God's Hand in every detail of the timing
Rebecca Preheim woke up last Monday morning thinking it would be like any other day. She had a huge to-do list, but after all, she still had 2½ weeks left in the tribe—plenty of time to get everything done before heading out for Christmas break.
There was something really big coming up, Rebecca says. The Mengen translation process had been long and exhausting, but it was exciting to think that just four days after Christmas, she would be sitting down with an NTM translation expert at the mission center to do the final check on the book of Romans.
Rebecca shares, “Once this was done, I knew we would be able to print it out and put it in the hands of the Mengen people!”
Because of these upcoming plans, it was important to be able to first go through some last minute changes with her language co-worker, Kariang. Only then would she feel that her translation work was ready for the upcoming final check.
Kariang lives a 40-minute hike up the mountain. Rebecca says, “She has faithfully helped me for many years, in spite of being the only believer in her village—and in spite of the persecution she faces from time to time. Normally Kariang comes to help me every Tuesday and Thursday.
“She never comes on Monday,” Rebecca explains, “because she goes to her garden on Mondays to get food for her family.”
But this Monday was somehow different. Kariang woke up with the strong urge to go to Rebecca’s house and help her.
“To tell the truth, when I saw her at my door at 7 a.m., I was pretty surprised. I had other plans for the day!” Rebecca admits.
But looking back, she realizes that her plans were different from God’s plans. Unknown to both women, Rebecca’s co-workers, Lourens and Marie Laureti, were worried that Monday morning about their 4-year-old son, Liam. He woke with a swelling in his cheek that grew worse with each passing hour. By 9 a.m., the Lauretis told Rebecca that they were deeply concerned.
“Since there are no NTM pilots available in our area, arranging a medical evacuation would have been difficult and very expensive, so we made the decision to try to hike out of the tribe the next day,” says Rebecca. “None of us were too excited about the idea of hiking five hours through the jungle over very rugged terrain. We would have had to cross a deep, swift river before reaching a distant palm plantation which meets up with the end of the road,” Rebecca explains.
After that, she says, there would have been a 6-hour truck ride over treacherous roads and bridges before arriving at the NTM mission center and medical personnel.
“With all this in mind,” Rebecca continues, “Kariang and I worked extremely hard, trying to get through all 16 chapters of Romans in one day. Graciously, the Lord enabled us to complete the work by late afternoon.”
Rebecca says the intense translation work left them “absolutely exhausted,” but they were finished. And on a Monday, too. Rebecca wrote, “Praise the Lord with us for the way He orchestrates everything in our lives for His glory!”
Even in sending Kariang down the mountain on a totally unexpected day to finish a crucial translation task just in time, God demonstrated His wisdom and faithfulness.
And God had yet another surprise waiting. The next morning, the missionaries heard another mission’s plane was planning to be in their area that day. And so, quite abruptly and with little advance warning, God brought a brand new Kodiak aircraft to the remote Mengen village, and it “happened” to be big enough for all eight of the missionaries to ride in.
They flew out without further delay, but by this time little Liam was in a bad way, with swelling and infection covering his entire face.
“The Lord knew how difficult it would have been for Liam if we would have had to hike out, so thankfully He opened up a much better way,” Rebecca shares.
Little Liam, as it turned out, had an abscess in one of his teeth that was causing all his distress. It was easily treated and he is recovering well.
Please pray for the upcoming check on the Mengen translation of the book of Romans—that it will result in a translation that is clear and precise. You can pray, too, that God will raise up more NTM pilots to cover more distant areas where missionaries need them. You can thank God for all the ways He showed Himself mighty.
You can also do two more things: