Greetings from sunny, dusty Jos!
The weather is warming up, hitting the region of 30C most days, but the dust is still here. You can wipe your table after breakfast and have to wipe it again before dinner. If you look out over the city in the morning you would think it was misty, nope, that's the dust. Little bits of the Sahara desert delivered direct to our living room, thank you Harmattan winds!
Most of my (Ali's) time at the moment is taken up with training, primarily training those who will take on various aspects of my work. Over the last couple of weeks I have trained people on copyright and other intellectual property considerations, on archiving raw data from language surveys, on checking materials for publishing to make sure they meet professional standards, on how to manage our technical library, on how to update information in Ethnologue (SIL's international publication on all the languages of the world) and on how to get the most out of the Excel spreadsheet programme. Quite varied all in all. We are still looking for someone to take on my role in managing the data about the ongoing Bible Translation projects in Nigeria. Please pray that we will be able to identify the right person for that.
At home I have been just as busy, helping friends learn how to plan and produce large batches of tomato pasta sauce to seal in jars for future use.
Thankfully I still love teaching!
Tim has now stepped down from the SIL Nigeria (one of Wycliffe's partners in Nigeria) leadership team and is enjoying a (slightly) slower pace of life. He has served as part of that team for the past 8 years in various capacities but he has continued to work on training up those who are going to take on some of his roles, especially his role in managing our Bible Translation and Literacy projects. He is also working hard to try and secure funding for some of our projects so that they can continue to serve their language communities in Literacy and Bible Translation. [ed - 1 out of the 6 was approved yesterday!] Tim also helped with facilitating some Crisis Management Team and security training for members of our group and the school.
Dan is now well over half way through his final year of school. He still has plenty to do, especially in his Advanced Placement classes of Calculus, Physics and European History. He also decided to audition for the high school musical (with the caveat that he wanted a non-singing role) and will be playing the part of President Roosevelt in Annie. We are still persevering in our attempts to purchase a house to live in when we return to the UK for this time. We have had an offer accepted on a house near Lancaster and are now working through the rest of the long process. Please pray that if this is God's will that it will progress smoothly. If you can take a few minutes to pray for us, we would be very grateful. Praise -- House purchase moving forward -- People being found to take on some of our various roles Prayer -- Others to take on the pieces of our roles that are still unassigned -- Peace in the ongoing transition and wisdom in transition decision making
