The Cray family is back in Ba Illi after a year’s leave and contacts with the Ndam are better than ever. There is a high school in Ba Illi and four young men from an Ndam village are there for the school year.

They are interested in the translation and have all taken copies, including and especially the Transitional

An Ndam woman

 Primer. One of the men can read the Ndam text and they are helping William to test and improve the work in Exodus. William has been revising their earlier work which includes the first four chapters and parts of several others. He hopes to get his translation helper up soon to carry on the work with Exodus.

There is a tradition in West Africa that once God was near to people. But one day, a woman was pounding our her grain in her mortar and lifted her heavy wooden pestle too high striking God in the nose. He took offense and went away. William has heard an Ndam elder tell this story as well. It is interesting to see the parallels between this and the story of the Fall in Genesis: that the action of a woman seems to be the cause of God’s absence, and that once it was not so.

The Creation and Fall accounts have been translated into Ndam, so pray that the workers will be able to share these stories and teach the people about how we have come by our tendency to do what is right in our own eyes.

Thank you for praying.

PRAYER POINTS

• Praise for the safe return of the Crays and good contacts.
• Pray for opportunities to use stories in the local culture to share the Gospel.
• Pray that God will use the translation work to reach the Ndam.
• Pray that the Lord would give to the Ndam people the gift of repentance and faith.