Our Translators

Please continue to pray for the indispensable labor of our translators, Nish and Wilson. Picture them as a linguistic couriers. No matter how well we prepare and send off the verbal package, the ‘goods’ will never arrive in the mind of the student on the other end unless the translator delivers them skillfully and successfully. Sometimes we inadequately package the box and the translator has to repair it for us in route. This was evident in my class on justification yesterday. The dead give away: the contortions on the student’s faces coupled with the translator talking ten times longer than I did. Apparently some of the nuance of legal language and intricacies of western images have to be shaped into Indian forms. By the end of the hour and a half class the room shined with smiles and nods. Nish, the translator, had earned his lunch.

In one of Randy’s classes yesterday the students raised a wide range of intriguing questions about the Lord’s Supper. Several of the inquiries concerned fencing and admittance to the ordinance. A couple of interesting examples included: Can a woman come to the Table during her cycle? If you know your Bible but are uncertain about the nature of the OT ceremonial law, you can see how this would be a compelling question. Should you fence someone who smokes or imbibes alcohol? The fundamentalists apparently arrived before the Reformed. The students released another avalanche of questions on ‘Randy the Valiant’ when covering the topic of marriage and divorce. They already embraced the basic Confessional view on divorce and remarriage, but you still have to untie a host of knotty questions — no matter where you are in the world. In fact, the additional layers of Eastern culture only deepen the difficulty for those with a Western mind.

Thank you for your fervent, faith-filled supplications.