Prayer requests and vision

We're back, so we need to get to work!
Here's how you can specifically pray for us, our work and our people.

Pablo and 3 others meet regularly with John---- several times a week for 2 hours or so each time. They are all from our people group, but now live in our town instead of their village. They are also believers. They are being trained by John and have taken the "lead" on our project---as far as the footwork goes. They have talked to 8 or 10 non-believers from the villages about helping us get the stories told in their indigenous language. These people will hear various versions of scripture in spanish and then retell it in their language. Then, we will have another bilingual person tell us in spanish what they said in the indigenous language word-for-word. This will go back and forth until the stories are correct. (This is a very basic summary of what we do and how we do it!) We will continue this process until we have 60 or so stories completed. It is a lot of work and a long, hard process---- even though it doesn't sound it by the way I described it. There is a lot of technical stuff involved.

So, prayer requests:

1. Pray for Pablo to be a leader on this team.

2. Pray for helpers from the villages to actually record stories with us. (many times they start, but don't finish. or they get pressure to quit, etc. because evangelical has a very bad stigma here)

3. pray for John as he leads the team.

4. pray for more villages to join in on the project. (we've met people/contacts from a few other villages and need to follow-up with them this week)

5. pray for us as we talk to people we've met from other villages and cast the vision before them.

6. pray for our language learning.

7. pray for our decision about our housing arrangements--whether or not to live in a village and if so which one and under what circumstances, etc.

8. pray for the people who will be helping us---- there is often persecution

9. pray we will have discernment to know which stories to tell, which villages to start in and for every other decision we need to make.

10. pray for our family as we jump head first into this big project this week--- you know the enemy likes to attack or do anything to keep the work from happening.

Our goal is to have the project done by August 2009.
That is a big project to have done in that amount of time.
We can do it though. Well, no "we" can't, but GOD can!
We would really like to see the stories completed by that time and then see the stories used to start small groups and eventually churches.
This same project is being used all over the world.

It's typically a 2-year project. Although, so far it hasn't really been done by families--- it's mainly been young people and singles, etc. That makes a big difference. It's challenging with a big family because I can't really help to the extent I am supposed to be. I have to homeschool the children and other things that are very time consuming for a family of 7!

This is why we are so thrilled to have Pablo and our team working with us. We want it to be their own project anyway, not "our" project. We do not want to be the front people. It's best if it's all done by indigenous people. We can direct from behind the scenes. So far, it seems to be leaning that way with us. We'll see what happens and how God opens doors this week.................
We don't want to get in the way of the Gospel going to these people just becasue they can't see past "us" to really hear the stories.