An update from Tim & Chris Gilmore, CCCC members serving under Wycliffe Bible Translators, working with a team to translate the Bible into eight languages of Tanzania.
Something to Rejoice About
On Easter Sunday, we celebrated the Empty Tomb! This whole season — the Passover, the Cross, and the Resurrection — was the ultimate reminder of God’s love for us, and our family celebrated big-time! Since we’re in East Africa, there wasn’t a ham dinner. There were no Easter baskets filled with chocolate Easter bunnies; but what we did have was a beautiful sunrise and something to rejoice about. At dawn, we went to gather with others to watch the sunrise over a part of Lake Victoria while we sang praise songs and read passages from the Bible. Later in the morning, we attended a Tanzanian church service in our community. There was lots of music and dancing followed by a feast of rice and goat meat — oh, and most importantly, a bottle of soda for each member of the congregation!
In addition to celebrating the empty tomb, our team has been rejoicing over all of the progress that’s being made in the area of Bible translation. A number of books are being translated: Acts, 1 Corinthians, 1 Timothy and Revelation, to name a few. The thing that everyone’s been talking about, however, is the debut of the JESUS FILM in two of the languages that we’re working with (Zanaki and Kabwa). We are still excited about this event which was so recent.
On a more personal note, we Gilmores are rejoicing over a number of things. First of all, we’re still so relieved that Tim’s health is back! He was so very sick for a number of months, and we are still praising God for his recovery. Another thing to be thankful about is the fact that Camden and Tirzah were home with us for almost the entire month of April. It was fun to be together at such an exciting time for our family — and just to clue you in, here are the top three “excitements” happening right now:
1. Chris’s dad (Pastor Dave Hinrichs) and nephew (Rylan Setness) will be visiting us this June!
2. Camden will be graduating from High School on July 17.
3. The five of us will be flying to America for a 5-month furlough July 23–January 4.
Yes, it’s true. Thanks to the help of so many of you, we were able to purchase our airplane tickets this month. Hallelujah! What fun it will be to be able to visit churches, friends, and family during those months! It will be a nice distraction for us as we deal with the sadness of parting ways with Camden, who will be remaining in America and starting at Taylor University in August.
Choosing Just One Chapter
A young man came to visit recently. His name is Emmanuel and he came to thank us, actually, because we’ve been helping him to attend Majahida Bible Training School. We spent the afternoon talking about how excited he was about his upcoming graduation and his assignment as an evangelist for a church in a nearby village.
Though we were speaking in Swahili together, at some point in the conversation we were reminded that Emmanuel’s heart language (the language he feels most at home with, so to speak) was Sukuma. When this came to mind, Tim asked him if he’d ever heard a recording of the New Testament in the Sukuma language. Suddenly, Emmanuel became excited and got even more excited when he found out that we owned a copy (put out by Faith Comes By Hearing) and we could even upload a section of it onto his cell phone right then and there!
After all of this excitement, we found ourselves disappointed when Tim saw that the memory available on his phone was so small that he only had room for one chapter. “What chapter of the New Testament should I give you?” Tim asked. Without a moment’s hesitation, Emmanuel answered, “Naomba Luka sura ya nne!” (I’d like Luke chapter four!) Tim uploaded the passage onto his phone… and then there he sat, with the phone to his ear, listening with great concentration to every word. He was so very pleased — and we were struck. We were struck by a number of things, I think, but most of all by Emmanuel’s certainty of which chapter he wanted. By the way he answered, we knew that this must be a much-treasured passage to him. But why?
When he had finished listening to the whole chapter, we asked Emmanuel to explain what was so special to him about Luke chapter 4. He explained that this is the chapter in the Bible which documents the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry on earth and that that’s exactly what he wants to have on his mind as he begins his own ministry as a church evangelist. He wants to remember the difficult times of temptation and testing that Jesus went through. He wants to remember the words Jesus read (and fulfilled) from the book of Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor…” and he wants to be reminded that even Jesus experienced rejection by the very people he came to serve and to save.
Wow! What an appropriate passage for this young man to be meditating on, and how wonderful that he’s treasuring the Word of God in this way. The whole experience encouraged us to not grow weary of this task of Bible translation. We think of how many others are out there, waiting and ready to treasure God’s Word in the same way that Emmanuel does, and we want to persevere until the task is complete!
A Few Prayer Requests
• Praise God with us that we were able to raise enough money for airplane tickets for all five of us. For a while there, it looked like just two of us would be going but then God surprised us when the whole amount came in at the last minute!
• Pray for Camden as he makes preparations for attending college — and that he would be given enough financial aid to be able to afford going!
Thank you so much for your interest and support for what God is doing in Tanzania!
Until all have heard,
Tim & Chris Gilmore
Camden, Tirzah, and Braden
Musoma, Tanzania
