April 2012

Dear friends,

“Is it Christmas yet Mum?!” Man, it feels like it should be… so much seems to have been packed into the last 3 months, it’s left our heads spinning. But it was like, well, all our Christmases had come at once! So many good things:

The 2nd ever “Train Your Thinking” course (“Everybody in Vanuatu should do this!”); the VBT National Conference which we were graciously allowed to attend once again – lots of hope for the future shown there; SIL’s 30th anniversary celebrations with so much help from our ni-Vanuatu colleagues to make it a doozy of an afternoon; and then the finale – helping the new national coordinators & chairman of VBT work out what they are supposed to be doing for the next two years at their first board meeting – lots more signs of hope as they scramble to work out what ‘independence’ on the one hand, and ‘partnership’ on the other might look like in the future.

Guess I left more than a few questions unanswered there! See if the pictures fill you in a bit. If not you could look here, otherwise I guess you’ll have to write and ask. We’d like that!

Thanks for your love and support,

Ross & Lyndal

Feb 2012

Some exciting news from the Webbs…

Jan 27 email

• Pray that we would use our time well - life has been very busy since we returned.
  
• Like you, challenges come our way - one family feeling it is no longer the right thing for them to be working here is one of them! Pray that we will have the right words as we communicate with them.
  
• We have a workshop for local translators coming up at the end of February and have much preparation to do for that. This is the 2nd module. The first one last year was a great time and felt so worthwhile so we want this to be equally useful to the participants particularly in helping them to improve their Bible reading/understanding skills.
  
• We are thankful to God for great times with our family while we were home. Paul and Beth are due any time now with their first baby - you could pray for them. And Christopher and Karen (and Ezra!) are in Broome at present checking out job possibilities there to work with the Anglican church reaching out to Aboriginal people. They need God to guide their thoughts in this big decision.

November newsletter

Dear friends,

Thanks for praying for us. A lot went on. A lot went on well. Hardly a hitch, I’d reckon. We’ve now returned to the ‘civilisation’ of Lae (PNG) before heading to Australia. It’s as if the past 3½ weeks were a dream – like walking through the cupboard into Narnia and out again. But the dream was vivid. We’ll fill you in…

Helicopters are a dream in themselves – an effortless entry (on our part) to Zuepak, along with the precious load of 800 New Testaments, and 600 MegaVoice audio players with the same Psalms and NT on them. We were regaled with dance, and escorted to our ‘dream’ home. Ah, what you would pay for that view if it were in what you might think of as realer places! We were comfortable with our two solar lights, air mattresses, breakfast provided every morning (with hot water for the coffee plunger), and at least another two meals a day for the next 25 days. To call them hearty meals wouldn’t do them justice. The nice part about our dream world is you can pass your half-eaten plate on to someone else!

So, 3 days later, on the 17th of October – 14 years to the day after the original NT dedication, 13 SIL guest including an official one or two ‘choppered’ their way in to Zuepak to join maybe 800 villagers who’d come with their pre-paid-for vouchers for the big celebration. It was hard to believe; so much organization with not a bit of help from us. That’s what I call a dream! And to complete the totally real illusion those 800 people lined up to polish off 700 NT books and every one of the 600 MegaVoice players. Already the cry is for more! The guests helped distribute with smiles on their faces. One visitor couldn’t contain himself: “This is great! It doesn’t get any better than this! Imagine handing out so many Bibles that people have actually paid for. Where I come from I couldn’t give them away!”

That evening about 500 people sat on the grass and watched portions of the Luke video (dubbed in Irumu language back in 1997) and another one contrasting the sacrificial system in Leviticus with ‘the new and living way’ in Hebrews. Then for the next two days, we led a study following Matthias Media’s “Overview of the Bible”. Many attended and for the next 3 weeks we heard again and again how helpful it had been. You’ve prayed for the “Cargo Cult” situation for years. It hasn’t gone away, and so we know that some who raved about the study may not have been helped in the way we had in mind(!), but others who we know are on the right road also found the explanation of God’s sovereign plan from start to finish (when we get there!) a great thing. We’re not sure exactly what part was previously unknown but for some it just clicked! So much so that the following week Ross worked with Kurup to translate the English book we’d used as the guide. We’ll print that when we get the chance with an idea to make a teaching video of it too!

We had a good day up in the next village on the second Sunday we were there. Ross  preached and yes, for all the teaching and preaching and endless talking we were thankful to God for answering our prayer to be able to remember the language pretty well – well, well enough to mostly make sense it seems!

We had another morning session in our village to try to teach a bit of ‘critical thinking’. We have done this in Vanuatu but it was quite a bit harder to explain in language, so I’m not sure people got it all. However after I had taught the ‘rules’ for going through a text, Ross demonstrated with a few Bible passages and that was good. Hanging around for the few weeks and eating with people for every meal we had time to hear many, many stories, some pretty distressing. Every ‘public’ teaching opportunity we had afterwards, we tried to ‘straighten’ some of the weird and not so wonderful interpretations of Scripture we had heard.

It seems some people are almost desperate to find the illusory ‘Good Life’ here on earth and so they read the Scripture through that grid and come up with some pretty wild ideas – mostly flying directly in the face of an easy reading of the passage they interpreted! This has been going on for decades really – with no success – so every avenue is tried. That’s sad. I’m not sure that our exhortations to contentment and waiting with gratitude and joy for our true ‘paradise’ really ring true – in their estimation, we’ve obviously already found what they’re looking for. But we are very thankful for the openness of many who asked us questions which we knew were prompted by such thinking and we pray (please join us!) that God might even use the many talks of these last weeks to allow these friends to see the Truth.

The highlights were our times with the little core group of solid Christians who love nutting out the Word and taking it at face value instead of looking for the ‘deeper meaning.’ One young lady, Gurukenang, gave an amazing talk at ‘Ladies’ Church’ on Hebrews 11 – not amazing in the sense of eloquence but rather that I could tell it all made sense to her.  It’s hard to explain but it was a joy to hear.

The many testimonies of the helpfulness of ‘MegaVoice’ (audio Bible) over the past 2 years were also very encouraging. When we asked people ‘What should we tell the MegaVoice people and others who have helped with it?’ they answered instantly with ‘Tell them it’s a huge help’ and ‘we’ve heard verses we didn’t know existed’. We are thankful that there are 600 players ‘out there’ now with the whole NT and Psalms to listen to.

A particular prayer request is for the weeks to come. There is endless potential for our words and actions to be twisted and given new meaning. Kurup has already been accused of blocking the coming of good things because he spoke after Ross’s study telling people not to change the meaning. “No worries”, said Kurup. “I really understand the Bible overview and how things went bad at the beginning etc. and I am going to hang on to that!”  So please pray for him and the other believers and that as they tell out the true story others will give up their struggle. Listen to Gokasia’s words after the study, “Today is the day to fight. Fight in your heart, fight against what is not good. Leave your other gods and come to the Word and then we’ll be a real Group (church).”

So we’re out of our dream world. Gone, just like that! But what a privilege to have been in it. It was truly wonderful. We enjoyed good health, way too much food, plenty of exercise back in the mountains, freedom from the office (!) and best of all, great fellowship with our Irumu friends. As we were leaving Kurup said ‘I am not worried that you’ll be so far away because our hearts are one so we are not really so far away.’

Wish you could have been there? We wish you could have been – to share the whole lot. Ah, but you have been invaluable partners. It’s just that some partners get the dreamy bits. Thanks for sharing!

Lots of love,

Lyndal & Ross

PS We’ll be in Australia until 31st December. Our phone number will be 0450953202

PO Box 174, Port Vila, Vanuatu                                                     :::

WBT – Graham Rd, Kangaroo Ground, 3097

Oct 12 email

Hi friends all over the Church,

Sept 29 email

• safety in travel - planes, helicopter, truck, walking etc.!
• Please especially pray for helicopter shuttles on 13th October - good weather and safety to get the Bibles into the village (and us!)
• 17th October - that the dedication of the new Books would be a God honouring occasion bringing new enthusiasm for believers and a new outlook for those not yet trusting in Jesus.
• A revival amongst the Irumu people would be great eh?!
• For language speaking ability for us so that we can help our friends learn more about God’s Word while we are visiting, as well as enjoy good fellowship.
• That things would go smoothly here in Vanuatu in our absence - no disasters please!

September 23 newletter

September 8 email

• Pray for VBT board meeting on Monday: for wisdom for Ross in his part as he guides them with sensitivity to their aspirations.
• Pray they work well together (with us & each other - nothing ominous in that request!) for the sake of God’s great name, and the promise of His liberating forces unleashed through the translation of his very Words.
• Would that all our planning make that possible for more & more people - though it just looks daunting!
• It’s not all that easy organising our PNG trip and stay from this distance. Could you ask God to send Kurup to a nice spot where his mobile phone works well so we can check on a few more things.

18 August email

• The MegaVoice players are almost on their way from Israel to PNG. Fortunately Ross realised just in time that the ones already in people’s hands have too small a memory to fit the full NT and Psalms so we will quickly order an extra 200. Please pray they reach PNG via DHL without any hitches!
  
• We have heard from Kurup, our Irumu liaison (since he owns a mobile phone!) that people have started paying for their new Books and players - that’s great news. Thank God! Pray that the 800 pre-sale vouchers out there will get snaffled up!
  
• The revised Irumu Pilgrim’s Progress is ready to roll - we will have that printed in the SIL print shop in Ukarumpa PNG.
  
• Less exciting and more challenging - For some time our bosses have asked us to work on a “Comprehensive Plan” for the translation work in Vanuatu - trying to map out how things could look in the next 10 or more years. We’ve made a start and next week will dedicate time to moving the written plan along significantly. Future funding of projects we run here, particularly Vanuatu Bible Translation are dependent on this plan looking good! We’d really appreciate prayer for wisdom, for patience and perseverance!