As I take the 10 minute-drive to the Roma neighborhood, I pray that Z. & N. will be home and available to translate more Bible stories in Ludari. (In this culture, setting appointments is somewhat pointless, so we just visit them when we think they’ll be available.)

There’s a light on when I pull up, so I assume they are home. I knock and enter (culturally expected) the one-room dwelling and am always greeted politely, even when it is obvious that I’m interrupting a meal or TV-watching.

I greet the excited kids (2 & 4) and give them the cookies I brought, then give the ground coffee and box of juice to the wife or grandma who invariably offer me (Turkish) coffee. I usually accept, tempting fate that I’ll be able to fall asleep at bedtime after downing this equivalent of a double espresso! Z. comes in, tired and dusty from a day of working construction, yet has a gentle smile and is willing to get to work translating.

I open the laptop I brought (with stickers on the keyboard to show where the Croatian characters are located). We drink coffee and juice while Z. and N. go through half a dozen cigarettes. A Croatian soap opera is blaring from the corner TV since N. is hard of hearing.

Today we’ll see if we can finish the first draft of the story of Noah building the ark. For each section, Z. reads the story in Croatian and slowly types out the translation in Ludari. From time to time, he looks up and asks N. how to say a certain word or phrase. A sibling or friend may occasionally wonder in, look over his shoulder to see what he is doing, and make a translation suggestion.

An hour or two later, we save the work to the Internet (I’d hate to lose his hard work), and he sits back for another smoke. We chat a bit and say goodnight.

Driving home I thank the Lord that Z. and N. were home, everything worked fine with the translation software and we’ve completed another six to eight paragraphs of translation of Bible stories from Genesis into the Ludari language. Yes, it’s been a good day.

Please continue to pray as we work on translating 50 Bible stories & the Gospel of Luke into five Roma languages. May God send His Word with power and transform the lives of many Roma and may He alone receive all the praise for it.