Featured Returning From the Field

Thanks, Gwen. We certainly did leave part of our hearts there with the Japanese believers. They were so sweet to us, and a huge help.

 

Thanks for asking! "John and Romans" has just been printed for the first time, and is now available for various churches to have their own information added for their own printing.

We are finalizing the remaining books now one by one. Matthew is done and we are working on Mark. I go through and make the final decisions on various renderings in a book, send the files off to my final editor for editing suggestions, proofing and to have the furigana "ruby" translation marks added and have it put into PDF format. It then comes back to me for another proofing then off to our final proofing by Katsuyuki San (who also gives some final style changes).

 

Unfortunately for that idea it doesn't have a single なんじ in it, just あなた. :smilewinkgrin:

 

I did the base translation from Greek into modern Japanese, and "Uncle Miya" Miyakawa was incredibly useful in getting my work into good, clear Japanese for the 2nd draft. We finished that last year after working together every Friday afternoon for about 10 years. Without him the Lifeline NT (ライフライン訳新約聖書) would have been a poor version with many semantic errors in it. (I'm a lot better with Japanese grammar than semantics.)

I'll miss Uncle Miya--unless he can come and visit us like he day-dreamed; but he's in his 80's and on a budget, so I'll probably not see him until Heaven.

 

Thanks for the gracious words. I'll PM you.

 

After over 40 hours in planes and airports and cars, we are kicking back in Myrtle Beach with Patty's sister and brother-in-law. We stopped first here because they had a car some nice people were giving to us, and we'll see our son Paul Saturday. Patty's sister Kathy picked us up yesterday at Charleston Airport. I bought an American éclair in the airport there. Gooey, sweet, sticky and yummy!

The flight from Japan was uneventful, always good on an international flight of almost 13 hours. We landed in Newark only to find out that our Charleston flight was cancelled due to NY weather. We were re-routed to O'Hare and spent the night in the airport because we arrived so late at night. Boy is that airport cold at night! Starbucks opened about 3:00 AM so we warmed up a little then. Had a great American breakfast (no fish or salad) at Chili's, then caught our flight to Charleston where Kathy picked us up.

 

We'll be okay as soon as we buy a scale. :smilewinkgrin:

 

ME! Man oh man. Americans and their food. We had a great roast beef dinner with the folks we're staying with as we visit our son, then just got back from supper and some great fellowship at Texas Roadhouse with our son and our friends Dr. and Mrs. Maurice Robinson (research prof of textual criticism at SEBTS). Couldn't eat a bite more, maybe for days.

Thanks much. :wavey:

 

I thought I'd post an update for all of you who have kindly followed this thread.

Shortly after getting here, my son and I traveled to the Bible Faculty Summit, a meeting of fundamental scholars kind of like a mini-ETS meeting. I presented a paper on Bible translation theory, and Paul presented a paper on didaktikos ("apt to teach" in 1 Tim. 3:2). I'm the See if you can pick us out in the photo: http://biblefacultysummit.org/. I had some good fellowship with Dr. Kevin Bauder, perhaps the leading fundamentalist scholar now that Rod Decker is in Heaven. That was good because we had some differences in the past about my grandfather's role in fundamentalism. Dr. Bauder was quite gracious.

We're pretty well settled in at home. We've bought our furniture and other needed items. We're enjoying American life--lots of foods we couldn't get in Japan. Right now I'm at Starbucks--oh, wait, we had that in Japan! :smilewinkgrin:

My office and my son's office ("Dr. Paul," they call him) are on the same hall, only separated by the Dean's office. It's great to just walk over a few yards and harass him some. We talk in both Japanese and English, amusing the college folk.

They have a block system here rather than semester, so I don't teach until October, giving me lots of time to prepare. I'll be teaching Elem. Greek, Eng. 101 (I speak it like a native) and Survey of Church History in the long (9 week) block, then Pastoral Epistles in the 4th block. Next year looks like a block in Advanced Missions in Jan., then Gr. 202 and who knows what else. I'm lovin' it!

Paul is teaching seminary Hebrew, Hermeneutics and Hebrew History. He's delighted to finally be teaching after getting his PhD over a year ago. Patty is really blossoming now that she doesn't have to speak in such a difficult language to serve God. I'm proud of both of them.

We're also enjoying the church which the college is connected to. It runs about 700. I'll be teaching SS (small group format) starting Sunday to men my age. There will be more men at the table than I ever had in a church in Japan! The pastor, admin and faculty are so gracious. Turns out that my mom and the pastor's mom went to Wheaton College together. My Grandpa Rice married his parents and even gave away the bride, who was an orphan who worked for him at the Sword of the Lord. Also, the pastor's Dad helped get me and my wife together. So there are many family ties.

God is good. :jesus:

 

Thanks, Ann! :wavey: