This story was in the Solomon Star Newspaper last Saturday:

PRIME Minister Dr Derek Sikua has endorsed 2008 as the Year of the Bible.

This was after he met with a delegation from Solomon Islands Christian Association (SICA) and Solomon Islands Full Gospel Association (SIFGA), Wednesday this week.

The church groups met the prime minister at his request.

The endorsement of 2008 as the Year of the Bible coincides with the planned launch of the Solomon Islands pijin bible this year.

Martha Matzke of Solomon Islands Translation Advisory Group (SITAG) said the launch of the pijin bible is an important achievement for the country.

“The pijin bible will give many Solomon Islanders access to God’s word in a language that is easy for them to understand,†Mrs Matzke said.

“In addition, New Testaments will also be launched in the Natqgu language of Santa Cruz and Wala language spoken on Malaita,†she said.

Mrs Matzke said SICA and SIFGA have been planning for the year of the Bible and are outlining activities that will celebrate the arrival of the pijin bible.

They were also encouraging bible study and raise the awareness of the importance of God’s word.

“A working group has been formed to carry out the plans,†she said.

She added that Prime Minister Sikua was very supportive of the Government declaring 2008 The Year of the Bible.

Dr Sikua had given his Minister of Home Affairs, James Tora, the task of drawing up a cabinet paper for presentation.

The document is expected to be completed by next week when it will go to cabinet for final approval.

The document, to be approved as The Year of the Bible, is a part of the stated government policy.

The Solomon Islands Philatelic bureau has chosen to honour The Year of the Bible with a stamp commemorating 30 Years of Bible translation in this country.

The stamp will be issued on Independence Day.

Mrs Matzke said during the church groups audience with Dr Sikua, they prayed for him and presented him with the plan for the Year of the Bible.

This is the first time for The Year of the Bible to be declared in Solomon Islands.

The Solomon Islands has beautiful postage stamps. For the past five years we have been in talking with the Philatelic bureau about producing a commemorative stamp to recognize the importance of Bible translation in the Solomon Islands.

The churches of the Solomon Islands have declared 2008, the Year of the Bible. With the Pijin Bible coming out on July 7 2008 – the 30th anniversary of the Independence for the Solomon Islands, the timing is perfect.

I guess the Philatelic stamp committee agreed. We are finally getting our stamp and the first day of issue will be on Independence Day. Our colleague, Robin, drew this rough sketch which a professional artist will use to produce the final stamp. We are pretty excited about this project which we hope will honor God’s Word and be an encouragement to our national friends who work so hard on Bible translation.

I honestly never thought we would go back to homeschooling Emily, but here we are again. In December Emily graduated from grade 9 at the international school here. Grade 9 is as high as this school goes, so we had to make some decisions in regard to Emily’s schooling. In this photo, Emily is performing a science experiment in our kitchen.

Emily is now enrolled in NorthStar Academy – a Christian online high school program designed to accomodate MK’s (missionary kids) like Emily. Emily’s classmates are literally all around the world. So far she is enjoying it. We are thankful for an educational solution that works for Emily and allows us to continue to minister here.

We are VERY thankful to a friend who teaches at NorthStar who is donating her salary toward scholarships for MK’s like Emily. In fact, all of Emily’s tuition has been met! God’s people using their gifts and talents to help get God’s Word out to those who don’t have it in their own language. How cool is that?

Sometimes we see interesting signs here. A few weeks ago Emily wanted to go to a Chinese shop where she could get her ears pierced.




The sign on the door didn’t instill a lot of peace of mind, but Emily bravely got her ears pierced!

The girls are now on school holiday. We’ve had a busy week and just felt like doing something different tonight. So we went out to eat at a Chinese restaurant. That was fun but rather than just go home we decided to drive around and see the Christmas lights – ours!

We live on the edge of a valley so we drove to the other side of the valley to see if we could see our own Christmas lights. Sure enough in the distance we could just make out the colored flashing lights at our house. Decorating a house with lights is not done here so our lights are a bit of a novelty.

The other night Tim and I went to a function and as we were leaving we were surprised to see a tall evergreen tree in the distance flashing with red lights. So to night we went exploring as a family to see if we could discover where the tree was. It didn’t take us too long to find the tree and along the way we were rewarded with another house with a string of lights.

Yes, it’s been another exciting Saturday night in Honiara!

Recently an exciting new project got started here in the Solomons. An organization called, “Faith Comes by Hearing” has come to record the Pijin New Testament in a dramatized audio form. This is the first such project in the Solomons.

A woman named Priscilla came from Papua New Guinea to manage the project and Jesu is here from India to serve as the technician. In the photo to the right the man in the middle is Alex who is serving as the proofreader.

A number of professional readers have agreed to help with the bigger reading parts. Last week the man to the left was the sports announcer for a big soccer tournament. This week he is reading the part of ‘Paul’ – the largest part of the New Testament. A number of our friends have auditioned and gotten parts in the reading.

The brightly colored background is mattresses to form a ‘recording studio’.

This project is expected to take 8-10 full weeks to complete the recording. Editing and adding music and sound effects will be completed overseas. Faith Comes by Hearing is working hard to have this recording finished at the same time that the Pijin Bible is launched in July of 2008.

The recordings will be available in cd’s, personal mp3 players as well as a special solar-powered mp3 player called a ‘Proclaimer’. This device will play for 15 hours on one charge and can be heard by a large group of people. You can learn more about it at:
www.faithcomesbyhearing.org.

Pray for this project which has already experienced some set backs with viruses on computers and other frustrations.

Christmas has arrived at our house. Over the weekend we set up our Christmas tree and decorated the house.

With the help of some crayons that I melted, I’ve managed to add a colored layer to the candles. They aren’t perfect, but all things considered, we are pretty pleased with the results.

A few weeks ago, Tim travelled to the Langalanga Lagoon on the island of Malaita. An area of small villages nestled on the edge of the picturesque waterway is home to speakers of the Wala Language. With little land and the sea at their doorsteps, these people depend on the sea for their livelihood. Christianity came to the Wala people about one hundred years ago, but in early 2008 they will finally have a New Testament in their own language.

Tim has been working with Wala speakers to produce a reading primer book which will be used to teach people how to read and write their language. This last week Tim returned to the Lagoon with the newly printed reading primer to hold a training workshop for teachers. There are now 35 teachers who are ready to start beginning reading classes in their home communities. We hope many Wala speakers who don’t know how to read today will be in the beginning stages of reading by the time the New Testament is ready to be launched early next year.

Tim has held many teacher training workshops around the country, but this one a bit special. In addition to the participants who attended the workshop, Tim invited literacy trainers from the Literacy Association of the Solomon Islands to come along as well. This committed group of people are serving in communities around the Solomons, training teachers and overseeing literacy projects. They are in the capital city for a few weeks to attend their Annual General Meeting and have been getting refresher training themselves. Going to the Wala workshop with Tim provided an opportunity for some good refresher training for them and they also helped supervise the teacher trainees in small practice groups.

Both the teacher trainees and the literacy supervisors found the workshop very helpful and are excited to use their newly attained skills.

With the impending launch of the Pijin Bible next July, we are looking for ways to promote the Pijin Bible. We have an exciting new project that is about to start. An organization called Faith Comes by Hearing (www.faithcomesbyhearing.org) will be making a dramatized recording of the entire Pijin New Testament.

The New Testament will be available in cd’s as well as the mp3 format. Faith Comes by Hearing has developed special mp3 players called “Proclaimers” which feature a solar panel for charging. The Proclaimer can be played for 15 hours on one charge and up to 300 people can listen at one time! Individual mp3 players with the New Testament will also be available.

In the next week we are expecting a woman from Papua New Guinea and another from India to come help with the recording of this project. We appreciate prayers for this important project which will make the audio Pijin New Testament available to Solomon Islanders.

This morning I went to a factory where coconut soap products are made. A factory employee walked into the office where I was buying the soap and I realized I knew him from somewhere. I told him I remembered his face, but couldn’t remember where I knew him from. I was a little embarrassed when he said I knew him from the national prison. Sure enough, he was in the first literacy class that I helped start at the prison. (He is the man in the red shirt in this photo taken several years ago.)

I asked him if he was continuing with his reading and he said he was. He asked about the Pijin Bible and I was able to tell him that the it would be available in July of 2008. I told him he should start saving his money now so he would be able to buy the Bible.

The woman selling me the soap jumped in at that point and said she was really looking forward to the Bible coming out and wanted to buy one. Then she looked at me and said in an excited voice, “You aren’t the ones that are producing that Bible program on the radio, are you???” After further questioning, I realized that the Christian radio station must be reading on the air, the Pijin newspaper page that I have been producing each week!

When I got home I called the station manager and sure enough she and the other announcers are reading the Bible page on the radio. The manager is encouraging the announcers to practice reading the Pijin so they can read it well and to read the Scripture reading and other items on the page on their shift on the radio. The manager was encouraged to hear that people are enjoying hearing the Bible page read. Yesterday I was blessed to hear that one of the national radio announcers is currently seeking funding for a radio spot designated to the reading the Pijin Bible page on
that station.

Today my heart is full of joy and gratitude. It’s so satisfying to know that the Bible page is going into the hands of thousands of people each Tuesday, but to know that even more people are hearing it read is just a thrill. It’s all extra ‘fruit’ that I never even anticipated. It was a real blessing to have that word of encouragement today!I trust that you are encouraged by it too.