Our first book!
1300 copies of our first book have arrived in Oreo Province!
Our team members, Jim and Judi Olson, have shared bits and pieces of news with us about starting to distribute this book:
It has been a very eventful week. We sold about 500 of the books we published, which include John. One missionary friend bought 25 one day, and we also gave him one of the Messenger players. He tested portions of the book on people from the part of Oreo Province that has been most untouched by the gospel. They could understand it and were so excited. So he came back the next day and bought 50 more, and we gave him 20 more Messenger units (which the people also understood and loved). Then on Friday, he asked if we had more books and said he thought he could afford 50 more (at $1 apiece) for the students at the Theology School. So we told him if he bought 50, we’d give him 50 free. He came within 10 minutes and brought Yuli, a young man who is trying to translate the Bible into his own language. Yuli was thrilled to get this book! He has been struggling with translating Romans, and when he got the book he went straight to Romans 2-3. He could understand it so well, that he immediately went back to retranslate what he had already done! He said to me, “We don’t normally read books (including the Bible) because we can’t understand them. But this is so easy to read and understand that we just keep reading it!” He brought enough money to buy 50 more books, so we gave him an additional 50 free also. He wants to be sure that each of the pastors and church leaders in his home area have one. Then Yuli said,“You should really do more of the books of the Bible!” When I told him we have done 16 and 2 more are nearly done, he just couldn’t contain himself! He can’t wait until the New Testament is published [hopefully by the end of this year]! Please pray that this book will begin to bear fruit and create a hunger for the finished work!
Even though this was all very encouraging, there were some discouraging words said by a former colleague. But I believe the Lord allowed that to humble us, as the encouraging words had us riding pretty high!
Did Anna write to you about her small group meeting at her house? She said the speaker taught from Romans, so she pulled out 10 copies of the book and showed it to them. One of the things they liked the best was using the words “orang yang bukan Yahudi.” ["non-Jewish people" instead of the technical term “Gentiles.”] They said, “That’s us!”
I talked to Lynda T. last night [an Indonesian Bible translation consultant and former team member], when she picked up 10 books. She wishes she could help us more. So I told her, the best way she can help is to encourage people to read the book and make comments or corrections on it. And I told her also that she could help informally as much as she wants by going to the Door43.org website and becoming an editor. Pray that she will actually do that!
As for me in the Nabisco Capital City: The large International church I have been attending here will make our book available to its members next week, and an elder will give a prayer of dedication. Most of the books were sent to Oreo Province, so right now I only have 500 books left here. And the church is of sufficient size that they could easily clean us out of all of them. Please pray for me as I meet people who might be interested in helping to print more copies.
Anna and Gabe open the box
