On the first weekend in August we went for four days to Budapest, so that Jelle could work with Todd Price for a couple of days and so that the kids could have playtime. I spend a lot of time with Pam and she gave me a lot of holiday time! Always good conversations about how it is to live outside your home country, homeschooling, the situation in this part of Europe, raising kids and the struggles and joys in life.
Jelle works with Todd on a database with information about Roma languages. This way they get an idea about how many languages are spoken, which languages need a Bible translation, in which languages parts of the Bible are already available and who can help with starting new projects. They have counted more than 80 languages and dialects so far and only a few have parts of the Bible. Not every language needs a translation though, because sometimes the younger generation doesn’t learn the language and Roma are often, but not always, bilingual. We want people to get God’s Word in their heart language, the language they understand best and a big task now is to find out for every situation which language works best.
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n Sunday we went to Danube International Church which was nice, we have been there a couple of times now. There is a time of greeting during the service and people can tell where they come from and why they are here. It is amazing to see where people come from! Dallas, Romania, Chicago, England, the Netherlands…..
We are very glad, that we can make a mix of holiday time for the kids, while Jelle can work. The first week in Osijek was for us also family time, a week to discover how it feels to be here, while there were only local people around. This week is also really busy with a UNA club (Bible club for Roma children), preaching at the church, visiting the Roma village and an important one: meeting with another family who just moved last week to Osijek. But that will be another blog…