The weather is turning chilly, it got as low as 13C overnight! The Christmas decorations are up and the Christmas ham is curing. In Nigeria this is also wedding season, the lack of rain means events can hold outdoors without any chance of being rained off! In two Sunday's time we have two weddings to try and attend! One for our lovely Househelp Victoria's daughter and one for a close colleague from the office.
Dan has been busy this last month with practices and then performances of his class's Senior play (a bit of a rite of passage at his school). He played a rather grumpy father a little too convincingly for my liking! All this was on top of a heavy load of school work. Thankfully he has managed to balance it all but he is definitely looking forward to a bit of a break over Christmas. Tim has just gotten back from a trip to Niger State. Part of the reason for the trip was Gareth Mort's second ordination as an Anglican Reverend. Gareth is one of the other Wycliffe UK members serving here. He also met with one of the translation teams based out there and carried out a risk assessment for one of our staff to stay in the area. There has been a fair bit of trouble out there and I (Ali) am glad to have him back safe and sound! We had a meeting on the 1st of December of the various organisations involved in Bible Translation in Nigeria (18 of the 23 organisations active in Nigeria were represented!). I was able to share an up to date spreadsheet of who is working with which language group doing what, I trust this will help our organisations to plan and work together more effectively to meet the remaining Bible Translation needs in Nigeria. There are still roughly 200 languages in Nigeria with no scripture and no work in progress towards getting scripture. The people who speak these languages have to make do with scripture in a language that may not speak to their heart in the way their own language would. Imagine if you had only ever heard the Christmas story in French or German or Spanish, would it have the same impact? Please do take some time to pray for us if you are able. Praise Dan's Senior play went well Tim had a safe trip to and from Niger State Ali was able to get all the data together in time for the BT organisations' meeting Prayer That we will continue to look to our Lord and Saviour for all that we need. That we will celebrate His coming in ways that honour and glorify him.
