It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. . .

it was the best of times, it was the worst of times
Today marks nine weeks in Walagu for this village stay. Lots of translation and literacy & curriculum work has been done.
The translators had worked on the first draft of the beginning chapters of Luke’s Gospel. They finished through chapter 10 our first week here. We have completed the second draft with exegetical checks for 8 of those 10 chapters. It is a large amount of work. Chapters 1-4 were village checked mid-way through our time here. Chapters 5-8 will be village checked next week after we leave. I was very pleased with the improved quality of the first draft of Luke. We did make corrections, but mostly the corrections were just minor adjustments to better or clearer language.
Joy, the literacy supervisors, and the trainee elementary teachers have made excellent progress on developing the curriculum. Including this last week, they also got introduced to the editing process. So, for each of us, our work and progress was very encouraging. This encouragement was needed as there were troubles and difficulties otherwise.
One of the main troubles was the condition of the airstrip. It has not been well maintained for a while. Partly because the lawn mowers were dead or dying. Also because of most everyone thinking that it is the responsibility of someone else. Finally, after trying to get some work days to happen, the air strip was officially closed. But we still needed to leave as planned on 16 November. This last week, an amazing amount of work has been done. Some more work is scheduled for Monday, and we think that the plane should make it in ok. Pray for continued sun and for less rain, especially the closer to Tuesday that we get. (That is Monday afternoon/evening Texas time!) .. But mostly, continue to pray that the people can catch the vision of ongoing, consistent work on the airstrip. And pray for a mechanic to be able to come out soon to work on repairing the lawn mowers. And to know what parts and tools to bring, as we do not have a parts store for the mechanic to just run down and get what he forgot to bring!