"Liar's Club"

On Friday evening, we met up with the "Liar's Club" -- a group that gets together for hot dogs and snacks under an awning in the campground (the sign says "M-F", but we only found that it met on Friday evenings).

It was fun to get together with other folks from the campus to share stories and laugh!

I also got to meet up with a friend I had met when I was living at the ILC - Peggy - and we got to catch up. She spent much of her working life teaching school in Alaska, so we talked a lot about a trip there!

Helping out in the Dining hall

One day last week, the fellow that works the "dish pit" had the day off, so Susie asked if we'd be willing to help out there. Carl had had experience working the "dish pit" at his uncle's "Mr Steak" restaurant, so he picked up on what we needed to do quickly!

Looking in on Carl at-work from the window where folks turn in their trays, dishes, utensils, etc. -- his hand is on the mechanism that we use to close the dishwasher.

Rinsing before putting on the racks that go through the washer.

Drying some of the items after they had gone through the dishwasher

Putting some items through the dishwasher

We still had a few shelving units to clean -- so we did those one sunny afternoon.

This one we could take the shelf pieces off and individually pressure wash them.

Before we took this unit out, Carl took a picture so we'd have a chance of getting the items put back in similar locations!

This Dawn product was really outstanding for cutting through greasy dirt on kitchen surfaces. One of the fellows that we sat with at break said that you could make it yourself, so I looked up information on that and found a Youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdsmMUO69IU

Just a little more cleaning inside the kitchen before our week was done!

We are thankful that we could help out in a small way while here on the campus!

Bible translation progress by the Skittles!

Whenever we return to the ILC, I love hearing how God is progressing His work in Bible translation. Vanay has Skittles in jars to illustrate Bible translation progress...

739 languages (representing 5.9 billion people) have the complete Bible in their heart language
1665 languages (representing 825 million people) have a complete New Testament in their heart language
1255 languages (representing 100M people) need translation projects started

This is the most amazing jar from our visit this year -- the skittles no longer fit into the other sized jar! 3766 languages have work in progress -- Bible translation, Language development, and/or Scripture engagement. This means that a lot fewer languages (just 1255) now need translation projects started!

Some data points from ProgressBible (https://progress.bible/data/):

The most important component, in which we can *all* engage, is prayer!

Torah scroll

When we were up at the Mahler Building, we got to see the case that Team SIL volunteers in the woodworking shop had built to display one of the Torah scrolls that DIU (Dallas International University) has.

Case made by Team SIL Dallas volunteers

The scroll was turned back to Genesis as we have just started the new year in the Jewish calendar (I blogged about this back in 2019: https://trekincartwrights.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-rolling-of-scroll.html).

Genesis 1

We used Google Lens on our phone's camera and got a confirmation that we were, indeed, seeing the beginning. You may note that the translation is pretty rough -- thus the need for human involvement in translation!

I had blogged back when I was here on campus in 2019 when I sat in on a Beginning Hebrew class, that what I wanted to learn is to recognize the characters for "God" in Hebrew scripture (https://trekincartwrights.blogspot.com/2019/09/elohim.html).

So, I looked at the picture I took (the one posted above), and I found Elohim in the scripture (I highlighted it in yellow in this copy of the picture).

If you click on the picture, I think your device will show you a bigger version of the picture -- can you find additional instances of Elohim in this passage? I found 4 additional instances in that first section (I don't think it is called "paragraph" but I cannot recall what it is called). A great reminder that this is a book by and about God!

New New Testaments

When we visited with Doug on Monday, he mentioned that some new New Testaments would be entering the bookshelves on Tuesday morning. We were already planning to be at the Mahler building on Tuesday to visit with Vanay, so we arrived a little early to be able to celebrate these new translations!!!

Six new New Testaments were being placed on the bookshelves this month! 

The languages were "MARMA" of Bangladesh, "SAMO, MATYA", "SAMO MAYA", "WINYE'" of Burkino Faso, "AROP-LOKEP" of Papua New Guinea, and "KARAO" of the Phillipines.

Each of these New Testaments represents a people group who have previously *not* had scripture in their own language. The New Testament may represent years or decades of work being done by translation specialists working alongside native language speakers to bring God's word in the heart language of these people groups.

Carl opening the upper bookcase where the Bangladesh New Testament will be placed. These bookcases hold copies of each New Testament for which members of SIL have had a part in the translation project.

Uhm, it needs to go on the top shelf... we may need someone with longer arms!

Thankfully, Doug was also there. His height and long arms can do the job!

Carl placed the three New Testaments for Burkino Faso.

We celebrated as each new New Testament was placed as it represented another people group having access to God's Word in their language!

The "B"s completed...

Moving on to place the new New Testament for Papua New Guinea. PNG has a large number of New Testaments as nearly every village speaks a different language.

And I placed the last one in the Philippines.

All in place!

How exciting to get to be there for this time of recognition and celebration! Imagine the celebration going on within the people group as they receive their first copy of the New Testament in their language!

Enjoying our time at the ILC

We've been enjoying walking around the campus...

Signs for Dallas International University, International Linguistics Center, and SIL International at the front entrance.

Flags of several countries in front of Mahler Building

Up by the Mahler Building, we ran in to Doug. We went into the Mahler Building and Doug told us about a new mural that has been painted on the wall in the Mahler lobby...

It is a depiction of Psalm 121

Psalm 121

A song of ascents.

¹ I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
    where does my help come from?
² My help comes from the Lord,
    the Maker of heaven and earth.

³ He will not let your foot slip—
    he who watches over you will not slumber;
⁴ indeed, he who watches over Israel
    will neither slumber nor sleep.

⁵ The Lord watches over you—
    the Lord is your shade at your right hand;
⁶ the sun will not harm you by day,
    nor the moon by night.

⁷ The Lord will keep you from all harm—
    he will watch over your life;
⁸ the Lord will watch over your coming and going
    both now and forevermore.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=ps+121&version=NIV 

I think he indicated that there had been a contest with folks suggesting what they would paint on the wall, and this was the winning entry!

We also noticed the new room information signs on the classrooms located in the Mahler building -- really clear to be able to see what is scheduled in the room throughout the day!

It is great to catch up with people and see all the things going on around campus!

Sunday to Frisco

On Sunday, we decided to join a Lynda and Grant, a couple we had met at Lewisville Lake Park Campground, at Stonebriar Community Church. Dwayne and I had visited Stonebriar back in 2009, but it was too far from our home in Coppell for us to consider going there as our home church. Lynda and Grant had visited the previous Sunday, and told us that they had a traditional worship service with organ music -- Carl loves organ music -- so we decided to join them. It would have been easier to get there if we'd been driving from Lewisville, but it wasn't an *awful* drive from the ILC, just a bit longer!

A view of the sanctuary before the service from the highest point in the back

The control board area

The control board

The prelude was provided by a string quartet (well, that's what the order of worship says -- it was 3 stringed instruments and a flute).

The worship was led by the youth choir - they were great!

The organ was played for songs throughout the service, and there was an organ postlude, so Carl thoroughly enjoyed that. We were challenged and encouraged by the message, and appreciated the opportunity to worship with this local body of believers!

Lynda and Grant are visiting in the US for about 6 months from Alberta, Canada. It was interesting that the folks sitting right in front of us in the service were also from Canada (they had lived in Alberta for a while too). We had planned to go out to lunch, and the folks behind us recommended BBQ, and mentioned a BBQ restaurant nearby...

Hutchins BBQ (https://hutchinsbbq.com/)

When we got there, the parking lot was full, and there was a line out the door for dine-in.

When we got inside, we saw the menu. It seemed to just have meats and prices by the pound... I was thinking that this would be appropriate for the take-out, but wasn't sure how to interpret it for dine-in. We asked the folks behind us in line and they said that you tell the server how much you want of the meat for your meal (1/4 lb, 1/2 lb). They said that 1/2 lb was appropriate amount (that sounded like a lot to me!).

While we were waiting in line, a sample tray was passed around -- with sausage and turkey available to try. Yum!

Coming to the front of the order line, we selected our meats... I asked the man there the appropriate amount to order, and he also said 1/2 pound.

There were vegetables that we could serve ourselves -- the folks behind the counter told us that we were charged so-much per container, and we could mix and match what vegetables we put into the container.

We both got chopped brisket, and Carl got additional sausage links. We mixed up our vegetables, and we each got pickles (pickles, onions, and jalapenos were no charge). You may notice tags at the top of the trays - that shows the checkout person the price for the meat based on the poundage of meat you've gotten.

Grant and Lynda got a good selection too!

For dine-in, dessert (peach cobbler and banana pudding and soft-serve ice cream) was included!

A sign inside indicating "House Made" Sausage

The smokers out front

Feeding the smoker

A good find for BBQ!

After lunch, we stopped by to see friends Sharon and Dick in Coppell. Sharon makes bags and uses the pockets from jeans in the making (and the other parts of the jeans too!). I had a pair that needed to be discarded and she was happy to take them! We had a nice visit with them (but forgot to take pictures!).