Some time ago, Aaron and Amy Speitelsbach shipped some barrels of books to Liberia. Visitors have since helped them label the books according to reading levels, so that they can set up a sort of library system. Now there are only a couple things left to do: making bookshelves and providing children with enough reading skills so they can continue to improve those skills with the books. The making of the bookshelves keeps being postponed, because there just does not seem to be enough time in the day for Aaron to do everything that needs doing.
Amy has been teaching kids how to read and write in Glarro for over a year now. They believe that this will be the best springboard for them to learn to read English, which is the national language of Liberia. Once the kids have reached a certain reading fluency in Glaro, she will try to help them improve their English reading skills. Besides teaching several kids’ classes, Amy also has an adult literacy class, where she teaches them how to read and write Glarro. There are a couple ladies who are making really fast progress and, by the end of the year, will hopefully be fluent enough readers to be able to read the Glarro Bible portions that they have available.
Aaron has been concentrating on writing Bible lessons in Glarro. They hoped they could make quick progress, but it seems that no matter what they tried to make it go faster, the quality of the lessons always diminished to a point where they became hard to follow and difficult to understand. Nevertheless, they have not given up on making Bible lessons yet, even though progress has been slow. Discouragement is one of the enemy’s ways of throwing obstacles in their path. But it is clear from the Bible that God wants to offer his grace and mercy to the Glarro people.
Their main Bible translator, Lesley, lives in a Glarro village in Ivory Coast, so they use the internet to communicate and get updates through their translator software. Now that they have satellite coverage for internet, it works most of the time. Lesley continues work on the Bible translation and is currently working on translating the Gospel of John and some of the epistles, and is making good progress. She also teaches a kids’ Sunday School every week, and often has almost 100 kids show up!
Aaron and Amy are taking a short break to spend time with family in the USA. They are enjoying fellowship, food and less humid weather!
Their co-workers, the Burkheads, have been back in the village since March. Since completing official language study, Guy is working on improving his reading and writing skills in Glarro, so that he can begin helping with writing Bible lessons soon.
God continues to give them strength and motivation to press on, and helps them overcome difficult times. They are thankful to the Lord for the interest he is stirring in the Glarro people who are being exposed to the Word of God and the Gospel through the work. Pray for endurance and strength from the Lord for everyone on the team, as the work seems to often drain them.
Pray that Aaron and Amy can rest up a bit, and then get safely back to Liberia later this month. Also pray that they will be able to continue to make good progress with making Bible lessons, so that they can start to teach soon and for their interactions with the villagers, that they can show them love and truth.
Thank you for being a part of the ministry among the Glarro people in Liberia, West Africa.