"American" Suburban Mom meets Bible Translation - Part 1

Today was a good day.  You might call it "Craft Day" around here.  For those of you who know us and know our kids, give me a moment to indulge in catching you up on what we've done today.  If you stick with me I promise to let you know WHAT spurred me on to post these pictures and WHY I felt the need to do it.  It'll be quite a string.  You ready?

Okay, so this one doesn't really have much to do with what I want to say, but her face just cracks me up.  I let her go crazy with an index card and stickers and this is her final piece.  She was so proud of it she asked me if she could put it up on the "fridgelator" right away.

This morning started off with a wagon ride (a favorite of the girls) where we looked for anything we could find to put in our "nature box".  Once we had gathered all our "treasures", we put them all together to make this beautiful naturesque diorama.  Acácia added the little pony and Eliana added the cell phone...I think she wanted to make sure Little Pony wouldn't be caught without a line to the outside world.  The feather in the sky is supposed to be storm clouds (per Acácia).

We made some animals out of cut-out hearts.  First picture is a seal and an owl which Acácia so expertly helped me glue together.  She then thought the seal needed a mouth with a tongue sticking out of it...as well as an added belly, complete with belly button.

Lion.  Okay, the one thing that is NOT a heart is the tail.  BUT!  There is a heart to "end the tail".

Not to be out-done by her big sis, Eliana grabbed a black permanent marker that her mother (ahem...I mean, I) left out and then proceeded to decorate a nearby heart.  In the process, she also decided our white vinyl tablecloth ALSO needed a little jazzing up.  I'll admit I'm pretty proud of her creation.

Lest you think that making these little creatures was all my own creative thinking (ha!), let me give honor to where honor is due.  Last week I happened upon a website called Mother's Bible.  It was on this site, that I read about how this mom found this (see picture below) book, by Michael Hall, and turned it into a craft for her kids.  After seeing the book on her site, I found it at our local library.

Please forgive the wrong orientation.  My computer WILL NOT let me rotate this and I refuse to spend more time trying.

Now for the point of this post.  This Mother's Bible website is the coolest thing.  What first intrigued me was her posts on how her family (she has 5 kids) recently finished praying through the book From Arapesh to Zuni: A Book of Bibleless Peoples.  It happens to be a book put out by Wycliffe that goes through each letter of the alphabet which stands for a specific Bibleless People group.  It is complete with vividly colorful pictures that keep ME mesmerized.  For each people group she took the time to share how she went about helping the kids actively engage with each group.  Click here to see what she did with K - the Kola Lapp.  Here for P - the Padaung.  If you have kids at home (or even if you don't!), take some time to browse through this site and think how may be able to do it yourself!  Let me know if you're interested in snagging a copy of the book. 

While you may be thinking that I titled this post "Suburban Mom Meets Bible Translation" because I was referencing the mom who put together the Mother's Bible website (can you tell yet by all the linking that I want you to go there?), I am in fact talking about myself.  At this point in life, I have to consider myself pretty much suburban "American" (American in quotes because I believe I think more like an American than a Brazilian, even though my passport confirms I wasn't born here).  "But you are a missionary with Wycliffe Bible Translators!" you might say.  Well, yeah, but my life looks very similar to anyone else living in this country.  I have running water, our house has three bedrooms and is fully outfitted with finished floors.  I have so many books I can hardly find a place for them.  I have plenty to eat.  I don't have to kill my own chickens and my food mainly gets to my house transported by car straight from the grocery store.  Outside of trying to live life with as little air-conditioning as possible, my lifestyle screams suburban American.  It is not to say I am not grateful for all these things.  Lord knows I am.  I do, however, realize that I have a hard time truly relating and putting myself in the shoes of people who don't even have a written language, let alone God's written Word.  I often think that we can pray more effectively when we are more fully informed (not always...but generally speaking).

So while we are here in our US-based assignment, the Lord keeps showing me new ways that I (along with my family) can be more fully and actively involved in the task of Bible translation.  Stay tuned for Part 2! 

And now I leave you with one final picture.  My favorite animal creation of all, in his natural habitat.  Acácia added the legs ALL BY HERSELF.  Love it!  And, I'm sure that moose is very thankful as he can now see over the clouds.