November 2022

 

I’ve long been a fan of maritime songs and sea shanties. Sailors sang all sorts of songs, but shanties were specifically sung while working aboard their ships or boats. These folk songs shaped the rhythm of their work which was largely divided into either heaving or hauling tasks. The work and the songs were a coordinated group effort. 

What songs accompany you on your journey? Are there hymns, psalms, or other songs you would consider working songs, setting the rhythm of your day? How and when do you join with others in work and in song (in spirit or with actual music)? I think this topic of sea shanties and the rhythm of our work and lives is worth further exploration…one of these days! In the meantime, I was thinking of one of my favorite maritime songs, Sailor’s Consolation.

In the song, one sailor consoles another during a raging hurricane, expressing how grateful they should be to be aboard ship, even in a deadly storm, when those on land have to deal with the seemingly day-to-day trials of fires, overturned carriages, tumbling chimneys, thieves, etc.. Better to be “safe” at sea. It’s just a good reminder that so much depends on our perspective and that our security is in Christ wherever we are meant to be…on land or sea, in calm or storm. Our Anchor holds. So that ship theme just keeps emerging every time I sit down to write a newsletter. And there is news to share!

On October 13^th, we welcomed Beatrice Elaine Van Wynen, born to Heather and Josh Van Wynen, and new sister to Aurelie and Eowyn (Wynnie) Van Wynen. They are doing well and we are so grateful to have them nearby now and in a house that is a good fit for their expanded family!

Although I’m rarely traveling these days, I was in England when Beatrice was born. But I was home a week or so later. I attended meetings at the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies (OCMS) regarding the research team I’ve been helping with and then had the privilege of observing a course OCMS runs for top-level mission leaders. It was the last week of a four-week year-long program. It was held at Ashburnham Place, once considered one of the finest estates and country houses in the southeast of England. Now a Christian conference center, it still retains lovely remnants of its former glory and gardens. It was great to meet mission leaders from a wide range of organizations, and to also have time with several old friends. I may be of help in further development of the curriculum used in the program. We will see what the future holds!  

I returned from the UK with an extra 50 pounds of luggage! OCMS’s publishing house, Regnum, is the publisher of the Alliance history book our former executive director, Kirk Franklin and I, plus editor Deb Crough, have been working on the past two years. The book is completed and in print! The 50 pounds of books I brought home are to distribute to colleagues in the U.S. If you are interested in exploring this book, you can do so weight and cost free as the ebook is available at 
https://www.wycliffe.net/a-missional-leadership-history/.
It is not just the story of Wycliffe, but above all a story of what God has done and how he uses his church to accomplish his mission. The book also contains some unique leadership insights, and addresses cultural and contextual issues through the eras to the present day. We can better face the future when we learn from the past and recognize what God has done and is doing! I’ve still got a way to go with the writing of a book based on my dissertation. But that is in progress and moving more quickly now that the history book is done. Tom continues in his work as well, serving the Americas region of the Alliance.

The latest Bible translation statistics have also been released. You can find them at https://www.wycliffe.net/resources/statistics/.

You can get a further boost of good news and an update on the ministry of the church worldwide and Bible translation by watching some of the segments from the recent Wycliffe Global Alliance Global Connect, a virtual gathering of Alliance personnel from around the world. Colleagues from around the world share testimonies of God at work in extraordinarily difficult places, reports on new developments in Bible translation training and practice, prayer and music in multiple languages. It’s worth watching and will serve as a reminder of just how big our God is! 
https://www.wycliffe.net/more-about-what-we-do/events/global-connect-2022-event-handbook/

Backtracking a bit, Tom and I were traveling in September, just before I went to the UK. We were in Holland, Michigan together for several days and got to visit friends and our original sending church. Then Tom and our friend Kevin Becker took off for a week of adventure in South Dakota, Kevin’s original home state. Traveling in Kevin’s truck, they took in the Black Hills, Badlands, the Buffalo Roundup, and brought home a good amount of South Dakota dust…yet claimed it was a time of great refreshment. I stayed in Holland, enjoying the hospitality of Judy Becker and visiting other assorted friends and supporters and also kept up with work…for the most part. We are grateful for longtime friends and encouragers. Thank you to all of you, in Holland and elsewhere! We also made a quick visit to my parents. Daddy was in the hospital for several days. A first for him. He is doing better, but not fully recovered. And Mother celebrated her 91^st birthday. This month they celebrate 70 years of marriage! We are grateful for their love and example. And grateful for your prayers for all our family!

Gratefulness is the theme at this time of year. We seek to be grateful all year, but with the approach of Thanksgiving and the Christmas holidays, we turn our hearts and minds even more to considering all for which we are thankful. Our friends, work that we can enter into with our whole hearts, our families, and all God has provided…. first and foremost, the gift and sacrifice of His Son. We, who are totally undeserving, are swept up in His love, held fast in His hand. Our Anchor holds.  

Tom and Susan

August 2022

Continuing on the boat theme in our newsletter…

Capsized. A funny word with possibly serious repercussions. It is usually used in reference to boats and ships overturning, upset, turned over. No one is quite sure where the word originated, but it may be from Spanish (capuzar) or Catalan (cabussar), meaning to thrust (the head) underwater. It is not normally done on purpose.

After six years of living here in Virginia and many years of sailing dreams, Tom finally got to take his tiny boat out. He and our friend Riely set sail last Saturday. Riely is in the Coast Guard and Tom is experienced with boats so we would have been fairly confident…except for the leaky condition of Tom’s bargain boat. And sure enough they capsized, not once, but thrice! And on turning for home when they realized the hull was filling with water, the tiller broke. They survived to tell their soggy tales. At one upset they realized it was shallow enough to stand. And even when out of their depth they were able to get the boat upright. They had some good sailing moments and came into the dock in a style reminiscent of Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean when his boat sinks as he steps onto the dock. But men and boat made it home. Wish we had photos.

I share this story, partly because it is humorous, partly because Tom finally got to sail! And we are grateful to the Creator of winds and waves, sailors, and seas for safe passage. We often capsize on life’s journey. Sometimes we land on our feet, happy to touch sand. Sometimes we thrash about and struggle to come right again. Often, we remind ourselves that our boat could be in better shape. And then there are times of serious struggle when only God can see us safely to shore. We are lifted on His mercy, carried by His grace. Our current capsizings are small, and sometimes even humorous. Often, we are more swamped than overturned. But we know many around us near to home and across the globe are caught in storms, gasping for breath, holding on for dear life…or learning to let go. Whatever our situation, how glorious to know we have a God who watches over us, who stretches out His hand, who holds on even when we can’t.

Well, we have done a bit of traveling besides Tom’s Boating Adventure. Thanks for keeping us in your prayers! Tom spent a week in Peru last month, participating in the Wycliffe Global Alliance Americas Area meetings. It is such a blessing to be meeting with colleagues face-to-face again! There’s a new Area Director and numerous new team members so it was a great time of building relationships and looking to the future. The Bible translation movement is capturing the hearts and enthusiasm of churches across Central and South America. There are 39 Wycliffe organization in the Americas Area, which also includes North America and the Caribbean, all working to see translated Scriptures available. You can meet the new Director, David Cardenas, and get a glimpse of what’s going on in the Americas at  Setting the Table - Wycliffe Global Alliance. Tom was privileged to help with Spanish to English translation, catch up with colleagues he serves with his tech skills, and visit the land of his birth! (He was born in Peru, but the family moved to Bolivia when he was just 9 months old.) 

I didn’t travel near as far, but spent a week in Orlando for our first Global Leadership Team face-to-face meeting in 2 ½ years! What a blessing to meet with colleagues new and old and to talk through how we see God at work and look to His guidance for the future of the Alliance. You can always learn more about the Alliance on Wycliffe.net, too. There’s too much to tell in our newsletters! In October, I’ll be traveling to the UK for meetings with colleagues at the Oxford Center for Mission Studies. More about that next time.

We mentioned in our last newsletter that Josh and Heather and the girls were going to be moving out here. They did! What we didn’t mention, because we didn’t know it yet, is that they are expecting a baby in October! No surprise to them, but it was to us! No wonder there was a sudden urgency for a bigger than 700 sq.ft. home! We are all very excited and are also enjoying having them just 40 minutes away. Pray as they continue to get settled. It was a big move after all their years in Colorado and it is taking some adjustment to being homeowners, of course! I spent a week in New York with Kate and Jordan and family earlier this month. They are all doing well in the midst of a challenging ministry in challenging times. 

We saw my parents earlier this summer. Mother continues to teach a Bible study and Daddy lends a hand in the landscaping efforts where they live. We also saw more family this month when Tom’s sister, Ali, husband Steve, their adult kids, Jack, Mark, and Kelsey and her husband John and their three kids all came to visit! Such a treat. Kate and Jordan and crew came down, too, and stayed at Josh and Heather’s. So, we had a real family reunion. A rare thing with everyone so scattered and busy!

Thank you as always for your prayers and support. You help keep us afloat! We are so grateful for each one of you and keep you in our prayers. Do continue to pray for the ministry of Bible translation as we participate together in God’s mission to reach the world with His Word. 

So much to learn and so much to live! As I close this letter, I have just now discovered that Spurgeon wrote a grand sermon called There Go the Ships, based on Psalm 104: 26. “Here is the sea, great and wide, which teems with creatures innumerable, living things both small and great. There go the ships, and Leviathan, which you formed to play in it.”

“That is how the ships go. There are many mysteries about them, and there are many in us. God makes us go by the gales of his Spirit. Oh, that we may be trim for going buoyant, and ft to be moved, and so make a grand voyage to heaven with Christ at the helm” Charles Spurgeon

Giving glory to the God of the gales and of the capsized,

 

 

Tom and Susan

the Alliance Americas team, meeting in Peru

reunion

r

April 2022

Greetings,

What a hope we have! Even in the darkest times, we see the light of Christ shining through and His Church reflecting that light and hope. I want to encourage you to read the following stories from personal friends and colleagues who direct the work of Alliance Organizations in Romania, Slovakia, Poland and Hungary. They are all deeply involved in ministering to the 100s of thousands of Ukrainians pouring over their borders. Our Alliance Organizations in these countries are small, but they are giving it everything they’ve got and are working in collaboration with many other organizations and local churches. Their untiring efforts, unity, flexibility, and creativity are examples to us all as they honor God by serving others.    

We are not able to share all that we hear from our organizations in this part of the world. But we do want to share what we can and encourage you to pray with us for all who are involved and who feel the impact of current events. As you read these articles and as you pray, you will want to note the signs of hope—more churches and organizations working together than ever before, an outpouring of generosity of material goods, time, facilities, etc. And what a joy to read of the Deaf church reaching out in support of the Ukrainian Deaf, and the Roma church ministering to the Roma of Ukraine…there was a time we barely dared dream of a Roma church!

https://www.wycliffe.net/news/

With God nothing is impossible and with God, good will come from what man intends for evil.

Since this is our first letter of the year, we have a bit of catching up to do! At the end of November, I took my first long distance trip (not counting two trips to meet with colleagues in Mexico) since Covid shut-downs. It was an intense week, meeting about future structures and strategies with our Executive Director and three other colleagues from our leadership team. It was wonderful to meet face-to-face. The four of us who had flown in for the event found it difficult to leave…seriously difficult. The day before we were scheduled to leave, the news of the new Covid strain was announced…in South Africa…and shut-downs hit once again. It was another week before I could get a flight out. But we were all well cared for and in good company at our hotel. I could have done without the 40+ hours online and on the phone trying to get a flight out, but it was still all worthwhile.

Christmas arrived quickly after my week’s delay getting home. We greatly enjoyed having Kate and Jordan and the kids with us this year. Such fun! Other family news: we are all (Tom and I, Kate and Jordan and crew, and Josh and Heather and crew) going to Tennessee to see my parents later in April. We are excited about the whole family being together. My parents are doing well. Like much of the world, they had a bout with Omicron a few months ago, but came through fine.  Mother is teaching a Bible study every two weeks at their retirement complex, so she is in her element! Daddy is eagerly getting back to some gardening. 

Our biggest family news is that Josh and Heather and their girls are moving…to Williamsburg! Just 40 minutes from us! Such a lovely surprise none of us had dared imagine. They will finally have their own home and we are so thrilled they found it out here. We’ve seen the house twice, but they won’t see it until they actually move in June. Pray for good transitions.

Tom is busy and weary, as usual! He’s still juggling his Wycliffe web work and his part-time maintenance guy job. He was able to take a few weeks off the maintenance work so he could work on a couple of our own much-needed repair jobs! We made good progress in the kitchen and he’s been working long and hard on the complete redo of the upstairs bath. We are not there yet, but he had to go back to his other job again this week. Pray for much-needed stamina and that at some point he will be able to quit the second job…and that we will finish our current projects. We are getting a pretty steady flow of houseguests again and would like to serve them well.

We were privileged to host two work colleagues for a few days…in person, not on Zoom! Phil Prior, from the UK, who took on my former role in Communication, and Jim Killam, from Illinois, who serves as the primary journalist for the Alliance. We had good meetings and some fun as well, meeting up with former colleagues, Dawn and Nate Kruger, who now also live in Virginia.

There have been several highlights in my work this past month. I sat in on (via Zoom) a week of orientation and interaction with some of our newest Alliance Organization leaders.   It was energizing to see their hearts for service, their enthusiasm for serving together, and their willingness to learn. There were about 18 leaders from approx. 15 countries.

Another highlight was a week in a Collaboration Consultation (also on Zoom). 10 Alliance leaders, from 10 countries, spent several hours each morning (well, morning in my time zone) thinking and talking about what it looks like to serve in community and collaboration in a global context. It is wonderful to see so much evidence of God at work through His people around the world.

We appreciate your ongoing prayers for the ministry of Bible translation around the world, for those serving in challenging situations, as well as for our family and our ongoing service. We are so grateful for you. We pray for you, that you will know Christ’s presence, grow in grace among His people, and walk this world in hope as a reflection of His light and an example of His love. 

Tom and Susan

  The soon-to-be Williamsburg crew
  (on their most recent visit here) 
  Aurélie 7, Wynnie10

The New York crew—Jude 6, Chloe 2, Winslow 7, Noah 5