Your Prayers Matter!
One of our new experiments at The Seed Company is to take small video cameras out to our field partners and bring their voice to you.
Listen to Stanislaus share just how much he appreciates the prayer partners for his project the Dagara and hear how you can be praying for them.
Thank you for taking part in this ministry!
Words from Roy Peterson - September 2007
I'm overjoyed as I watch the Lord bring more families, and especially children, here in the U.S. into a relationship with a specific people group.
When children line their hearts up with God’s heart for unreached people, they learn the joy of connecting their resources with what really matters to God. Even when they don’t understand the theological link between worship and giving, they still experience it.
To me, that’s the highest form of discipleship. It changes those young people forever. And because of them, people around the world are given God’s life-changing Word.
As I read John 6 in my personal devotions, it struck me that this is nothing new. Jesus used the offering of a young boy, what his parents had given him, to feed the multitude. Today, He’s using the offerings of young people and their parents to change the world through Bible translation.
As we help children sponsor a verse, learn the verse and pray for a specific people group, they learn to be more generous, more focused on others and to highly value Scripture. This is a powerful force for God’s Kingdom in our own country and around the world.
Pray with me that God will continue to draw children closer to His heart. And pray that God would help Christians learn from our children’s example of pure faith and obedience as we train them in God’s ways.
Roy Peterson has been The Seed Company president since 2003. Words from Roy is a regular feature of SeedLinks magazine—a free resource for all Seed Company partners and those interested in our work.
Daystar
Imagine for a moment life without God’s Word. Where would you be? Today 350 million people are still waiting for even one verse of the Bible.
Persevering in Translation
In a recent field video, Stanislaus, a translator participating in the Dagara project, shared about the struggle to persevere and his sense of calling.
Pray for Stanislaus and the Dagara team as they persevere in the work.
Prayer Requests for the Dagara people
Yesterday, we introduced you to Stanislaus from the Dagara team who shared just how much he appreciated the prayers for his project.
A Reason to Celebrate
The Priau people are traditionally animistic spirit worshipers. The festival to their fire god is a multi-day event that begins with a long, bamboo pole planted in the ground. Ceremonies include throwing grain and alcohol into the air, and building a fire to dance around. Some dress like kings, police, soldiers and other figures. Men, and small boys, dance through the night and in the day go to nearby villages to collect offering. The collected money is used to buy a goat and have a feast.
The arrival of God’s word is offering a new reason to celebrate though. Believers celebrated the resurrection of Christ for the first time last year in one village. In another village, 17 people heard the word of God and became believers. Priau believers also celebrated Christmas last year by putting together a program celebrating the birth of Christ.
Praise God that the Priau people are receiving the message of salvation! Pray that these celebrations will become more common as the believers respond to the Word of God in their heart language.
Daily Prayer: the Huichol people of Mexico
Pray with us for the Huichol people. "Help us so that we can have the Old Testament," wrote the Huichol believers in April of 2006. "We are happy that we have God's Word (the New Testament) in our language. We have read it and study it with faith. We also know that Christ speaks to us in the Scriptures, but we don't have it all in our language. We're writing to ask you. Help us so that we can have the Old Testament. We are willing to do the work." That letter and the continued passion of the Huichol believers to obey God in spite of ongoing persecution, have been at the heart of the Huichol Old Testament Project from the start.
There are 30 Huichol churches throughout West Central Mexico. Huichol evangelists actively seek out new groups to share God's love with. Discipleship is going strong. And trained Huichol translators that helped finish the New Testament are ready to translate the Old Testament.
- At workshops earlier this year the team received further training in translation and editing using the computer. Now they’re working on translating Genesis, but it’s also harvesting time. Pray they’ll be able to balance their time well between translating and keeping their crops tended.
- Pray for wisdom as the translators seek to promote literacy and Scripture use in this traditionally oral culture.
Daily Prayer: the Hawu people of Timor
Pray with us for the Hawu people
The Hawu people live both on their small home island and also in large communities on the mainland and several nearby islands. Most of the Hawu speakers who live off the home island are active Christians. However, some who live in the homeland continue to follow the traditional religion and are considered resistant to the gospel.
God has called the translator to provide leadership for the translation project. He is a native speaker of Hawu, an ordained pastor and currently a lecturer in the theology faculty at a Christian university on the main island. This project began as a one-year project to translate the Gospel of Mark and train local translators, and has now developed into a fully formed project to complete the New Testament and portions of the Old Testament.
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Earlier this summer the Hawu people celebrated the dedication of Mark’s Gospel, the first book of translated Scripture. The whole thing was broadcast on the radio. Praise God for the good reception.
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Earlier this year two of the translators died. Pray for the families and for the right people to replace them on the team.
Why Become a Prayer Partner
Prayer ties human effort to God's eternal purposes!
An essential link in each translation program is the prayer partnership. Informed and concerted prayer provides the spiritual covering necessary for a project's success and for lasting results in terms of changed lives.
Prayer ties people to projects!
Personal ties are made as translators share health and family needs as well as needs in the translation work. Regular reports keep prayer partners informed. When possible, prayer partners are put in direct contact with the field team.
Roy Peterson
Roy Peterson, President
Roy Peterson has been with The Seed Company since 2003 and various Wycliffe affiliates since 1986. He held leadership positions in Ecuador and Guatemala as the government relations director and then field director for SIL Central America based in Guatemala.