World's Fair

In case I whined too much about it before, we had a really wonderful time learning about Indonesia.

Grace did the bulk of the research and writing,



But when it came time to present to others, Caleb really stepped up and showed his strengths in this area.

(I didn't get a good picture of that but just take my word for it.)

And Joshua - well in his words, "I da China guy who do nothing." But that's not entirely true. He did a lot of work on the salt map.



One thing we learned about that really impacted me was this:



How the Bible looks to nearly half a million Indonesians (and 340 million people worldwide) who do not have it translated into their own language yet:



Looking at all those blank pages and thinking about living an entire lifetime without ever having access to one word of God honestly made me cry.

We have been learning about William Tyndale, who gave countless tedious hours and eventually his own life to translate the Bible into a language that we could read. The Seed Company, where I saw the idea for the blank Bible, asks us to consider what we are willing to give up today to help with translation. They even have an app you can download that shows different things you can give up in order to fund the translation of one verse.

Unfortunately for Charlie, we decided to give up a professional dog grooming.



With the hot weather coming, it was time for our shaggy dog to have his first visit to a groomer. We called around one evening and were amazed at how much it cost. Unbelievable that they could charge that much just to trim a dog, we thought.

"You know, I really think we could do it ourselves," Phil suggested.

Never mind that we don't actually own any dog clippers, just your basic pair of scissors....

"But how hard could it really be?" He continued. "And with the money we save, we can translate three verses for a people group."

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Four and a half hours and 73 dog treats later it didn't seem like such a good idea any more.

Maybe Charlie will get his reward in heaven.



Or not, depending on your theology of pets and heaven...

As for us, we have the joy of being part of the gospel that is growing and bearing fruit all over the world (Col. 1:6), and the new-found knowledge that those dog-grooming prices are pretty much the best deal in town.