catch flights.
Below are pictures of our travels, arrival, team orientation and preparation of the crafts and Bible story dramas for VBS.
KC airportFrankfurt, Germany airportteam orientation in Sisakheart craft for VBS“assembly line” preparing craft kitsgoing over the script for the story of Daniel in the Lions’ Den
From Pam: We’re packing for Croatia! It’s time for VBS and day camp for Roma! In these pictures you can see Ariela and me with our Bible club T-shirts and supplies, loading up the suitcases.
At the airport, our family of four will meet up with four college students, Patrick, Anna, Christian and Kate (easy to remember as PACK!) from one of our supporting churches in Iowa (where we were married and had our internship before going overseas). Outdoor Vacation Bible School for children and day camp for pre-/teens is possible only with enough manpower to serve the 150 kids through Bible story drama, songs, crafts and games. This is the first summer to be able to resume them in this Roma village near Sisak (since 2019, pre-COVID). What a joy it is to be able to be back!
It is especially heart-warming to be with our cherished, diligent teammates, Andy & Lim Warner and Sergej & Željka R., who continue the year-round adult Bible studies, teen clubs and children’s clubs in “our” Roma village in Slavonski Brod, where we lived for two years. That village and the one near Sisak where we’ll be ministering are “sister villages”, which means the Roma from those two villages intermarry. Both villages speak Ludari which now have 50 chronological Bible stories and the Gospel of Luke.
After the Sisak kids and teens ministry, our family will visit some of our our current and former Bible translators for the Ludari, Arli and Chergash languages and our church and friends in Slavonski Brod, which we’re really looking forward to as well. From 2020 when we were last there until now, our teammates have built a Roma ministry building and we get to be some of the first to spend several nights there! (The hot water for the shower is installed and there are three fold-out couches for beds.)
Please pray for the Roma to have hearts open to the Gospel as we do each ministry and when the Scriptures in the Roma languages are read or heard. We want God’s Word to spread and for Him to be glorified as the Roma have opportunity to believe and follow Jesus wholeheartedly. Please also pray for this trip to help each team member clarify priorities: every “yes” to ministering is a “no” to something else that takes time, energy and money. With every “yes” or “no” to activities we chose to do, we want to strategically contribute to fulfilling the Great Commission and genuinely building up the Body of Christ.
Thank you for taking your time to pray for this Scripture-engagement ministry and for your contribution in the Great Commission. May each of our hearts be continually, progressively engaged in eternally-lasting Kingdom matters!
Pam writing out the lyrics in Croatian and English to teach our summer teamer the songs we will sing in Bible clubs/VBS
We leave for Croatia in just two days. A friend of ours asked how he could pray for us and our trip; Pam wrote him the following and we wanted to share it with all of you and ask you to pray for the same. Thank you!
Prayer requests from Pam:
1. That our luggage will all make it with us. (We fly from Kansas City through Toronto, Canada and Frankfurt, Germany, and land in Zagreb, Croatia.)
2. For good health for the team including no sickness and good recovery from jet lag (You can get really tired in the middle of the day but be wide awake at night!)
3. For good communication and relationships within the whole team of the missionaries, the four young adults, and our family, plus a different team also staying in the ministry house from the States, with whom we will interact a bit
4. For no rain and no super-hot days when we are doing the outdoor children’s Bible clubs, and for safety if the teens have a swim time in the shallow part of the river, if the water has gone down enough after the rain they’ve had. (The Roma kids don’t swim generally, and the team leader will give boundaries, as there’s no roped-off area.)
5. That the adults and older kids will stay to listen to the kids’ club so they get taught
6. For open hearts to God, for spiritual understanding, and that there won’t be distractions from the teaching. (One year someone was burning an old couch in the field; one day the ice cream truck came; sometimes there’s a fight between adults nearby in the village, or stray dogs come around!).
Thank you for praying!! Todd will be posting on our blog and sharing the link on Facebook, with pictures and fresh news of the day and prayer items.
Sermon preached at CrossWay Bible Church (sermon begins at 28:41)
I had the privilege of preaching this message at our home church, CrossWay Bible Church, Blue Springs, MO, on June 11, 2023. May Jesus receive all the glory. Click above to listen to the full sermon or read below for a few of the high points.
Paul’s priority was to finish his assignment by advancing the Gospel. He took seriously the final words of Jesus in Matthew 28:18-20, “… Go therefore and make disciples of all nations…” This is our task, too, the mission that our Lord has left us, to teach all nations, and in Paul’s words from Acts 20:24, to complete “the ministry that [we] received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.”
So, how are we doing in carrying out this task? Let’s ask that first globally and then personally.
Globally, there is still a lot of work to do. Of the 7.9 billion people in the world today, 42% (3.35 billion) are reached and 58% (4.55 billion) are still unreached. I’m using the term “unreached” with the following definition: “A people group is considered unreached when the percentage of evangelical Christians is less than two percent and there is no indigenous community of believers able to engage the group with church planting.” More than half of the world’s population is part of people groups that are 98% non-Christian and that have no local group of believers strong enough to plant churches among them.
What about personally? How are you doing? Looking back over your day, week, month, year, or the last decade, can you say that your priority has been getting the Gospel to the unreached? Can you say that your motto has been: “if only I may finish … the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.”
As well as the need for church planting among the unreached, another massive need is global Bible translation.
Today, 1.4 billion people, speaking 4,600 languages, still do not have a complete Bible in their first language. Shouldn’t that move us? Shouldn’t we make it our aim to advance the Gospel by giving the Word of God to those who need it. This slide lists the number of languages in the world that have the whole Bible (purple) and those that do not (the rest).
And on this slide, instead of showing the number of languages, it shows the world population that has the whole Bible in their language (purple) and the population of those that do not (all the rest).
We praise God that 5.9 billion people, 80% of the world’s population, have the full Bible in their mother tongue. Yet our hearts should remain broken for the 1.4 billion, 20% of the inhabitants of the world, who do not.
Thankfully, progress is being made like never before. More Bible translation is being done today than in any other time in history. Look at the chart above. If you back up to the year 1800, only a few new languages were getting a Bible translation each year. But look how the numbers on the chart have grown. Currently Scripture is being published at a rate of two new languages almost every week.
And you are a part of it. Our teams recently published the Gospel of Luke and 50 chronological Bible stories in five Roma languages (pictured below). These are languages spoke by Roma (Gypsies) in Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, and Bosnia & Herzegovina. Praise God and thank you for being our partners in this effort.
Paul wanted to finish the course. The Lord Jesus had assigned him a race to run, and with all his might he wanted to run it to the end, not deviating to the right or the left, and not stopping until he had finished.
Why are we drawing breath? Why are we alive today? To proclaim the Gospel of the grace of God and to teach all nations. If you are living for any other reason, you are being duped. You are wasting your life.
Please, don’t waste your life. Invest it. Have the same priorities that Paul had. He did not cling to his life to keep it for himself at all costs. Rather, he spent it for the purpose of proclaiming the grace of Christ.
May God make us passionate about getting the Gospel to the unreached and getting a full Bible to those who don’t have it. May you and I live our lives, from this day forward, as Paul declared in Acts 20:24. May we able to say, joyfully, with our whole hearts, “But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the Gospel of the grace of God.”
BIBLE TRANSLATION UPDATE: Thank you for faithfully praying for us and generously giving financially to support our Bible translation work for Roma in Croatia, Serbia, and beyond.
We’re excited that over the next few days the Arli language team will be making an audio recording of the Gospel of Mark which we recently finished translating. As exciting as it is to see new books of the Bible in text form on the Internet or in print, it is almost more exciting to hear them in an audio recording since some Roma do not read and most of them will probably encounter God’s word in audio format, rather than as text, at least initially. (The picture above is when the Arli team recorded the Gospel of Luke in 2020.)
LOST (AND FOUND) IN TRANSLATION, INSTALLMENT #15: We continue to progress in translating the Acts of the Apostles into the Arli, Gurbet, and Chergash languages, most recently in chapters 10-12. Acts chapter 10 has several translation challenges, especially for unchurched Roma, unfamiliar with the Old Testament. Luke was writing to those who understood the Jewish culture, so he could leave much information implied as there was no need to mention it explicitly. Unfortunately, Roma, who do not have that background, miss much of this.
“Roman officer”, photo (c) bibleplaces.com
For example, 10:1 speaks literally of “a certain man in Caesarea by name Cornelius, a centurion.” These Roma languages do not have a word for “centurion,” so we usually translate it as “captain.” However, when we translate it that way, we risk that our Roma readers will miss a crucial factor in this story. The fact that Cornelius is a Roman and not a Jew is critical to this story since the point hangs on the fact that God is showing Peter that the Gospel is also for non-Jews, like Cornelius. To ensure that that point comes out, we adjusted their draft translation to “a certain man in Caesarea by the name of Cornelius, who was a Roman captain over 100 soldiers.”
As another example, in verse 4 where an angel appears to Cornelius in a vision, the translation draft in one of the languages said, “Your prayers and alms came to God, and he did not forget you.” However, the Greek uses wording that reminds the reader of Leviticus 2, which describes sacrifices offered to God as memorials. Interestingly, Cornelius’ vision takes place at 3 p.m., the time of the afternoon sacrifice in the temple. Cornelius was not a Jew, but he feared God, and his prayers and giving to the poor were just as precious to God as any sacrifice. So the translation is more clear now that we adjusted it to “God has accepted your prayers and your gifts to the poor as sacrifices.”
illustration of Peter’s vision in Acts 10; picture from bibleplaces.com
And when Peter sees a vision with a sheet filled with animals coming down from heaven, he says in verse 10, “I have never eaten anything unclean and pagan.” But our Roma readers, unfamiliar with the OT laws of kosher foods, will think “unclean” means dirty and will not understand the inference. We adjusted the translation drafts so they now say, “I have never eaten anything unclean which our Law forbids.”
Thank you for praying for us as we translate Acts and make every effort to ensure that these translations for Roma will be both accurate and clearly understood.
FAMILY NEWS: These weeks have been busy preparing for the play, “Annie”, at the kids’ school, Might Roots Academy (pictured above and below). Ariela was “Annie”, Daniel was the sound technician, and Pam was the vocals director. They all did a fantastic job.
We’re thankful for a wonderful Mother’s Day celebration with our kids and moms. And we are so proud of Elizabeth as she graduated from the University of Missouri Kansas City with her Master of Social Work degree!
Thank you for your love for our family and your faithful prayers and support for the ministry.
Yes, you read that correctly! Praise God and thank you for your generous giving. We have received $15,405 of the $10,000 that we need for our trip to Croatia this summer! The extra money will help so much if we have extra expenses on this trip, and whatever is left over we will keep to use for our trip next year since we will also be going in 2024. Thank you so much for your generosity. We are grateful to all of you and so encouraged to see how the Body of Christ works together so faithfully.
village outreach summer 2019
UPCOMING SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS: For those of you in the KC area, I will be giving a presentation on global Bible translation at our home church from 10:00-10:45 a.m on Sunday, June 4, and will be preaching on missions at 8:30 and 11:00 a.m. on Sunday, June 11, at CrossWay Bible Church, 701 NW Woods Chapel Rd., Blue Springs, MO. We’d love to have you visit if you are available or you can watch it on www.crosswaybible.org.
LOST (AND FOUND) IN TRANSLATION, INSTALLMENT #14: Few words in the English language can have more meanings than our little word “of”. Other languages do not necessarily have this word, but they have the same thought expressed by noun cases (in this case, the genitive). Because it can be quite vague in translation or be open to so many different interpretations, we often choose to spell out the meaning when we are translating for the Roma. Here are a few recent examples:
Not long ago we finished translating the Gospel of Mark and are currently translating Acts in three Roma languages. In Mark 3:18 (and Acts 1:13) we are given a list of the names of the apostles, one of whom is literally “James of Alpheus.” We didn’t think most Roma would understand “of Alpheus” so we made it more clear by translating it as “James, Alpheus’ son”. Of course, they didn’t have last names in the first century so to distinguish people you were referring to, you needed an extra qualifier, like the name of their father, or what town they were from (e.g., “Jesus of Nazareth”, “Saul of Tarsus”). But it wasn’t always the father who was used to identify someone. In Mark 16:1 , “Mary of James” needed to be translated as “Mary, James’ mother”. And what about when it is being used metaphorically? Acts 4:36 mentions “Barnabas, which means ‘son of encouragement’.” Here “encouragement” is not a name, but a character quality, so for clarity we translated it into the Gurbet language as “Barnabas, which means one who encourages others” and into the Arli language as “Barnabas (which means he was a man who encouraged)”. (Bonus question: What does “of” mean in Mark 11:30, “The baptism of John, was it from heaven…”? It doesn’t mean that John was the one being baptized, but that he was the one doing the baptism. So to be more clear, our translation of Mark 11:30 in the Arli language says, “Who gave John the right to baptize…” (more on this verse in a future installment!)
Thank you for praying for us each day as we translate God’s Word for these three Roma languages. Pray for much wisdom and for the Spirit of God to guide and enable us as we make dozens of these types of decisions in translation daily.
Gratefully,
Todd & Pamala
Pam (left) with her sister, Kim (right), and mom, Barbie Hughes (center), on a recent fun mother-daughter outing. It is great to be living nearby.
