andypaxo.net

On Sunday the 6th, I got back into the country. I received a great seeing off! Several of us from FOCUS were leaving Canada around the same time, so we had a joint leaving party which was great fun. A few folks even came to see me off at the airport (Shanon and family, a couple from work and another couple of friends, 8 people in all!). I really felt loved

Shanon, Kana and Andy at the leaving party (and Bruce in the background)

Now that I’m back, it’s pretty hectic and there’s plenty to rush around and do. Better dash!

In true blogger style, I’m going to have a post with nothing much more than a couple of links now.

I’ve been working on some web stuff recently, so I present you with…
Our team blog (If you’re reading this now, you know what a blog is)
Our team wiki (Kind of a collection of documents, nothing that interesting for non technical readers yet)

Also, I thought I’d just throw out a link to Shanon’s blog. There’s some cool photos from events around Calgary.

Look forward to seeing you soon!

It’s quickly getting to the time when I will be back in the UK. It’s both happy and sad to think about coming back. I’m really looking forward to seeing everyone back home again, however I have been trying very hard to stay here in Canada (I’ve just passed the 50 résumés sent mark).

Right now, I have a ticket home booked for the 5th of May.

I realise that I have posted very little about Bible translation itself on this blog, so I’ll share a story I heard from someone who has worked on a translation project…

During a translation project, a team experienced just how important it is to carefully check that the potential readers of a new Bible understand the translated text fully. When translating the gospel message, they wrote about how John accused the Pharisees of their sin, and how he baptised people in the water.

The passage was read to a few people from the group receiving the translation. Afterwards, the translators asked the people to explain it back to them… “John drowned the people in the water because they were sinners”.

Thus proving that Bible translation is far from straight forward. (The solution in this case was to be more specific in the phrase used to describe baptism. The team also stated that John took the people out of the water as well as putting them in, the passage was understood.)

Hi all, thanks for your comments and e-mails, all your support is very much appreciated. It really helps to have you all praying and writing.

Work at Wycliffe is coming along well - as ever it’s hard to show you any progress, but every day we are closer to a new piece of working translation software. Recently, I have been working on allowing users to type using complex input methods. This means that we will soon be able to get text from languages like Thai into the program, where the specialised Wycliffe software can do it’s stuff in accurately displaying the characters.

On a completely unrelated subject, I’d like to share an expedition from a couple of weeks ago.

Occasionally, Shanon and her family go out to help the homeless people living on the streets of Calgary. They went out a couple of weeks ago, and I joined them.

We made many lunches, and headed off into town. There several areas of downtown where there are many people in need, we only went to one. We hadn’t been all the way through that area when what had seemed like a huge stash of food had been finished.

We had many mixed reactions, from deep suspicion - to deep gratefulness. What I was not expecting was to hear thing like “Jesus loves you!”, and “If it wasn’t for God, I’d would have been dead long before now.”. Although some of these were offhand remarks, there were definitely one or two there with genuine belief - even in what seems like a hopeless situation.

For me, what remains is the knowledge that, while the occasional lunch run is good, there is an immense need for much more to be done. Not only that, but it is my responsibility (along with everyone who belongs to God) to do something about it.

I have been writing a newsletter recently (look out for that soon) and it has prompted a few thoughts I’d like to share.

I’ve really been hit by the thought that I should really practise what I preach - something that’s tough to do if I take what I preach literally (each one of us is supposed to deny ourselves and pick up our cross, right?)

What I practise:

I have been a worried person for the last few days. I really do at this point want to stay longer in Canada. To do that I need money, for which I need a job, for which I need a work permit (for which I need a job - yeah, kinda circular). For the permit I need to renew my passport… The success of any of these three things is risky. Whilst I am going about getting the next few years of my life sorted out, I have a Bible study to plan for FOCUS, lots of correspondence to sort out with you guys back home (which - I’m hopelessly behind on, sorry guys), and a tax return to get a handle on and a ton of other little but necessary things and… ARGH!! PANIC!!!

What I preach:

Stop. Rewind. What was that? Oh, yeah - Bible study.

This is where I go to the international students group and explain parts of the Bible to students who mainly come from Asia and have little or no exposure to scripture - because I’m a Christian and I understand the Bible… right?

Let’s have a look at the stuff I’m covering. We’re going through the stories in Genesis at the moment. Throughout this, we see the people that God uses:
Noah, Abraham, Moses…

All of these are men who achieved great things by listening to God and carrying out his words with faithfulness. (Indeed, Abraham had times of not trusting in God and doing what he thought was best instead - but he only had success when following the Lord’s instruction).

The upshot:

I know of course that panic and worry are not helpful and that worry is even forbidden by Jesus. But, as we all know this is not always easy. Indeed, several people have told me to “Just trust in God” recently. This is great advice, but I believe that the word “just” is out of place. I have great respect to those who truly rely on the Lord, and pray that I may have the same faithfulness. It’s hard to practise what you preach.
So don’t panic, do trust in God - but don’t underestimate the task at hand, “just” trusting in God can be harder than trying to work out our lives under our own strength - ask Abraham!

(Wow, those few thoughts turned into a mini-sermon. Thanks to those of you who read all that!)