March 09

March 09 Hi guys. By urban southern California standards, we have a reasonably big back yard, with lots of trees and hedges, the clippings of which far exceed the capacity of our allotment of trash cans. So for Christmas my mother-in-law gave me a mulcher. (Those of you who know my mother-in-law, you won't be so surprised; she's the one who gave all the guys toilet plungers in their stockings a few years ago.) Now I've never been a big fan of yard work; when I was growing up I always equated it with "cruel and unusual punishment". But now it's taken on a whole new character. I'm sure it's the mulcher. I tell ya, this thing can do entire trees; you just feed the pieces into the shoot and it grinds them up and spits them into a bag. This is much faster and much more fun than having to rake leaves into bags and cut and organize branches into neatly-bundled units that the trash people will haul off. So, since Christmas I've been mulching the dickens out of anything remotely botanical that I can trim, chop, hedge, clip or mow. And the end result is piles and piles of … well, chewed-up trees….all kinds of stuff that I can recycle back into our hard adobe soil and maybe actually get our lawn to grow something besides weeds. In a way, this whole mulching-the-backyard thing is a sort of parable for the way life in the US has been for Melanie and me since coming back from Peru. In the 3 decades we've worked with Wycliffe – and with the Wanca Bible translation project in particular – we've been privileged to gain lots of valuable experience and skills in a number of areas. So rather than throw all this growth away, it's being recycled elsewhere. For example, Melanie was always heavily involved in our kids' education in Peru and is really a great teacher, so she's been teaching kids Sunday school at church and substituting in the local school district. It puts a healthy measure of fear into her students when the first thing she tells them is "I've raised three boys, so don't think you're getting away with anything!" She's not really that mean…most of the time. My own "recycling" has been elsewhere: I've been able to consult with translators for various language projects. I've also been able to provide input into the development of courses geared towards native speakers of indigenous languages who want to translate the scriptures for their own communities. And as part of our Wycliffe assignment in the US, I've been teaching linguistics students at Biola University who plan to be directly involved in the technical aspects of Bible translation in the future. Sometimes I even get to do two or three of these things at the same time…like last semester, I was scheduled to be in Peru for 3 weeks to consult with the team working on scripture translation for the Yora, a small group in the Peruvian Amazon. But I was also scheduled to be teaching a translation class at Biola. So how could I be in both places at once? Well, I decided I'd try teaching my translation class in the US from the Amazon jungle using Skype, webcams, and some computer desktopsharing software. The result? Virtual omnipresence! I shared with my university students

about how certain principles of art are applicable to the field of translation, and then, with the help of some interpreters, my students in the US were able to meet the Yora translation team "face-to-face" and also observe an actual translation checking session in progress. This semester in my Seminar on Linguistics and Biblical Exegesis we are going to do something similar, only it will involve the Wanca project's translation of Genesis and maybe Psalms. All this to say that I'm thankful the things we've learned in one isolated corner of the world extend much farther than what we originally envisioned. So what's coming up for us in the near future? For starters, Melanie has been invited to go in May as part of a small team from our church to help train a sister church in India in children's education. This is a great honor and opportunity and I'm sure she will be a tremendous asset. So please pray for her as we look to God to provide the finances for this. I will continue to teach classes at Biola until May, but then we are both planning to go to Peru in mid June for about a month to do some on-site translation consulting with the Yora and Wanca Quechua teams. Then in August we are scheduled to go to Nepal to lead a short linguistic workshop for mother-tongue translators. Never been to Nepal; never taught this kind of a workshop. Should be interesting for all of us! So I'd appreciate prayer for that as well. We are thankful our kids are nearby and are doing well. Lucas continues to thrive at Biola studying music. Between going to his orchestra performances and his occasional visits to our laundry room we see him on a fairly regular basis. Ryan and Kenlynn are loving married life, and, like so many, are gaining new depth of character as they trust God to navigate them through the waters of limited employment in a hard-hit job market. Erik's been considering a career change, and in June he leaves for Korea for a year to try his hand at teaching English as a second language. He's a good teacher, just like his mom, and of course I'm thrilled he has interest in something linguistic! Although we're not particularly looking forward to 12 months without him (who are we to talk after having spent most of our married lives overseas?) we are very glad for the sense of direction he has, we are thankful that God's hand is on his life, and we are confident that that he really will shine in this. (Even so, come quickly, June 2010!) Economic uncertainty, children moving overseas…hmmm. Bumps in life make me reflect. When I think about it, there are probably more similarities between me and our back yard than I'd like to admit, namely the presence of weeds. Weeds have some nice qualities:

sometimes they sprout interesting-looking flowers and they certainly show a remarkable resilience to adverse conditions. The thing is, you don't really want them, and even though you work to get rid of them, they grip the ground with enviable tenacity and persistently re-emerge right in the places you thought you'd pulled them up. As I dig around in the expanses of dirt behind our house trying to transform it into something beautiful, I think about weeds: things I wish weren't part of life, not just the external difficulties that impose themselves on us, but also the weed-like areas of my character, with roots that go deep into hard, dry ground and resist extraction: fears, doubts, attitudes, thoughts and actions, that sap my relationship with God, and rob me of my joy. As I've learned from dealing with our own local, and very robust, infestations, sometimes the only way to get them out is to stab the earth and break up the ground that surrounds them. And then they may come out, but only with a careful, firm grip coupled with a determined, slow, even pull. Even then, they leave a hole as they drag out pieces of the earth with them. I myself am such a garden and the Lord is the one who tills me, weeds me and prunes me with an eye to turning this parched, cracked soul into something lush and beautiful, that bears fruit and brings honor to him. His word promises me that he will succeed. I know that even his severest mulching is most merciful, and that he can heal and smoothe over the empty spaces where the weeds once were. I'm half-tempted to apologize for lapsing into these somewhat personal reflections, but I won't because you've shown us repeatedly that you are interested in us as people, and not just in the activities we perform. Truly God has graced us with your friendship, your prayers, and your sacrificial gifts in this time of unprecedented worldwide financial turmoil. So, from one gardener to another, thanks for tilling, planting, weeding, and watering alongside us in a world ripe for harvest. In his careful, firm, determined, even-handed, loving, and most merciful grip.

Snail Mail:

Rick and Melanie Floyd, 16135 Sunny Ct. Whittier, CA 90603

Email:

[email protected] [email protected] Home: 562-321-5442 Rick: 562-665-3364 Melanie: 562-665-3969

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Rick's occasional blog (new url): Info & Gifts:

www.amatterofsighs.blogspot.com Wycliffe Bible Translators, Box 628200, Orlando, FL 32862-8200