Monday, June 12, 2017

Matthew to the Mum

We're going to be printing Matthew soon!
This is a definite bonus to working on a project already started! The book was pretty close to being completed. You may recall that I helped in village checking in Feb 2016, but I totally had no part in drafting or revising or advisor checks or anything, but it's nearly done and I get the honor of helping it over the finish line!

So here's the deal. The dedication is scheduled for the end of July 2018.
The missionary who worked with the Mum before me has agreed to come be the guest speaker at the dedication! And that's when it fits into his schedule!
Now if you know anything about the printing process (I certainly didn't), you know you should never never set the dedication date before you have the printed book in your hand (whoops!) as that just invites everything to go wrong and stress and freaking out and so on and so forth. (We'll be needing a lot of prayers.)
So here's what needs to get done:
We need to finish the part where the Scripture gets read aloud to the community to see if there are any problems with the naturalness of the language used. We need to discuss all the suggested changes.
We need to check spellings and renderings on the maps, glossary, and list of New Testament Books going in the preface.
We need to pick all the illustrations and caption them. 
That's it!
THEN, we need to get it to typesetting. We're hoping to do this in August. We'll only be spending two weeks in town and it can take a month, so we're shooting for two weeks and will resume in October if we need two more.
THEN, we send it to the printers in Ukarumpa. That could take 1-3 months depending on what other orders the printers have pending.
THEN, we need to get it to Katiati. That could also take a month.

So we have a year to finish a process that could take 5 months! That's PLENTY of time!
Right? Right?

So here are the current challenges.
We need our house tobe done before we can go back to the village and it's NOT!
The PLAN was to get our pre-typesetting to-do list done in 4 weeks, before the translators went out to celebrate the Mborena Kam dedication during the last couple of weeks of our village stay. (Which is awesome! They should totally celebrate and be encouraged by the completion of the Mbore's New Testament!) But the delay on our house will put a delay on the trip which will trim that 4 weeks down…
Are you starting to feel the panic!?!
It's not a deal breaker, but it's certainly cutting into my buffer zone.

So let's be in prayer about this going smoothly.

In the GREAT news, the publishing of the Gospel of Matthew, the shipping to Katiati, the dedication feast, the sd cards for the audio recording, the study guides and pencils, the course on Biblical reading literacy, everything has been fully covered by The Rising, a church in Norfolk, VA! Praise God! Now we just need to get to a place to put that money to its intended use. Prayers please!

Also, what's not fully funded is us. These helicopter rides to the village are a pretty penny. Can you help bring Matthew to the Mum by sending us out to the village?


No comments: