Overview of the project

The project:
I am making a 3-week mission trip to France and Zambia in January – February 2010. I leave Newark Airport on Monday, January 25, arriving in Paris Charles de Gaulle airport the next day.

Catechism materials –
I will spend the last full week of January at the Protestant Reformed Evangelical Church in St Quentin en Yvelines, in the northwest suburbs of Paris. There I will be working with a French pastor who has been the head of a team revising and rewriting the denomination’s catechism material for junior high-age young people. The goal is to move the first-year material nearer to completion. Most of the work has already been done, but there are still a lot of details to complete.

Team trip to Zambia –
The evening of Sunday, January 31, I will join a multinational team of mission leaders (from Benin, Tahiti, and France) at Charles de Gaulle airport for the flight to Zambia where we will take part in a conference of church leaders from 7 countries in southern Africa and the Indian Ocean. We will have a 10 ½ hour overnight flight to Johannesburg, South Africa, before flying on to Lusaka, Zambia. From there we take ground transportation the 85 miles to Kabwe, where the conference will be held.

The people participating in the conference will be coming from Zambia, Lesotho, Mozambique, Madagascar, and the islands of Mauritius, Reunion, and Mayotte. They are all leaders of churches that are members of the CEVAA, an international mission organization that grew out of the former Mission de Paris. Within the larger region, their churches all face similar conditions and challenges. The purpose of this meeting is to see how they can strengthen their ties to better share resources and improve communication, helping each other in carrying out their mission.

Even though these churches were all started by French mission workers, they now function in different languages. Zambia and Lesotho use English, Mozambique’s main language is Portuguese, and Madagascar, Mauritius, Reunion and Mayotte speak French. My role will mainly be that of round-the-clock translator between French and English. This will include simultaneous translation during meetings as well as helping during meals, visits to local parishes, etc. Since I have translated previously for Cevaa meetings, I already know nearly all of the participants.

The conference lasts from February 1 to 8, with meetings during the week and visits to Zambian churches over the weekend. We will leave Zambia on Feb. 8, arriving back in France the next morning.

Final days in France –
I will be in southern France from February 9 until my departure on Monday, February 15. These six days will be split between Montpellier, where the Cevaa headquarters is located, and Aix en Provence, the site of the Reformed Seminary of which I was a board member for many years. This time will be used to see friends and tie up administrative questions in relation to our move – as well as stock up on French chocolate!

My return flight leaves from Marseille on February 15, via Lisbon Portugal where I will spend the night with long-time missionary friends, arriving back at Newark airport the afternoon of February 16.

Prayer requests:
- For health as I travel through various time zones and climates (a sick translator who can’t talk isn’t much help to anyone!)
- For good teamwork in advancing the catechism project
- For alertness during the long days of translation, moving back and forth between two languages
- For a strong dynamic to be built among the African church leaders so they can be mutually strengthened to meet the important challenges facing their churches and societies
- For overall safety in travel