2024 in review:
** 2024 ————————————————————
Thank you for all the ways you’ve been involved in our ministry with those who want the Bible in their own language this year. Here’s a quick recap of the major ministry and family milestones of the year. We hope you have a Merry Christmas and a great start to 2025!
January: We got to see many of you as we visited the east coast and places between there and Texas. That was a real joy, at least when the kids weren’t completely done with the car. February: Wrapped up the big east coast trip and had a week of meetings in Orlando with unfoldingWord. The best part of that was reconnecting as a family with a couple we worked with when we lived in the Republic of Georgia (he now also works with unfoldingWord). Had a virtual follow-up workshop with a (different) team from the Republic of Georgia—was very encouraged by their progress. March: Fought with the bank about our home purchase. Closing postponed multiple times. April: Bought our first home! Went to Atlanta to work on developing oral translation resources with around 30 other Consultants in Training. Watched the solar eclipse totality over our home in Dallas with old friends. May: Went to Indonesia to train a team of local trainers who are equipping local churches for translation. Packing to move. June: A combination of remodeling, 90 mph winds, and rain flooded parts of our house. Attended meetings in Orlando. Moved out of our house in Dallas. Went to the Republic of Georgia for a workshop on translating the Psalms into song. July: Home remodels weren’t done, so visited family in Mississippi and Tennessee. Moved in, despite remodels still not being done. August: Living with most of our stuff in the shop and with workmen in our home almost every day finishing the remodels. September: Benjamin certified as Translation Consultant! October: Family reunion honoring what would have been Benjamin’s parents’ 50^th anniversary. Wonderful time had by all. November: Fled the country for election day…just kidding…went to Liberia to train around 100 pastors from 14 languages in checking their translations (happened to be over election day). Celebrated Thanksgiving with several families from church. December: Blessed by “church workday” at our house pushing us significantly forward on our long list of DIY remodeling. Cut down our own Christmas tree that we found at our new place.
All year: Learning to use AI to help develop translation helps in Psalms and Leviticus, developing other training modules, and discovering invisible Unicode errors in our Hebrew text.
Favorite moment: The team in Georgia had been struggling with actually translating Psalms as songs, but I got to lead them through Psalm 130 which has some particularly emotional language and then gave them some time to work on the translation. Near the end of the time, one of them ran back to his room for his instrument…so we extended that time until he came back and they sang through it a couple of times. It was great to see it click, and to hear their song. The cultures there are very musical and I’ve enjoyed that ever since we got to live there.
** Thank you for all your prayers, gifts, and encouragements over the last year! ———————————————————— Consider a year-end gift to our Wycliffe Ministry! (abidinginhesed.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=db546fcb26a533fdfc86dbb4a&id=11397cc011&e=aea6dceb05)
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If you wish to mail contributions send them to: Wycliffe Bible Translators, P.O. Box 628200, Orlando, Fl 32862-8200 Checks should be made out to Wycliffe Bible Translators, with a separate note that says “preference for the Wycliffe ministry of Benjamin & Shanna Wright, account #227489”