This afternoon we sat down at the settlement table, signed a few papers, and completed the sale of our house! It’s been a long road and we are relieved it’s behind us. We will be able to make some specific decisions about our plans for training with PBT now, and will be posting more info and updates here as things progress. Thanks so much for your prayers and encouragement!

We received the results from the appraisal, and it’s good news: $300,000 – just $5000 above the minimum we needed! So far everything has been going smoothly. The contract is signed, the appraisal is complete, and we have termite and radon inspections happening today. It’s pretty amazing how much work is involved, but it’s been one of those things where we’ve waited so long for a buyer and now that it’s happening, it’s happening quickly, which is a good thing.

As of now, the closing is scheduled for this this Monday, May 18th, which is less than 30 days from when I received the original inquiry from the buyer. We still have a lot of work to do to get everything ready for the final sale (including moving a piano!), and there is still a possibility of delay, but we’re praying and have faith that everything will work out just fine.

I was at work today and I got an email from Emily. It was a love note. From time to time we send each other quick love note emails, just a short sentence or a few words. If we want to emphasize the romantic aspect of the message we will send it in Italian. This particular message I received from Emily was in Italian:

“Amo la maniera lei mi tocca. amo la maniera lei mi tiene. amo la maniera lei mi bacia.”

Now, we don’t know Italian beyond a few names of pasta noodles, so we use online translation web sites to get the message across. I copied her email, opened up Google Translate, selected the correct language settings, and submitted the form. Here’s what came back:

“I love the way she touches me. I love the way she keeps me. I love the way she kisses me.”

I thought, “WHOA, that is not what I was expecting!” Apparently, somewhere from English to Italian and back to English, a slight adjustment to the personal pronouns occurred that resulted in a major adjustment in the meaning of the message. Either that or… never mind.

This got me thinking about how difficult it is to effectively communicate a message in a foreign language, and how hard it can be to understand a message written to you in a language you don’t understand, even with The Great Google on your side.

This why bible translation is so important. For over 200 million people today, the bible exists only in a language they don’t understand. The message is foreign and unclear because it hasn’t been translated into a language they know.

With a message this important, we can’t expect people to just guess through a barrier of language about what God is saying to them. When one word or even one letter can change the entire meaning of a sentence, we can’t just hope that they will figure it out. We need to be intentional about the accurate translation of the bible into the languages of people who don’t currently have it.

Because if we care about people, we will care about their ability to know God.

Or, from English, to Japanese, back to English:

“So we people, because they worry about the features that we know God.”

Great news: We have accepted an offer from a buyer to purchase our house! This is very exciting for us because we have been trying to sell for some time and are not able to move forward with our ministry plans with PBT until we do so.

Last week I received an email from a buyer who found our house on a FSBO web site that I submitted our information to last month. They came to see the house Sunday and sent us an offer the next day!

As anyone who has been on either end of a real estate deal knows, there is still a lot of work to do before we close, and there are a number of things that could prevent the sale from taking place.

There are two main contingencies that we need prayer for:

1. The house must appraise for at least $295,000
2. The buyer must be approved for financing

Thanks to everyone who has been praying and supporting us so far, we really appreciate it! We will keep you up to date as things progress.