Archives for bible and christianity

Hands with Words

Posted by  on Sunday, May 5th 2013     

This past month, the Lunch Bunchers had the enormous privilege of witnessing the birthing of a pioneering venture. 

Did you know that sign language is not “in English” or any other language, but is a language of it’s own? Did you know that the bible in South Africa has never been translated into sign language?  Did you know that the only way to effectively do this is to create a sign language DVD? 

That is what Hands with Words is aiming to do.  Lisa Craye is a woman who has been given the gift of a deep passion for working with the deaf for gospel purposes.  Lisa is a hearing woman who first encountered the need for sign language many years ago when she was working with special needs kids.  Today she heads up the Hands with Words ministry and today they have an aim to raise enough funds to eventually translate the entire Bible into sign language.

Hayley organised for us to meet with Lisa and the others involved in the project.  Lisa told us a little about sign language and taught the kids the alphabet in sign…

 

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Signing away…

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This young girls’ parents are both deaf, so even though she is hearing, she can sign beautifully too.

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The kids were treated to three Bible stories in sign. 

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Agnes here is being filmed doing an advert for an up-and-coming deaf camp.

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The kids were fascinated with the whole experience – filming, green screens and the amazing way in which Agnes has to memorise everything she is signing as she can’t just read it off a script.

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You can learn more about Hands with Words at their website: http://www.handswithwords.com – there are wonderful ways in which you can support them and be a part of this awesome pioneering project.

http://www.handswithwords.org.za/projects/bible-translation

Oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!

Posted by  on Monday, April 8th 2013     

A long time ago I picked  up the biography of Horatio Spafford.  Aside from the intriguing name, I had no reason to pick it up.  I knew nothing of the man inside.  But, after reading it, I realised I had been given a precious glimpse into the life of a man who had been through the eye of the traumatic storm of sorrow: a man who came out the other side still praising God.

And that is the most incredible thing.  Because his story – his awful collision with heartache and sorrow – resulted in the most beautiful hymn that even many non-church goers know:  It Is Well With My Soul.

We sang that hymn in church this past Sunday.  I’ve sung it a dozen times since reading his story – his story of how he penned the words of the song while crossing the Atlantic ocean, standing on the deck of the ship as it hovered over the exact spot where his four daughters lost their lives in a storm just a few months earlier.  Despite losing everything he owned in the Chicago fire.  Despite losing almost his entire family in a terrible shipwreck.  Despite uprooting his life to start again, just he and his wife … despite this all, Horatio Spafford could pen such words as:

When peace like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

Singing this hymn always churns such deep emotion within me.  But, this past Sunday one refrain stood out like none before it:

My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

Oh what inexplicable joy that he interrupts his own verse with an outburst of pure delight.  My sin oh! the bliss of this glorious thought! My sin, not in part but the whole, is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more, Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

Singing those words on Sunday caught me in the gut.  Oh my sin not in part but the WHOLE is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more!  Praise the Lord, praise the Lord! Oh my soul!

Indeed,

oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!

 

~

Click here to listen to Chris Rice sing it on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPPSG_SpojY

Full Lyrics of It is Well with my Soul

When peace like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

Refrain:
It is well, (it is well),
With my soul, (with my soul)
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

For me, be it Christ, be it Christ hence to live:
If Jordan above me shall roll,
No pang shall be mine, for in death as in life,
Thou wilt whisper Thy peace to my soul.

But Lord, ’tis for Thee, for Thy coming we wait,
The sky, not the grave, is our goal;
Oh, trump of the angel! Oh, voice of the Lord!
Blessed hope, blessed rest of my soul.

And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul.

Horatio Spafford

publishing self-promotion

Posted by  on Monday, February 25th 2013     

Last year, I wrote a children’s book.  It was a future-dream-come-present experience and, in some ways, took me totally by surprise.  I never expected to actually finish a novel –  at this stage of my life.  I never expected to find myself on a publishing journey so quickly – an opportunity to try win a publishing contract with a prestigious US publisher fast-tracked the whole proposal stage.  And, I never quite expected to find myself where I stand today – discussing cover art, lay-out and marketing strategy with my publisher aiming for an April 2013 release date.

It’s been a blessed journey thus far. 

Part of the blessing has been the enormous support I’ve received from friends, family and total strangers – near and far.  With the support came requests for updated information, so, after much deliberation, I chose to let the website and Facebook pages go live.  I had had the two pages waiting in the wings as part of the preparation required for the contest I had aimed to enter.  Marketing is essential, they say.  But, marketing an unpublished book is a little like making a whole lot of empty, self-congratulating promises.  So, the pages remained closed for months.  But, with the requests for updates from near and far, I began deliberating.  Should I open the pages up as an opportunity for others to follow along on the journey to discovering a publishing route?  Isn’t it just a thinly veiled excuse for self-promotion?  Do I shy away from anything that could in any way be conceived as boastful? 

In the end, while I still grappled with these questions and fell prey to all sorts of social media-induced foibles, I chose to open both the website and the Facebook page to friends, family and interested parties to follow the journey.

Determined to highlight the reason for the pages, I kept the following on my website:

The children’s stories that my kids love best are filled with intrigue, adventure, history and authentic characters.  They’re the stories that we all love best.  And they’re the stories that I’ve always wanted to write. 

This year, I completed my first children’s novel.  About a homeschooled 12-year old boy and his family, it explores the history of apartheid South Africa with a good dose of intrigue and investigative adventure.  The adventure for me now is to bring this book to publication.  Which is where this website comes in: as I enter the world of publishing, I hope to keep friends, family and others who continue to show support updated on the developments. 

Please join me on my journey towards sharing this first book with others and making the “author” label authentic.   

But, then, all of a sudden I had a publishing contract and a mandate to market.  The website and the Facebook page were now not just a source for updates, but also a powerful marketing tool.  And, with that, all my insecurities came flooding back.  When is marketing just marketing?  How does it speak to the issue of self-promotion?  Is that a good thing?  Should I share things like “reviews” and the like?  What’s really going on in my heart? 

Urgh. 

And that’s the hardest thing to separate.  I could tell you just how excited I am to see this book reach the public, because at the heart of it is the gospel message. 

And that would be true. 

I could tell how I was moved to tears and prayer as I wrote the chapters where some of the characters understand the gospel message for the first time and become Christians. 

And that would also be true. 

But, it wouldn’t be wholly true if I didn’t also admit that there is something quite intoxicating about seeing one’s name in print on the cover of a book one’s written.  The truth is that I do struggle enormously with the conflicting twins of pride and joy.  Joy at all the good that this project is.  Pride at my part in it.  Separating these two has proven to be impossible. 

Part of me feels that the solution is to avoid anything that smacks of self-promotion.  Another part reasons that, to quote an old saying, that’s a little like cutting one’s nose off in spite of one’s face.  There is a lot that is good and right about sharing and promoting a book that promotes the best news in heaven and earth!  Being ascetic about it is probably not the best solution.  So, I sit, examining every thought I have; every post I write, imagining every reaction there could be. 

It’s not pretty. 

Because, all this introspection has led to me to a place where I’m realising a thing or two. 

Firstly – I’m really a despicable human being.  Truly.  Examining my deepest motive for my every decision and I find, to my self-disgust, a whole lot of self-centeredness driving my actions.  It is thoroughly depressing.  There is plenty that I don’t do very well – hospitality; being a halfway-decent time-investing friend / daughter / sister to name a few.  But, even in the things that I think I’m getting “right”, I discover a whole lot of pride right at the centre! 

Secondly – that’s not going to change in a hurry.  Well, yes, and no.  I know that Jesus has the power to keep changing my heart and actions in a big way, moulding me to be more like Him.  I’ve recently completed reading two excellent books that point us away from ourselves and towards others and the cross (Compared to Her, by Sophie De Witt and The Freecom of Self-Forgetfulness by Tim Keller).  Both these books exude hope for the ever-stumbling Christian.  But, none-the-less, we stumble.  And continue to stumble.  And will stumble ’til our dying day. 

And that’s ok.  It’s actually ok.  Oh, I won’t lie and say I don’t feel totally discouraged.  But the hope that is Jesus won’t allow me to wallow in that Jekyll and Hyde called self-disgust and self-pity.

So for now, I’m praying and I’m choosing to look outwards instead of inwards.  And, while I’m making a right hash of it all along the way, I’m stumbling along still, asking God to bring Glory to His name because of my feeble attempts at serving Him and in spite of those very same feeble attempts and the countless others where I fail!

Balangao bible translators: update!

Posted by  on Thursday, November 24th 2011     

You know how sometimes when you come to an end of a book, you wish you could read a little bit more?  Find out about what happens further down the road?  Or get answers to questions about specific characters or events?  I certainly do!  And today, I got to experience just that…

I wrote a little while ago about the Sonlight book we have been reading: And the Word Came With Power.  It is all about a young American farm girl who becomes a missionary to far off Philippines.  There Joanne Shetler begins translating the New Testament into the Balangao language.  It took 20 years.  And in those 20 years, deep relationships were forged and the most amazing miracles happened.  Not least of which was the radical conversion of hundreds and thousands of Balangao and surrounding tribes.

Reading this book was just a wonderful experience, if not rather exasperating!  The girls peppered me with questions every few sentences, it took quite some doing to stay patient with them!  They were riveted to the story, often jumping up and down on their beds in excitement at what God was doing in and amongst the Balangao people.  It was almost sad when we finished reading the book last night.

One evening last week, after praying for the Balangaoes with the girls, I decided to see if I could find out what they were currently doing.  Google led me directly to a blog recently started by a woman called Robyn.  It tells of the current bible translation work – the Old Testament.  And it details their needs.  They have just recently completed their bible translation centre building. Of course, I was excited to show the girls the next morning and, as mentioned in the previous post, Kiera wanted to write to them.

When we finally finished the book, Kiera noted that the person writing the blog posts is “Robyn”.  And Robyn is the name of one of the missionaries working in Balangao.  Could it be the same person?  We read some more from the blog and realised that twins, Robyn and Joanne, are mentioned in both the book and the blog.  In the book, they were little babies.  And now they are both working on the bible translation!  Wow!  For us to leap from 1980-something to 2011 in the space of a few minutes of reading felt like time travel.  Everything of the book was so fresh in our minds: the people, their love for the Word and the gospel; the miracles God provided; and the on-going work mentioned towards the end of the book.  Marrying events from 30 years ago to events of this very year in the click of the mouse was surreal indeed.  But, oh so inspiring!

And exciting!  Today we got a reply from Joanne Shetler herself answering some of our questions and inviting us to ask some more.

Reply from Jo Shetler

What fun to read this from Taryn!  Yes, these are the Joanne and Robyn mentioned in the book.  And Doming is their Uncle.  Joanne and Robyn’s dad is Doming’s younger brother.  It was Doming who got the ladies interested in doing Bible Translation and he “signed them up.”  Doming passed away from cancer in January 2007, we miss him terribly.

Jo Shetler

Keep asking questions and leaving comments and we will try to answer them.

How wonderful to have answers to our questions.  How sad that Doming has passed away, but how wonderful that he is with the Lord!  Between me and the girls, we have dozens of questions.  We are most grateful to enjoy the rare privilege of getting the real-time epilogue to a brilliant book.  And what a wonderful way to connect with the very people we are praying for, across the ocean in a land far away!  I love how God’s provision of technology allows us to connect with missionaries so quickly and personally.  As a child growing up, I remember feeling quite removed from the life of a missionary.  I remember a slide show or two from missionaries on furlough, depicting a strange land I didn’t feel connected to at all.  I went away feeling that mission work was noble, albeit scary, and probably not for me.  My girls, however, feel most differently.  They have met real missionaries, prayed for them, eaten meals with them, read the most amazing biographies and been excited about God’s work.  And now, they get to enjoy the personal connection with a people they’ve grown to love through the pages of an inspiring biography.

Again and again, I am so very grateful to Sonlight for introducing us to amazing living books that inspire, challenge and grow my children!  And thankful to the Lord for His hand in it all.

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