Jason and Angie Bechtel Bringing Hope to Unreached People Groups God is still drawing tribal people to himself. I just received the following ministry update from the translator in Indonesia I am working with on the New Testament for the Lauje people. This is very exciting stuff!
Thank you so much for your prayers for [the Lauje men] who arrived here yesterday afternoon after a 22 ½ hour bus ride. Because of very heavy rains, they were late in hiking down the mountain to the bus area and the bus had already left. God helped them find a small local “taxi” (for want of a better word!) to take them to a little town an hour away where the buses usually stop for gas and dinner. They thanked God that they got there before the bus had left, so they were able to get on it, and had seats this time! That’s an answer to prayer! God also gave them a “good” trip – i.e. no landslides on the road, no motion sickness, no breaking down or accidents!
Last night during dinner, [the Lauje men] shared what God is doing in Lauje. Once again we were amazed as we listened to the story of the spread of the Good News. I listed all 37 of the places where they are teaching, all sixty Lauje Bible teachers (and those in training) at the different teaching points, and all the Scripture books that are being taught to the various groups (from Genesis, for new outreaches, all the way to Revelation for some of the older places!) This time [one of the men] shared a story about some people to the north who hiked from the other side of the island to a place where there are now two Lauje groups meeting. They came to beg us to tell them our message. They said that in the past they had some people go who tried to teach them using the Indonesian language, but they could not understand very much. They heard that we had God’s message in their heart language so they came to see if it was true. A couple of guys hiked back with them. They criss-crossed one river over 100 times and spent the night in the jungle, where, as they ran out of food, God provided for them in a miraculous way. The Bible teacher will stay there for a short time beginning to lay a firm foundation for faith in the One God promised. What a joy to be part of this. One day we plan to visit there, thanks to our helicopter flight service.
Barrie [and the Lauje men] are hard at work now, reading through Matthew’s Gospel. Pray the Lord will show them any final areas that still need to be reworded for better clarity, as well as any typos or grammatical errors. This is GOD’S Holy Living Word and we want the Lauje translation to be as accurate and clear as possible so that His Spirit will use it in the hearts of thousands of Lauje people. Today, the first day, they completed the first twelve chapters of Matthew.
Continue to pray that God will guide us to a print shop where we will be able to do a good job of printing the Lauje New Testament at a reasonable cost.
Excited at what God is doing through your prayers and gifts,
Barrie and Cherri
