Hello again! We’ve just finished another round of meetings. Thankfully, we don’t have any major trips from now on, which will make finishing school easier. I had wanted to be done with deputation when I came to BBTI, but it just didn’t work out that way. It’s all for the good, though, because we’ve had some excellent meetings since we came to BBTI, and it was a lot easier getting to them with the epicenter of deputation being located in West Texas for the past ten months.
Following our meeting in Baton Rouge, we drove back to Bowie to try to catch some more of Bible Translation class with Charles Turner. It’s been a great class, with a lot of practical instruction on how to get the Bible from its original languages into another language using the best formal equivalents between the two. It brought up a lot of considerations. What do you do when the Bible uses idiom that has no equivalent in the native dialect? How do you describe things that are unknown to a people group, like lambs, snow, grapes, or wheat? What do you do if the Bible uses a possessive, but possessives aren’t allowed in the language you’re working with? It was fascinating studying the Greek and observing how the King James translators had to make these sorts of decisions when translating our own English Bible. Bible translation is a monumental task, and not for the faint of heart. It absolutely requires full partnership between the translator and the Holy Spirit, working in and through the human translator to help birth the best possible translation of God’s Holy Word into the language of the people He loves and wants to reach with His Gospel.
We drove back to Alexandria, LA on Wednesday for a meeting with Pastor Jonathan Pyle and Air Base Road Baptist Church. Bro. Pyle is the son of Pastor Jerry Pyle, of Bible Baptist Church in Nevada, MO, one of our earliest meetings which we had on deputation. We had a great meeting, with some great preaching, and drove back to Bowie on Thursday. Once there, we repacked our stuff and got ready to make a trip out to Arizona for some more meetings. After class on Friday, we made our way out to Tucson, AZ for a meeting with Pastor Greg Dawson and Shining Light Baptist Church. Pastor Dawson and met a few years back at Pastor Steven Morris’ church, Sun and Shield Baptist in Marana, AZ, for his missions conference. He’s got a growing church full of good people, and we had some great services on their Missions Emphasis Sunday.
We spent Monday and Tuesday in Tucson, and took the opportunity to take our cowboys down to Tombstone to see the site of the infamous gun battle between Wyatt Earp, Doc Holiday, and the Clanton gang at the O.K. Corral. It was a bit of a letdown, because the whole town was a tourist trap, and you couldn’t get into to any of the historic sites without paying a fortune. Oh well, we enjoyed ourselves any way, and got to see Boot Hill Cemetery on the way out of town. Now we can say we’ve been there.
Our next stop was a missions conference in Phoenix, AZ with Pastor Brent Loveless and North Valley Baptist Church. It was a great conference, and the people seemed to really respond to the LORD. Pastor Larry Obero of Bible Baptist Church in National City, CA was the main speaker, and did a tremendous job. The Pastor and his wife took us to see Sedona on Saturday. It was nice to get to see the Red Rocks of Sedona and Oak Creek Canyon again. The ladies got to do some shopping in downtown Sedona, and we had ourselves a good time.
At the moment, we’re making our way back to Bowie, TX. We have three weeks of school to finish up. We got our finals for Bible Translation class emailed in on Friday, and managed to get our reading done while on the road. Now we will be joining the Literacy class already in progress when we get back, with courses in Teaching English as a Second Language and Field Medicine to follow. Pray for us as we finish up school, and get our stuff packed and ready to head back to St. Louis after graduation on May 17. We have a few meetings as well coming up in May locally before graduation, so be in prayer for them also.
God bless and keep you all,
James Huckabee
Missionary to Uganda
), and they couldn’t get it done in time. So, here it comes Friday and we have no way to get to our meeting. Thankfully, East Side Baptist saved the day and let us use the church van. On Saturday, I was on my way back from soulwinning, and a tire blew out. We were never late for a meeting, but the harassment from the enemy was ever present. The reason why was this: on Saturday, I got the great privilege of witnessing to and winning to the LORD two boys we met on outreach. Alex and Chandler, 11 and 12, both got saved! Pray for their growth. Sunday night, Bro. Suggs cut us loose so we could have a meeting in 1st Baptist Church of Cottondale with Pastor Charles Pugh. It was a great weekend, and we were so pleased to be used of God.