Robinson Ministry Update December 2024

Robinson ministry update - June 2024

Expanding our Reach: Robinson Ministry update - December 2024

Greetings from Lancaster.

Merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

As we reflect on all that happened in 2024, we are reminded of God’s grace. Not only did he send Jesus to be the Saviour of the world, but he has seen us, sustained us and provided for us all through another year. THANK YOU for participating in our ministry and helping 98 language communities receive scripture in their language, some for the first time and others who have received full Bibles or New Testaments. That represents over 70 Million people!

Recently (though not THAT recently!), we both had an extended trip to South Asia. Firstly to SIL’s International Language Assessment Conference (ILAC-8). The topic was “Making good decisions in language programs.”

Ali presented a plenary session and a seminar, and Tim was busy networking, absorbing new information, meeting team members and supporting various audio-visual needs! It was great to meet many people in person for the first time that we had been emailing and working with online for ages. We both thoroughly enjoyed the chance to catch up with old friends from Nigeria and other parts of the world.

We also enjoyed exploring the local area and sampling the incredibly diverse food that was available within walking distance of the hotel.

Then we both had workshops to attend in the same location. Ali was learning more about the Language and Identity Journey. This is a tool that can be used with language communities that are interested in thinking about the current state of their language and how they want to see it being used in the future. I found it fascinating and I love the way it puts the language community in the driving seat rather than outsiders coming in and telling them what to do.

Tim was learning more about a framework called Outcome Harvesting. This is a process for assessing the impact of projects that goes beyond counting simple things, to investigating what has changed. So much of what we do is about changed lives and that can sometimes be hard to measure. Outcome Harvesting is a framework to do so.

After all that we were ready for a break! We travelled to another country nearby, to a small island where we stayed in simple accommodation and enjoyed some SCUBA diving and snorkelling for a week. We upgraded our SCUBA training to Advanced Open Water during that time. As part of that, we got to do a night dive which was fascinating if a little disconcerting being in the water in the pitch black with only torches to help us.

The snorkelling near our accommodation was amazing and we saw so many different fish and some cool purple giant clams!

After a week back at home Tim was off again on a 3 leg trip to two locations in Europe and then back to Asia. It was a huge privilege to visit one of our translation projects in Europe as they held a dedication for their recently completed scripture portions and books. So great to hear communities taking ownership of their project, and so delighted by the output. It was encouraging to hear from various church leaders as to how they will use the scripture that is now available in their own language.

He was then back for a week and off again for a week to North America to attend a summit hosted by our organisational partner ETEN. Tim found it extremely helpful to better understand them and also great to connect with colleagues in person, rather than only online.

We had the pleasure of having some friends of ours from our time in Nigeria come to stay with us for a week in November. We enjoyed showing them the area, including a day dash to Scotland, taking in a bit of Hadrian’s Wall, Gretna Green and Dumfries.

Tim’s one-year assignment as the Language Program Services Director with Eurasia ended at the end of November. He is exploring continuing to serve with Eurasia in a different capacity, potentially serving in the HR team and helping with security, contingency planning and risk assessments. It may seem a long way from Bible Translation, but there are a whole host of things that are needed to keep teams safe and serving on the field, engaging with language communities. As you can imagine, this is not always an easy task given the state of fallenness our world demonstrates at times.

Ali is exploring the possibility of a tweak to my assignment with the Ethnologue team over the next year. My love of data has been well utilised this past 2 years and I am being invited to take a more active role in leading a team of people dotted all over the world who are specialists in collecting language data.

Dan has had a rough year. He didn’t start his second year of university and continues to struggle to figure out his next steps. He had accommodation already booked in Newcastle and so stayed in the flat with 4 friends and has enjoyed being with them as well as continuing to engage in church and the university Christian Union. He is now home with us for the next 3 months to improve his health and work on how to move forward.

Praise

For Tim’s successful completion of his 1-year assignment with Eurasia Language Services.
For those language communities with first or new scripture access.