Ramsey Discoveries

Prayer update

2012-02-17T07:05:00.000Z

We are in the midst of oneof those times we all experience now and then when your daily life (yourroutine, your plans, your relationships) all get put on hold while you focus onsomething that has unexpectedly come to demand your attention. For us, itwas the earlier-than- expected birth of our first grand-child, George. AsI was out walking on the evening of January 31^st, our daughterphoned from a Seattle hospital to say that what had up until then seemed like aroutine pregnancy was about to end with an emergency C-section. A shorttime later, George arrived; all 3 pounds, 3 ounces of him. He was takento the NICU, where he currently lives and will likely be for many weeks. Eight days later John and I arrived in Seattle to do what we could to helpsupport and encourage them; this past Tuesday John returned to California andthe Discovery office, while I remained in Washington. We don’t know howlong I will be here; George has had some significant eating and respiratoryissues, and the Dr.’s are still trying to problem solve as they figureout how to best help him grow and heal. Meanwhile, Leanna is alsorecovering physically…and both of George’s parents are healing emotionallywhile beginning to get into some kind of routine/rhythm that involves work forMark and visiting George at the NICU for both of them. I am trulythankful that I can be here at this time in order to run errands, help aroundthe house and offer some emotional support. Now that things are beginningto settle a bit, I am hopeful I will be able to get back into my Wyclifferesponsibilities as well (thanks to my laptop, I am able to work as I sit herein the NICU family room a couple of hours a day.) Sooo…..that’s what ishappening in our lives! Here are some ways we invite you to join us inprayer:

Please pray for Leanna, Mark and baby George; for healing for all...and for wisdom for the Dr.’s who are taking care of George. Please pray for strength for Leanna and Mark emotionally as they journey through the ups and downs of having a baby in the NICU for many weeks. (If you want to know how George is doing on a frequent basis, please check our Facebook wall: https://www.facebook.com/RamseyDiscoveries
For Shevawn; for strength and patience to be a good support to them. For wisdom for good self-care and for opportunities to do her Wycliffe work and the ability to be able to focus when she has those opportunities.
For John; who always has a lot on his plate this time of year as he interviews applicants and takes care of other discovery issues (some of which I mentioned above). In addition to these things, he also has to pick up on some of my work, as well as find a new place to move our Discovery office to by the end of March.
We are thankful to report that since sending out our prayer letter, we believe we have our two Ghanaian co-leaders for our 2012 trip lined up. However, we still are lacking leaders for some of the other trips; we may even have to cancel one of the planned trips if leaders do not materialize soon.

Thank so very, very much for your prayers!

In His love

Shevawn & John

Alumni

2012-02-09T18:27:00.001Z

Tracy-Megan-John

John was in Dallas last week for Wycliffe meetings and while there it was a pleasure to get to hang out with an Alumni from the 2009 Ghana Discovery team. Megan is continuing her studies to become a Bible translator. She is pretty set on going to one of the coldest, most remote parts of the world to work with people to help provide access to God's word. It is a big encouragement to spend time with Megan and to hear her determination to be and do what she feels God is calling her to. Dallas is home to one of our Linguistics schools. (Some of you may remember "back-in-the-day" around 1984, this is where John & Shevawn spent one and a half years in a management internship with John working in the student/staff dining hall as a cook, and Shevawn working in the International Museum of Cultures... I digress.)
It was also a joy to meet Jeff who was finishing up studies the day after I met him... he is marrying another Ghana Discovery alumni and moving to Tanzania to work in promoting scripture use and linguistics!

By the way, Tracy in the picture is Wycliffe's NextGen Director and worked with Megan as her intern at JungleJumpOff.

Please remember baby George and his parents in your prayers. George has good days and difficult days, he is still in NICU and the situation is stressful. There are more frequent George updates on our FaceBook if you want to know more.

¡Bienvenidos Jorgito!

2012-02-02T08:44:00.000Z

Our daughter Leanna went in for a routine ultrasound yesterday and due to fetal distress was rushed to a c-section. Baby George arrived a few weeks before we thought he would at 3lbs3oz. The family is tired, tired, tired, but doing well. Leanna needs lots of sleep and quiet, as does George who is in NICU. He's breathing better today and is totally adorable. We all appreciate your prayers, love and support.

An Extraordinary Policeman!

2012-01-26T08:30:00.000Z

I met my new friend through another friend, who had met him after he had a traffic accident in Ghana. After a very cordial greeting, the policeman put me on the phone with his wife:-) We really had a nice conversation in his office, as he knew about our missions work in Ghana and I learned about his desire to be a light exactly where God had put him, similar to Queen Esther who had been put in a position to make a significant difference at a critical time.
As we were leaving he asked me if I knew who had made an offering to Melchizedek. We became prayer & ministry partners right there and then. He wanted to give me something and I would pray for him, to which I agreed. He mentioned he had many requests, but basically he wanted to bring his life under God's control to do God's will with his life.
I encouraged him that by this prayer, he was making himself available to God to go anywhere, to do anything, to be anything according to God's will... AND that this was THE most important qualification for his serving God.
So... yes, this Godly policeman of Ghana on our 1st in-person meeting (we were already FaceBook friends at this point) handed me an offering, a tithe for our ministry expenses. I was quite surprised by this whole turn of events!
This now gives us 2 families in Ghana who are financial ministry partners with us. We are so grateful to be able to serve the Lord and to not do it alone, but with a team of international partners who want to make a difference in the world as we recruit future Bible translators to reach the 200 million people still waiting for God's word in their own language.

Fight Poverty with Linguistics?

2012-01-20T20:50:00.001Z

Maybe you haven't thought of linguistics or Bible translation as helping to alleviate poverty? What about literacy or bilingual education or the many other aspects of the type of development work that our organization is involved with?

OK... I hear some of you skeptics out there... so let me give you one example:

The Millennium Development Goals were adopted by 189 United Nations member states to be achieved by 2015 Goal #1 is to Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.

This is how our work in Adult literacy can dramatically impact a community:

Income improvement and hunger relief within ethnolinguistic communities is achieved when life-changing information is communicated in a language that people understand well. Higher literacy rates often result in higher per capita incomes. Just imagine having a book that you can read to learn more about good nutrition for your family, or as a farmer to be able to read a book dealing with improved farming methods and you can get an idea of how this might work.

If you'd like to read how we are working with others to meet these goals, you can find it here:

Thanks to http://www.canil.ca for the picture which we really like!

Edziban naa! Dzi dzi (It is food, eat it!)

2012-01-19T09:04:00.000Z

Edziban naa! Dzi dzi (It is food, eat it!)

byJulia Mallon (Discovery Ghana 2011)

The mostinvigorating part of experiencing a new culture comes when one adapts a perspectivesimilar to that of a young child. Not in the sense of regression, but the purewide-eyed wonderment accompanying new environmental sights, sounds, tastes, andsmells. Through this, an enhancedperspective will unveil itself as our viewpoint is often dulled in the securityof our own society. I was given theprivilege of spending two month in Ghana, West Africa, living and learning theart of Ghanaian cuisine from a beautiful Adele woman whom I referred to as MamaEsther.

The Adele tribe populates theNorthern Volta region of Ghana where I was located for the duration of my stay,more specifically in the District Capital of Nkwanta. For the Adele, onepopular staple dish consists of fufu and light soup. From the standpoint of awesterner, the consumption of this seemingly “uncooked” dough ball and eating soupwith one’s fingers completely contradicts mom’s homemade chicken noodle soup,eaten with a spoon and sourdough bread. It was an opportunity to put asideeverything I knew to be true about food. Through observations, questions, andtrial and error, I learned as a child would, to expand my worldview and tastepallet to include one of my new favorite foods – fufu.

The main market day in Nkwanta ison Mondays. People from all over the town and surrounding villages come tosell, buy, bargain, eat, and most importantly, to socialize. As I accompaniedMama Esther to the market, we stopped and greeted each friend we saw along theway. Ghanaian’s do not greet with a simple, “hey, how are you?” in passing asWesterners often do. They take theirtime through a long dialog inquiring intoall aspects of life. The time Ghanaians take to develop relationships, whetheracquaintance, friend, or family member, is admirable and a reflection of theirinnate hospitality.

When we first reachedthe outdoor market in the heart of town, I noticed it is segregated into differentculinary sections for the purpose of organization and ease of purchasing. Tome, it seemed every stall overflowed with new exotic foods that were just flushwith culinary possibilities; I could hardly contain my excitement. The produce sectionis a natural mosaic with an expansive spread reaching every color on thespectrum; the meat is so fresh it is cut right off the animal, a true customcut for every customer. We stopped at several different vendors to seethe best prices and quality before purchasing yams, plantains, dried tilapia,tomato paste, onions, and various spices – while of course greeting along theway.

After visiting the market for abouttwo hours, it was time to head home and commence cooking dinner. We began byboiling the yams and plantains until they were soft, for about 20 minutes. Wethen placed the boiled items into a large wooden mortar and pounded the starchymass with a long pestle. During this process in the Southern regions of Ghana,one person typically pounds the mixture while another is seated next to themortar, turning the mixture in between strokes. In the Northern region however,it is commonplace for two people to pound the mixture in an alternatingrhythmic motion. It will be pounded until a smooth and sticky, yet firmconsistency is reached. I quickly found that the soothing easy rhythm ofpounding fufu was slightly deceiving; when it was my turn to pound I realizedhow much upper body strength was required. Since my endurance slowed after amere few minutes, the children squealed with amusement as they were passed thepestle to continue pounding, which left me drained but thoroughly impressedwith their strength.

Concurrent to preparingfufu, the light soup is also made. Water, tomato paste, dried tilapia, andspices such as salt, pepper, curry, and chili powder are slowly simmered untilthe fufu is fully prepared. There are varioustypes of soup that fufu can accompany besides fish; such as goat meat, chicken,vegetables, and groundnut (peanut) soup. When the smell of our light fish soup beganto make my mouth water, I knew dinner was close to being served.

We ladled our soup over the ball offufu and I immediately began to eat, not realizing that I was eating the dishall wrong. As my Ghanaian friend stifled her smile, she explained that the firstrule of eating fufu is there are no spoons allowed. A she continued on, shetold me to eat with my right hand and pull a piece of fufu from the side to eatfirst since it had been marinating in the soup longest. Then, one does not chew as the fufu piece isput into the mouth, but swallowed whole since the flavor is in the soup and notin the yam/plantain mixture. The surprised (and probably slightly mortified)look on my face sent us both into hysterical laughter. Which was followed with questions such as,“what if I choke to death?” and “is it safe to stick my fingers in this burninghot soup?”

I was assured that noone has ever died from choking on fufu and my fingers will get used to the hottemperature eventually. Even though Iwas still a little skeptical, I decided to do what every child does whenlearning something new – jumped without hesitation. The second I swallowed my first proper bite,my senses came alive. The warm feelingin my stomach from the still hot soup, the spice lingering in the back of mythroat, the feeling of soft fufu in my fingers – I could not get enough! After discovering my new favorite dish, Mama Esthersmiled ear to ear like a proud mother. Eachtime I ate my plate clean, she would say, “Now I know you love me!” and pat mybelly, relishing in the fact that I enjoyed her culture. After about a month ofobserving my host family preparing meals and then slowly assisting, I cooked awhole Ghanaian dish by myself with the oversight of my mentor. I was beamingwith excitement as Mama Ester clapped in approval upon sampling my creation.

That small gesture of acceptancemeant I had successfully set aside my own cultural preconceptions; and usedobservation, questions, and my senses to learn and value the culture of myGhanaian friends. I used the comfort of something familiar, food, as a medium toadjust to my new and unfamiliar surroundings. Through the highly prevalent social aspect of Ghanaian cuisine, I was ableto form a strong bond of love and understanding with Mama Esther, my friends,and my host family that overcame any language barriers or cultural differences;and for that lesson alone, I am eternally grateful.

-We want to thank Julia for coming on the Discovery trip with us and for allowing us to share her story with our blog readers. Naa Tuma Paam!

Kingdom

2012-01-12T08:03:00.000Z

A few things are happening around here. Team leader training is underway for our 2012 trips, even though we are still searching for leaders for the Papua New Guinea team. The picture above is from a few years back when we trained our Wycliffe colleague and Discovery alumni Karen Snyder face to face in our office. This will be our 2nd year doing online training combined with weekly Skype discussions.

We have been asked to be counselors at an upcoming college group retreat with about 200 students! What an opportunity and privilege to spend time listening, learning and praying together with these future leaders. We will be focused on the topic of... Kingdom! So excited for this opportunity, pray with us for eternal Kingdom results.

10 Quotes to Inspire

2012-01-06T02:05:00.000Z

I (John) really like quotes and saw this on a World Vision Blog. A great way to start the New Year.

Let us know a favorite quote of yours.

10 Quotes to Inspire Your 2012 Resolutions

Keeping your New Year's Resolution can feel impossible at times. Here are 10 quotes to help you set a goal and keep it!

1. Try something new
A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.
Albert Einstein

2. Dream on
You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.
C. S. Lewis

3. Get your attitude right
Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.
Thomas Jefferson

4. Pray
It is for us to pray not for tasks equal to our powers, but for powers equal to our tasks, to go forward with a great desire forever beating at the door of our hearts as we travel toward our distant goal.
Helen Keller

5. Right wrongs
Perhaps it is better to be irresponsible and right, than to be responsible and wrong.
Winston Churchill

6. Become better
Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man.
Benjamin Franklin

7. Every day is new
With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.
Eleanor Roosevelt

8. Keep your eyes on the goal
Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.
Henry Ford

9. This year create
Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That's because they were able to connect experiences they've had and synthesize new things.
Steve Jobs

10. Yes, really, Chuck Norris
I think setting a goal, getting a visual image of what it is you want. You've got to see what it is you want to achieve before you can pursue it.
Chuck Norris

Merry Christmas from us at Wycliffe Bible Translators

2011-12-22T08:25:00.000Z

Christmas greetings from Shevawn and John. I know how much meaning comes to us as we read scripture selections daily during advent and look forward to the coming of Christmas. We really can not even imagine not having the Christmas story in our own heart language. What an injustice that there are still 200 million people still waiting to receive the gift of scripture in their heart language. Thank you to all of our friends and partners in helping us speed toward the day when everyone has access to the scriptures in the language that speaks to their heart. How do the scriptures help you celebrate Christmas?
If you don't see a video below, try this link

Are there 2 Josephs in the story?

2011-12-15T06:09:00.000Z

The story starts in Luke chapter 1. Joseph is introduced and in some languages depending on how he is mentioned in chapter 2, people might think there is a 2nd person with the same name. How are Bible translations checked to avoid miscommunication before being published? Here's an example from a Discovery alumni who is now serving as a Bible translation advisor in East Africa. Note that in this example, the checking process is happening in Swahili from literal word for word "back translations" from 2 other languages: Zanaki and Ikuzu. There are many other steps in the complete checking process...

OK, there is only one Joseph in the story, but when translating, you have to be careful what you are communicating.

Pray

2011-12-08T04:00:00.000Z

Who said we don't have seasons in southern California? As you can see from this tree in front of our office, it is officially Fall here in SoCal. We'd like to share a few of our most recent prayer requests with you:

Speaking of offices, ours could be demolished as early as June. Please pray we are led to another suitable space approx 400sf and price in our local area. We currently have a lease through March.

As final exams are completed in colleges, people start applying for DISCOVERY trips. Pray for faith and follow-through for those God is speaking to about this step into missions. Pray for more guys to apply than last year.

Pray for the right team leaders and assistant leaders to be identified for each of our 2012 trips...
East Africa -Ghana -Papua New Guinea -Solomon Islands -Thailand

Good news; 6000 Birifor New Testaments have been cleared through Ghanaian customs and are now in a cargo truck on their way north to be dedicated and distributed.
Please pray for changed lives, families, communities and churches from the scriptures being read in the Birfor communities in northern Ghana.

Trauma Healing in Africa

2011-12-01T20:48:00.000Z

Since 1997, war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has traumatized countless men, women and children. Reports of genocide, rape and a host of brutalities issued from the DRC for years, as armies, rebels and home-grown militias battled for power. More than 5.4 million people have been killed in the DRC since fighting broke out in 1998. This is the largest death toll associated with any conflict since World War II. Survivors in the wake of this ongoing tragedy carry not only the physical scars of war, but also deep running emotional wounds. Working with minority language speakers, Wycliffe Bible Translators has created Trauma Healing Materials. These resources facilitate grief and forgiveness counseling among the 215 languages in DRC. While these concepts can be taught in languages of broad regional communication, they often touch peoples' thoughts and feelings best when translated into local languages.

Even with the extensive use of the four national languages in the churches, there are still many needs for Bible translation in DRC. Language surveys are a high priority for the next few years, to measure the adequacy of comprehension of existing Scriptures as well as to establish priorities in planning further local translation projects. Both the size of the various ethnic groups and the degree of Christian penetration vary widely. Some of the people groups with whom staff are working are quite large (200,000 to 1,000,000). There is an established church amongst almost all language groups, but many are hampered by the lack of mother-tongue Scriptures and other factors.
There are 215 living languages spoken in the DRC, a country with one of the greatest needs for Bible translation. About 120 languages in the country are still waiting to receive the hope of God's Word in their own heart language.

For more information visit wycliffe.org

Adventure Race

2011-12-01T02:00:00.000Z

The Andes Challenge!

Summit a mountain, Ice climb a waterfall,
Snowshoe frozen creeks, Discover a hidden mountain village

Race to 2025 bridges the adrenalin of adventure sport that some people crave, and the extreme adventure that Jesus calls His Church-to make disciples of all nations.

This race is sponsored by Wycliffe Canada, and they welcome participants from USA!

Tentative plans are for aMichigan race in September 2012 and a Montana race in October 2012. Let us know if you want moreinformation or details!

Thankfulness

2011-11-23T20:00:00.000Z

While most people expectthat (being in the line of work that we are in), we would travela bit and hang out with people in other parts of the world, it may not becommon knowledge that we also do that very same thing here in the United Statesas well. In fact most years, within weeks of our returning from ouryearly Discovery trip to Ghana, we hit the road again for several weeks sowe can visit with some of our many financial and prayer partners.

Our ministry partnersare very important to us; they are the ones who are investing time and/or resources to support us and thework we are doing. The work of Bible translation is dependent onthese groups of people, whom, though they may never meet each other, forma community that the Lord uses to enable us and encourage us to keep ondoing this day after day after day. We need each other....and that is whyit is so important and good for us to spend time face to face...to hear how ourpartners are doing, to pray for them and thank them for their faithfulness thatis such a blessing to us. To hear their struggles....to rejoice with themin the ways God has blessed them...to love on each other... to be reminded thatwe are family.

So, for three weeks thisfall, we hung out with lots of wonderful people; we ate mealstogether, hiked together, and served them in whatever ways we could.

ThisThanksgiving, we are so thankful for each and every partner God has blessed uswith, and the opportunities to be reunited with them whenever we can.

Arizona Trip

2011-11-20T04:04:00.001Z

We just completed a 3 week trip to Arizona and want to say another big thank you to all our friends there for hanging out and encouraging us, for feeding us and providing wonderful hospitality as we stayed with some of you. We are so glad we got to see so many of our friends and ministry partners, but you know when you go home to visit, there is never enough time to see everyone;-( so if we missed you, please know that we'll be back sometime and will try again. The above picture was taken as we prepared Groundnut soup and rice balls for Northminster Presbyterian Church. That was a fun, experiential way to taste a bit of what a Ghana Discovery trip is like. Being in their lovely commercial kitchen felt just a bit like we were cooking for a church camp as we used to do "back in the day". Good times! It feels so good to be home for a bit and yet a bit overwhelming to have a backlog of to-do lists both in the house and the Discovery office... Mostly we are thankful for so many good friends who we can share a passion for recruiting future Bible translators to help with the task of starting a Bible translation in every language that needs one by the year 2025.

Thanks Everyone!

Da Jesus Book

2011-11-11T19:56:00.001Z

Jesus Teach On Top Da Mountain Side
Jesus see choke peopo, an he go up da mountain litto bit. He sit down dea fo teach, an da guys he wen pick fo teach come by him fo listen.He wen start fo teach um. He tell um:
“Da peopo dat know dey need God inside dea heart, Dey can stay good inside Cuz God in da sky, he dea King.
“Da peopo dat cry inside dea heart, Dey can stay good inside Cuz God goin kokua dem.
“Da peopo dat no need put demself first everytime, Dey can stay good inside Cuz God goin give um da whole world.
“Da peopo dat everytime really like do da right ting, Dey can stay good inside Cuz God goin help um do um.
“Da peopo dat pity da odda peopo, an give um chance, Dey can stay good inside Cuz God goin pity dem an give um chance too.
“Da peopo dat hundred percent fo God inside, Dey can stay good inside Cuz dey goin see God.
“Da peopo dat help da odda peopo come friends again, Dey can stay good inside Cuz God goin say, ‘Dey my kids.’
“Da peopo dat do right, an suffa fo dat, Dey can stay good inside Cuz God in da sky, he dea King.
-Matthew 5:1-10

This gives you a taste of a Wycliffe Bible translation. The da Hawaii Pidgin Bible. It is interesting for English readers, but probably not one you would use every day. What percentage of this do you think you understand? If you understand it so well, why wouldn't you use it as your daily Bible version?
http://www.youversion.com/bible/hwc-hwc Da Jesus Book

Groundnut Soup Sunday

2011-11-05T04:30:00.000Z

In the news...

Meet Your Missionaries Luncheon w/John & Shevawn Ramsey
Sunday, November 13 at 12:15pm in the Grundstrom Room

Sunday, November 13 at 12:15pm in the Grundstrom Room. Our mission partners, John and Shevawn Ramsey of Wycliffe, will be visiting Northminster, and will be cooking a scrumptious Ghanaian meal for us.
This will be a unique opportunity to enjoy African cuisine and culture.
Please RSVP to the Church Office (520) 327-7121 by Monday, November 7.
There is no cost, but donations are welcomed.

Injustice

2011-11-03T18:17:00.000Z

Do you know how many millions of people lack access to scripture in their heart language? This is our passion, to do what we can to overcome the injustice.
Current estimates suggest around 350 million people speaking 2040 languages may have a need for Bible translation to begin! Do you see this as an injustice? Come partner with us to help provide access to scriptures where there is none currently.
Scripture does exist in almost 2700 of the 6837 languages currently known to be in use....
Here's a link to more scripture access statistics if you want to learn more.

2011-10-31T23:12:00.000Z

We are in AZ on a friend raising trip. Maybe you don't know, but our full time work with Wycliffe Bible Translators coordinating the Discovery program is not a salaried job... Well it is, but we have to raise our total salary... We see God providing for our ministry needs through our many friends! Thanks, you know who you are. We are praying for more friends to join us in recruiting the Bible Translators of the future. Check out this link if you want to know more about praying for and/or helping finance this ministry.

Today is our day off and we are literally recharging in the AZ sunshine, enjoying the peacefulness of staying with good friends who live on a vast ranch site near Vail... we just watched a large hawk perch and then soar off in search of some dinner... We hope you are feeling recharged as well. Let us know how we can pray for you!

10 things you didn't know about Burkina Faso

2011-10-27T05:00:00.000Z

How many of you have heard of Burkina Faso before? If I told you that it used to be called Upper Volta (does that help anyone?)
Two of our "Ghana" Discovery team members actually served in this little country to the north of Ghana called Burkina Faso. Yes... they traveled to Ghana and did orientation and debrief with the rest of our team, but their month of field work was in Burkina Faso. The national language is French but there are many other languages spoken there, and hence Wycliffe and our sister organizations have lots of work to do there as well as many other francophone African nations. These young ladies spent some time battling malaria, but they also got to visit adult literacy classes and help out in a translation workshop where many translators working in different language groups come together to get help in translating a book of the Bible. There is a national Bible translation organization in Burkina Faso called ANTBA led by their Director; Pastor Boureima Ouedraogo. I want to thank Pastor Boureima and his very capable staff for hosting the Discovery team and involving them in the ministry of providing access to God's word for the people of Burkina Faso.
Check out this link which has many interesting facts about the country of Burkina Faso!
http://wycliffe.org.uk/live/forchurches/biblefresh-trans-factfile.html

2011-10-21T22:10:00.002Z

My brain feels full today, because the past 3 days we spend at a Soularize learning party, um Conference.

Wycliffe Discovery enabled us to be there as part of our continuing personal development and lifelong education. I don't think I could describe all the ideas, experiences and challenges to our current thinking and processes we experienced there, but I will list a few highlights in this post and if you want to hear more, please feel free to ask us. The folks in attendance were quite eclectic but it was a voice new to me, Monica Coleman who challenged us to think about who was not present, and possibly why they weren't there. Rachel Held Evans gave a great talk on her new book covering the topic of "biblical womanhood". She is quite creative in her approach, and thus thought provoking! We saw an advance showing of the movie "Blue Like Jazz'" along with Q&A with Steve Taylor the director. The movie comes out next April..., and I highly recommend it.

We got to hang out with a missional community called Nieu Communities, we saw many parallels to Discovery in their ministry of mentoring and sending folks. We both expect our alumni to go and live missional lives. We also enjoyed the themes from many speakers talking about transformational spiritual practices. These ideas will surely impact our personal life, the way we structure Discovery trips and even our involvement in our local church. If you've been to a really great conference recently, I'd love to hear some of the thoughts you are thinking.

Bible Translation may be more than you think it is...

2011-10-14T00:40:00.000Z

The Ghana Institute of Linguistics, Literacy and Bible Translation (GILLBT) has the largest print shop in the north of Ghana. Running this as a business helps provide funds for the organization so that it is not totally dependant on outside funding and also produces many publications that are used in the ministry of providing vernacular scripture and literacy primers... The Discovery team dove into the print shop work!

Bible Translation is a multifaceted ministry involving community development and more... Two of our Discoverers served in The Sisaali Literacy and Development Programme or SILDep.org and instead of using their Hebrew, Greek, or Linguistics skills as many previous interns have used at SilDep,

they were able to use their skills to help manage a guest house, visit some village level savings groups which are a part of their micro finance intervention work. And they got involved in making morenga soap and so much more...

Discovery isn't all about the work... there is also a lot to learn and relationships to make. Having a local host family is a big part of that.

Helping the community see that their traditional handcrafts are valued and marketable both in Ghana and abroad helps people with maintaining their cultural heritage and enhances their economic well being!

Freedom

2011-10-03T10:07:00.004Z

Wycliffe is helping people experience freedom from abuse, anger, oppression, fears and addictions by providing access to God’s Word in their own language!

Check this out for more stories on the topic of freedom! https://freedom.wycliffe.org/

Discovery Mentor Weekend

2011-09-28T11:40:00.003Z

The first weekend after our team arrived in Tamale, we connected our Discoverers with some local mentors from the Jisonayilli Baptist Youth Association. The weekend started off with outdoor games to have some fun together while everyone started to get to know each other.

This was frisbee as you've probably never envisioned it before (did you ever think more than 20 people could play frisbee with only one disk?) Two teams line up facing each other. The frisbee is planted in the ground and one person from each team approach the frisbee.

Either of these people can pick up the frisbee first and try to run away without being tagged by the other person...

This looked to be a game for the young and quick... neither Shevawn or John tried to beat the odds in this game.

The next game seemed "safer" for leader participation, sit in a circle and pass rocks around without missing a beat... both Shevawn & John tried this one!

And we were both soon sitting out on the sidelines watching the experts!

Soon it was time to share dinner bowls of Tuozaffi (TZ)!

The following day, the Discoverers and the Mentors atended church together.

They actually spent the entire day hanging out and learning from each other after church.

We are grateful for the faithful help of Isaiah Moses in organizing the local Baptist Youth for the Discovery Mentor weekend, this is a big part of learning how to learn culture during our team orientation.

Discovery team bus trip Accra to Tamale

2011-09-21T21:49:00.000Z

OK, so we are trying to post weekly updates from our recent Ghana Discovery trip so you can experience some of the sights that we did with our team of student missions interns. This bus trip was the N. American Discoverers' 3rd day in Ghana

It's a long bus trip from Accra to Tamale... 13 hours is pretty typical if there are not too many surprises. This was a typical trip... and stops every couple hours for a "convience stop" or whatever you might call it in your language... and on this one, everyone got something to re-hydrate themselves.

...you know that some people are much happier traveling with a coke. Others of us have our travel coffee in the morning.

Baby Olive has God Parents

2011-09-09T00:27:00.000Z

Baby Olive was born in Accra the 1st week of June this year. She has a much longer name, but let's keep this informal and memorable for now. She was named Olive with the intended meaning of Peace. We were asked by her parents James & Rita if we would agree to be her God Parents and we have accepted this honour and responsibility. Also in the picture above is Olive's grandmother and our sister Agnes.

Olive, her mother Rita and her sister Charis!

Olive's dad James.

Discovering the Beauty around us

2011-09-02T23:42:00.000Z

While on the Ghana Discovery trip, we tried to go on regular walks. Most walks were either related to transportation (we'd walk until we could get a taxi) or needing to purchase something down the street. However a few were just for a bit of exercise and to enjoy the beauty of an evening in northern Ghana.

I remember when we were first setting up this guest house for the Ghana Institute of Linguistics Literacy and Bible Translation (GILLBT), Timothy and I saw these beautiful flowers growing in the bush and we would dig a few up and transplant them at the guest house... they are still thriving at the guest house we used to manage for GILLBT.

These are my favourites amongst all the flowers we found growing wild in the savanah and transplanted.

The GILLBT guest house is the one we still stay at with our Discovery team while in Tamale northern Ghana. Once we had the fence installed, all the trees we planted really started thriving... The environment has been transformed with this landscaping. In exchange for the beautiful greenery, I think the mosquito population has also increased...

Embedding the work of Bible Translation in the African Context

2011-08-25T19:59:00.000Z

We've been back in Huntington Beach 10 days now; the fridge is restocked, most of the things we have unpacked have been put away...we have pretty much caught up on some much needed sleep and have transitioned back into our weekly work routine. Although life seems back to our stateside version of normal, there is still a lot going on in our heads about this past summer’s trip; lots we would like to share with you. Here is one short story adapted from Shevawn's journal concerning our last Sunday morning in Tamale:

"This morning we visited the church that our dear friend Pastor Johnson Asare is affiliated with in Tamale. The highlight of the morning for me was when Mr Goodways, one of the Bible translators with the Nkonya project, got up during the open sharing time of the service to say that the Nknoya New Testament had been dedicated this past November. He wanted the church to rejoice with the Nkoyna people and he also wanted to thank them for their prayer support. It was wonderful to see how excited some of the members of the congregation became when they heard this...and then Pastor Johnson got up and asked the church "Can we not commit to sending 1000 cedis to this project by the end of the year to help them as they now continue the OT translation?" The congregation agreed; soon after that, one man stood up saying that because he was only able to be at this church infrequently, he would give 100 cedis now!

During the Annual General Meeting that the Ghana Institute of Linguistics Literacy and Bible translation held the previous two days, there was much talk about the challenge of helping the African church get involved in the work of Bible translation, so seeing this play out in front of our own eyes was so exciting! It turns out Mr. Goodways has been worshiping with this church whenever he was in Tamale during the past 5 years (which was not often as the Nkonya language group he works with is quite a distance away in southern Ghana). It was so encouraging to see the fruit of his relationship building; maybe especially so as we go home wondering how the Lord is going to supply some of our own financial needs.

Ramsey Update

2011-08-25T19:19:00.001Z

While we have arrived back in the U.S., I’m afraid my technological issues are still unresolved, which puts a bit of a cramp in my communication abilities. A new laptop is on its way as we speak, so hopefully in another week or two I will be more accessible….and can more easily respond. I would like to take this opportunity to encourage you to subscribe to out our blog, which we will be updating weekly with more photos and stories from our recent Discovery trip: http://ramseydiscoveries.blogspot.com/
Current prayer requests for us include:
• Resolving my (Shevawn’s) computer issues
• Optimism as we try to “catch up” with our office work (We seem to have a larger than normal backlog due to Shevawn’s computer problems)
• Wisdom as we plan to visit ministry partners this fall, and that the Lord would provide us with some new financial partners.
Thanks so much for your prayers and partnership!
In His love;
Shevawn & John

Back in California!

2011-08-16T00:05:00.001Z

We touched down at LAX just under 3 hours ago, officially concluding our Ghana Discovery trip for this year. We spent the last week resting and processing while in London, sitting in parks as we read our journals and talked about our trip experiences together. We also enjoyed a walk by the river Thames, where we saw an exhilarating free performance of some 250 young people from a summer program of the National Theatre, watched the ending of the London-Surry bike race, and then concluded our time in the UK by attending a wonderful worship service Sunday evening at St Pauls Onslow Square. The next few days we will continue our transition back to life in CA as we work through our jet lag. Thanks, as always, for your prayers.

Mere hours left of Discovery

2011-08-03T12:47:00.000Z

Today is the day of good-byes, as all of the 2011 Ghana Discovery team members board their various means of transportation to begin their journeys home. We arrived in Accra very late on Tuesday evening after a looonnnnggggg and tiring 18 hour day traveling from Mole game reserve, due to recurring maintenance issues, etc with our vehicle and driver on the way. Although exhausted, we were all very glad to arrive at the GILLBT guest house and finish our time of debriefing together. Tomorrow and Friday all of the team leaders will be in various meetings, then John and I will have a couple of days to see some friends, sleep, and prepare for our own departure on Sunday.

If you do not hear from us for a couple of weeks, don't worry; we are resting and recharging and will write again soon after we have arrived back in the US. Thanks so much for your prayers that have helped sustain us throughout our trip and will continue to sustain us.

Getting ready to travel

2011-07-30T17:55:00.000Z

The Discovery team transportation is arranged; we are planning on leaving Tamale tomorrow morning (Sunday) and traveling several hours to Mole game reserve where we will hopefully spend the night as a team. The next morning (Monday) we will travel from Mole to Accra which will be a very long and tiring travel day; we will probably do very well if we arrive 13 hours after our departure.

The other issue we mentioned previously seems to be resolved, but it has taken a toll on all the leaders. John seems to be bouncing back from it quite fine, but I (Shevawn) am exhausted and today I have been irritable, tearful and impatient. I would really appreciate your prayers, as travel is not my favorite thing to do even when I am not exhausted. Please pray that I would experience some emotional healing and recharging rest and that I would be able to both enjoy and be a blessing to the team and not a frustration as we spend our last few days together.

Thanks so much!

Discovery prayer update!

2011-07-25T13:54:00.001Z

Two issues we could really use your prayer support today include:

· The leaders need wisdom and patience in handling an issue that is not resolving as easily as we had hoped.

· Arranging our transportation from Tamale to the south has been challenging and is still not completed.

Both of these things are distracting as we desire to focus on helping our participants process their trip experiences well during debrief. Your prayers on our behalf are very much appreciated. I’m sorry we have to keep this a bit vague at the moment, however God knows and will answer just the same…..

All together again in Tamale!

2011-07-22T13:20:00.000Z

All of our participants returned safely back in Tamale yesterday, the last ones arriving after 10:30 pm with some interesting travel stories to tell! We all were very glad to “see ourselves” again. This weekend they are all very busy serving in various capacities at the annual general meeting of GILLBT, the national organization we partner with here; this morning they also gave a 30 minute presentation of some of their project experiences. Please continue to pray for the team; some are experiencing some digestive disturbances. Please pray also for our continued cultural unity, Fred’s return to our team on Sunday or Monday, and wisdom for the leaders as we prepare for individual feedback sessions with each of the members of our team. Thanks so much!

Prepping for debrief

2011-07-19T16:53:00.000Z

Leanna and Jordan left this morning for more adventures in Ghana, so we have shifted from part-time prepping for Discovery mode to being very focused. We had a wonderful time with our family – very rejuvenating - which will be so helpful as we begin our Debrief. Please pray for us as we seek to pull many things together; for Fred, our Ghanaian co-leader who is preparing for and attending his sister’s wedding before joining us next week; for Wisdom (a new leader who will be joining us for debrief); and for our participants as they wrap up their time in their project locations and travel back to Tamale on Thursday. Please pray for the leaders, that we will be filled with God’s love and wisdom as we interact and live with our team for two weeks, and for the team as they adjust from being pretty independent during the past month to having to come together and work as a team. Thanks, as always, for your prayer support!

Nearing the end of ministry projects

2011-07-16T10:17:00.001Z

It’s less than a week before our team returns to Tamale for debrief, so we have an increased feel of urgency to our remaining tasks.

We’ve been able to balance doing them while enjoying plenty of time with Leanna and Jordan; we are grateful for how it is all working out.

We do have a prayer request; a problem or misunderstanding of some sort has arisen where we are working and John just got off the phone with one of them saying that we would all meet together when they come next week. We would really appreciate your prayers for wisdom as we seek to bring things out in ways that will help us all work together better and promote peace.

Brings back memories.....8-)

2011-07-11T11:46:00.001Z

This morning our Guest House flat is filled with the excited energy of a dozen children ranging from babies to teen-agers as well as four different parents who are gathered to form a Homeschooling group. Each of these missionary families works in different areas in Ghana and in Togo, and are wanting to get together several times a year to provide their children with learning opportunities that are not always available to them as they homeschool their children. It’s been so much fun to have them around…one of the families has been sharing our unit for the past couple of days and their presence has brought back many memories of when we use to run the guest house here 20 years ago. Originally this place was built with missionary families in mind, but over the years, there have been less of them around, with more short termers and conference attendees coming to fill up the place. While we meet many interesting people as we stay here, this group brings back wonderful memories of our years homeschooling our children here with other missionary families; the fact that Leanna and Jordan are currently on their way to Tamale to see us probably just enhances those memories! I also find myself wondering if I can encourage some of the teachers we know to consider coming out to help this group or others like them…..

A few people have been asking how my health has been, and I wanted to assure everyone that I am doing wonderfully in every way; no problems at all! We are so thankful for Gods mercy and grace.

Friday update

2011-07-08T16:46:00.000Z

I have talked to each of the teams in the last 24 hours, and am happy to report that all are doing very well. Most of them report that language learning seems to be more challenging for them than culture learning, but they are persevering! Our lady who was sick is doing much better, and she and her partner are looking forward to going to visit a village the beginning of next week; also the ladies who asked for prayer for lady friends began some such friendships the next day. They were very encouraged to “see” an opportunity within 24 hours of my saying we would be praying for that; just shows once again how much your prayers are valued and how much they help.

On our family front, I just talked to Leanna and Jordan; she arrived in Accra just a couple of hours ago. John has texted that he is doing well meeting with the various house churches he went down south to see, and is hoping to travel home tomorrow. Not sure if he will be able to make it in one day or not, but he will see how far he can get. I am feeling and doing great, making my way little by little through various office tasks before my family arrives.

Thanks so much for your prayers….hope you have a most wonderful weekend!

Shevawn

Tuesday in Tamale

2011-07-05T11:16:00.000Z

John and Jordan left at 5:45 am today with our good friends Johnson and Lydia Asare for different destinations in southern Ghana. That makes me the only member of the Discovery team currently in Tamale, and I expect to remain so until the beginning of next week when both of the men in my family hope to return....along with our daughter Leanna. The quiet is palatable, as even the guest house is a bit empty at the moment....and I am looking forward to some focused working time while they are gone, so I can be more available when we are all together again.

The 2011 Discovery team is doing very, very well; we hear from them on Mondays and Thursdays, and they are very diligent about keeping in touch. There is only one team that continues to have significant challenges, as one of the girls has been sick or in recovery since the day after they arrived in their language project 12 days ago. The other lady was also sick; although she is now recovered, she is finding it difficult to engage relationally as well as work wise as the place they are staying at is a bit isolated and (of course) she is helping out with her partners physical needs. This week a conference is taking place close to where they are staying with the group of nationals they went to work with, so please pray as they would like very much to be able to start developing some significant relationships during this time, as well as begin to get involved more in the work. On a similar note, another one of the lady partnerships asked us last night to pray that they would be able to make some lady friends; so far their colleagues have been men, who keep introducing them to other....men! 8-) I gave them an idea of how to meet some ladies....now we are praying that that, or an idea generated from that, will work for them.

Finally, today I was reminded about the prayer request we sent out in our prayer letter before we left; "God, bring me closer to you this trip, no matter what it takes." We wrote that focusing on personal comfort and safety....and while there have been some stretching in that area, I have realized that maybe the way God is stretching me most this trip is via my computer issues. My inability to communicate on our blog or even to answer e-mail as much as I have been able to on my past several Discovery trips has made me sad as I am not able to keep those of you who are praying for us up to date on the teams progress and prayer needs. I have also felt very frustrated that I am unable to respond to encouraging notes sent to us in a timely manner. On the other hand, I have spent time I normally would have on the computer interacting with people face to face instead...and probably succeeding at being present more, which has been something we have been encouraging our team to do as well. Most of the time I have been successful at reminding myself that God is in control and resting in that....and trusting that He will enable me to get done the most important things and the others.....oh well! 8-) I am truly thankful for His grace enabling me to do that....as well as for your prayers!

Tamale Night On The Town

2011-06-30T20:12:00.000Z

During the week since the members of our Discovery team departed for their various ministry projects, John and I have been hard at work with Fred and Jordan, wrapping up our Orientation and beginning our debrief preparations. This afternoon, however, John and I left the guest house at 2:45 pm to run some errands in town; when we were finished, we went to the “guinea fowl boutique” and bought delicicious grilled guinea fowl, which we then consumed with cold drinks in a lovely outside beverage area. We enjoyed relaxing as the sun went down….and then made it back to the guest house about an hour before rain came our way. A refreshing evening in so many ways!

Orientation narrative in the words of one of our participants

2011-06-24T17:19:00.001Z

Yesterday we sent all but three of our participants out to their language projects; all arrived safely! The leaders spent much of the day debriefing and making revisions to the orientation program for next year. The rest of the time John has been doing e-mail and other similar office type tasks while I have been cleaning up and trying to sort through the piles that seem to be everywhere as we begin to settle in to living in Tamale. When John read the e-mail below and shared it with me , we thought it would be a wonderful way for you to hear what our time has been like so far….for our participants. Enjoy!

Hello friends and family,

Right now, I have been in Ghana for almost exactly one week! The name of my program is Discovery so I thought that you would enjoy hearing about some of my discoveries both big and small over the last few days!

1. Ghanaian Teammates

When I got off the plane in Accra last week, my team of seven North Americans was joined by six Ghanaians. Most on my team are from the South while most of the trip will take place in the North which is very different. Their welcome has been incredible, and they have acted as guides and culture teachers as I and the others acclimate to the culture. This is making for one of my best abroad experiences.

2. Heat

The weather has not been quite as hot as I expected. It is very hot from about ten to four, but because the sun sets around 6pm, as we are near the equator, it is cooler earlier.

3. Accra Scavenger Hunt

Our first two days, we had what I would call “scavenger hunts” in Accra as we learned to do basic tasks like use currency and buy food in the market. My proudest accomplishment was learning how to use the trotro. These are small buses or big vans which people use to get around the city. They follow regular lines, but there do not seem to be any transit maps so I had to learn where the stations are.

Additionally, the vast majority of the trotros are not marked so you have to go through a parking lot filled with them asking where the one going to your destination is. It was a test of my assertiveness.

4. Trip to Tamale

Last Friday, we took a bus with no AC to the North of Ghana to Tamale. I enjoyed looking out the window the whole trip and getting to know teammates. We went from the south filled with concrete block houses, banana and mango trees to the much flatter and grass filled north with round mud huts and thatched roofs.

5. Eating With Hands

So in Ghana, much of the time, you eat with your right hand and no utensils. You make balls of various grains and use it to sop up meat stews. My favorite so far was an okra fish stew. And it is not as unsanitary as it sounds because you wash your hands with soap and water before.

6. GILLBT Visit

Yesterday was one of my favorite days. We visited the Bible translation center in Ghana! We got to meet many of the workers and learn about their jobs. One thing that I enjoyed was watching the checking process for an OT translation. A translator from England as well as two native speakers of the language were sitting in a room and checking the translation against a related language, the Hebrew Bible and several English translations. We also visited the literacy coordinator. After translation is normally necessary to teach people how to read in their native language! It was neat to learn about how this changes people’s lives both spiritually and educationally.

7. What I am learning

A lot, but here is one from today - In devotions we read about how the disciples were sent out in pairs by Jesus with nothing but were well-provided for. Interestingly, a few verses later, when Jesus is on the hill with 5000 people, the disciples wonder how they will all be fed, but Jesus more than provides when he feeds all 5000. I hope that I will learn from the disciples mistakes! I need to remember to trust how God has provided for me in this week and remember that God will provide for me in the weeks to come.

That is all for now. Blessings!

Ghana Discoverers 2011

2011-06-23T21:22:00.000Z

We think we have a pretty fantastic Wycliffe Discovery team! These young cross-cultural interns will make great impacts in the world in the next couple decades, predicts the GILLBT director upon meeting them! We agree and you would too if you could hang out with them!

Discovery Orientation

2011-06-15T22:43:00.000Z

Today was our 1st Day with all our team together in Accra. 13 participants and 4 leaders is the current count. We did have a few adventures today as we ate local food at a nice chop bar, explored the city a bit, followed by a dinner of Lasagne! Please pray for a few of our teammates who are not feeling their best just now after a long day walking in the tropical sun, many are tired and jet lagged. We are having quite interesting discussions interspearsed with practical experiences... tomorrow we visit one of the biggest markets in town... thanks for your prayers for strength, love, hope and grace!

Participants safe arrival

2011-06-15T07:19:00.001Z

We are most thankful that our Ghana Discovery team is all together now in Accra! 13 interns + 4 leaders!

(more news and possibly a picture later)

choosing joy under African skies,

john & shevawn

So much to be thankful for

2011-06-14T21:35:00.001Z

Yesterday we made the decision to pretty much give up using Shevawn’s laptop because it was eating up so much time and emotional energy…which helped us to begin adjusting and move on. Around that time, I (Shevawn) got to thinking that because this machine had once again become such a focus, I was not noticing so many things that were going right. Here are just a few of the things we have to be thankful for:

· The 6 Ghanaian participants on our team are a delight; we’re so happy to have them and they did really well during their pre-orientation.

· The provision of Fred, our Ghanaian leader, who is not only experienced so he could jump right in on short notice, but also a very special person who is wonderful to lead with.

· I will be able to borrow one of the laptops a North American participant will be bringing out to use in a language project; she will wind up using a netbook we brought to give to a project at the end of the trip. Although this solution is not ideal for either of us, it will work better than what is happening now….or having no machine for me to work on at all.

· Our son Jordan, who agreed to help lead the Orientation part of our trip after we arrived in Ghana. It has been so much fun to work with him; who he is and what he has to contribute are proving to be great assets to our team. Also, having an extra leader on board has really helped make up for the time we have lost dealing with computer issues.

· Knowing we have so many who care about us and are praying for us as we encounter both joys and obstacles on this trip

There is so much more, but that will have to do for now as John and several members of the team are due back at any time with our North American participants. I hope we will be able to get some photos up soon……

Olive

2011-06-12T19:42:00.001Z

This morning John, Jordan and I attended the baby dedication of our first god-child, Olive Naa Korlei Quist-Therson . What a wonderful honor and a joy to hold this 9 day old baby in my arms. I really have to smile at God's timing, as James and Rita named their newest daughter Olive because it means Peace, which is what they desire her to experience and to bring to others. Peace....which seems to be the emerging theme for me of Discovery 2011; will I let God's peace reign in my life while my computer acts up....and when two of our female Ghanaian participants inform us that they will not be joining our team after all? I am glad I have this beautiful babies life in the forefront of my mind, reminding me hour by hour along your prayers as I seek to trust God in all that happens.

Prayer request

2011-06-11T14:46:00.001Z

Shevawn’s computer is acting up again; same kind of issues she had before they put in a new hard drive. Your prayers are much appreciated; she is currently not able to open some of the documents we need to use on this trip.

Enjoying Ghana!

2011-06-10T21:30:00.000Z

Our travel to Ghana was nice and uneventful, and we were delighted to see our son Jordan as we exited the airport. He had thoughtfully prepared for our arrival, arranging our transportation to the Guest House we are staying in and bringing us some snacks for coping with the jet lag munchies as well as some items he had picked up for our Discovery team for us to save us some time. After a good nights sleep, we had a wonderful day with him today, traveling outside of the capital city to see the Theological Institute he has been attending this past year and to where he has been staying, meeting the family he lives with. Our first meal out, we enjoyed fufu with light soup and ground nut soup and rice balls....yes!!!!!

Tomorrow we will start preparing in earnest for the coming of our team as we try to get a bit organized during the day and meet in the evening with Fred, (who will be our Ghanaian co-leader for Orientation), Maame Esi (who led with us in 2009), and Jordan, who is willing to hang out and help with Discovery Orientation too. We appreciate your continued prayers!

Safe Travel

2011-06-09T22:48:00.000Z

Just wanted to let everyone know that Shevawn & John have arrived safely in Accra with all their baggage. We are tired but wellJ

choosing joy in Africa,

john & shevawn

Traveling...

2011-06-08T17:57:00.001Z

“A man travels the world in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.”

-George Moore

The time is almost here!

2011-06-07T22:45:00.000Z

The two of us are working from home today, alternating time on our laptops with packing and other necessary preparations as we get ready for our upcoming departure. The last few days have been a wild ride, ranging from finding out our co-leader would not be able to be a part of Orientation with us (due to unexpected employment obligations) to being totally loved on by our Newsong church community over the weekend. With lots to do in the short time remaining, we feel rejuvenated by the love and prayers of so many....and so thankful for great health and high energy levels!

What follows below is from our recent prayer letter, for those of you who haven't seen it yet:

Praying for Discovery this summer

As we think about what lies before us, and how we would like to be supported in prayer, we particularly like this excerpt from Francis Chan’s book “Crazy Love”:

Haven’t we all prayed the following prayer? “Lord, we pray for safety as we travel. (Shevawn would add here “and good health!”) We ask that no one gets hurt on this trip. Please keep everyone safe until we return, and bring us back safely. In Jesus name we pray, amen. The exact wording may vary a bit, but that is the standard prayer we recite before leaving on mission trips, retreats, vacations, and business trips.

We are consumed by safety. Obsessed with it, actually. Now, I’m not saying it is wrong to pray for God’s protection, but I am questioning how we’ve made safety our highest priority. We’ve elevated safety to the neglect of whatever God’s best is, whatever would bring God the most glory, or whatever would accomplish his purposes in our lives and in the world.

Would you be willing to pray this prayer: God, bring me closer to you during this trip, whatever it takes…People who are obsessed with Jesus aren’t consumed with their personal safety and comfort above all else. Obsessed people care more about God’s kingdom coming to this earth than their own lives being shielded from pain or distress.

We would appreciate it so much if you would pray like this with us/for us. In addition, here are some other things we would appreciate you praying for:

Pray that we will be filled with God’s wisdom, patience and love as we lead the team. Pray that God will have his way in all of our lives; that we will all be open to what He wants to do in us and through us.

Several of our Ghanaian participants are completing their final year at university; in the past, this has presented problems for the team if their professors need to see them about final projects/papers during the trip, especially if they are out in a language project. Please pray for God’s will to be done in the lives of all involved.

Pray for wisdom in how we manage our time, especially when our participants are engaged in their internships. We are going to have to significantly modify what we can do and how we are able to invest in our Ghanaian relationships this year; we want so much for love to be communicated even if the amount of time we spend with colleagues and friends is not what it has been in the past

Flooding is often a problem in Accra when we first arrive, and having been through a flood once before in Tamale, Shevawn sometimes has a battle with worry here.

Pray for the Indonesia and Papua New Guinea teams and their leaders too!

Pray that many of the 2011 participants will go on to further involvement with Bible translation in some way after their trips are over.

2011-06-05T00:31:00.001Z

In between periods of packing, John and Jay have gotten my laptop up and running....and I have been working on it for the past hour or so with no issues. PRAISE THE LORD!!! Thanks SO MUCH for the prayers!

Ghana Discovery 2011: current plans and answered prayers

2011-06-02T22:31:00.000Z

A new hard drive is currently making it's way from Orlando to HB; estimated (hoped for!) arrival time: by 10:30 tomorrow morning. We have been so thankful for your prayers; a program that was crucial to our getting our prayer letters out was still operable in some ways...and the Lord has given me (Shevawn in particular) great peace and joy as He has helped us find ways to work around/get things done that need to be done. Please do keep praying...especially for John and Jay as they install the new hard drive and try to make everything operable tomorrow and Saturday.

The rest of todays blog enrty is an excerpt from our most recent prayer letter - minus the photo that is not cooperating 8-(

As we prepare for our 2011 Discovery trip to Ghana, we often think of how blessed we are to get to do this yet an-other year. 18 months ago, when Shevawn experienced a neurological episode indicative of Multiple Sclerosis, we wondered how this would affect our ministry. We thank God that He has chosen to continue strengthening us and enabling us so that this year both of us will again be able to go to Ghana and lead a team together. With her Dr’s agreement, we go forward in faith that no matter what happens, God is with us and will work for His glory and our good.

As you know, every trip is different. Here are a but a few of the distinctives of this years trip plans:

All of our foreign students are female and from either the US or Canada; when we arrive, we hope to add 3 Ghanaian ladies and 4 Ghanaian men to complete our team.

Wisdom Edzesi – an alumni from our 2004 trip- will be taking time off of work in order to be our co-leader this year for his first time.

Another first; we plan to send 2 or more par-ticipants to Burkina Faso during their lan-guage project time. (In 2008, we sent a team to Benin, so this will be the second time Ghanaian Discovery participants will work outside of Ghanaian borders.)

John will take a week during the time the participants are out in their different language projects to do his consulting work for The Well church. This will involve his traveling to southern Ghana and interacting with church leaders there. In the past, John has stayed a week after the Discovery trip ended in order to do this, which meant he had to go through the extra work and expense of having his visa extended… so this year we are going to see if it is possible to do this during the four weeks we spend recovering from orientation and prepar-ing for debrief.

Our daughter Leanna is going to Ghana for several weeks this summer to hang out with her brother Jordan, who has recently completed a one year program at a Ghanaian theological institute. They will be traveling around the country during her visit...but we anticipate getting to spend some time with them too!

2011-05-31T20:38:00.001Z

So a saint from IT by the name of Jay has been working on Shevawn's lap top remotely for 3 days now (yes, even over Memorial day weekend!) and the decision has now been made to replace my hard drive. This will take a few days...and in the meantime, I can not access parts of my Ghana Discovery to do list and am struggling to find different ways to e-mail out our prayer letters. Your prayers are much appreciated as this is adding to our already full final week! Choosing joy and trusting that He is still in control.....

A little bit of craziness

2011-05-26T19:16:00.000Z

Soooo....today was my day to print and send out prayer letters, to rally our prayer support and then concentrate on the final thrust of pre-trip preparations with/for our team. Only this morning has not gone quite as planned. My laptop has decided not to let me into the data base that has our supporter info so I could print envelopes for the prayer letters we send via snail mail....or work in my office e-mail so that I could send out the e-mail versions of our prayer letter. Hmmm....could we be encountering some spiritual warfare here? Just saying.....

Actually, this has been the least stressful both-of-us-going-to-Ghana May I can remember us experiencing in a long time; except for having some trouble sleeping at night (not worrying or stressed out, just having a hard time turning our brains off!) we have been experiencing peace amidst all the unexpected things that happen - like today. OK, today I did almost break into tears...but I'm breathing now. Thanks so much for your prayers, because we know this peace in the midst of pressure is a gift of God's grace. And please....keep praying! 8-)

Discovery Quote

2011-05-19T16:44:00.001Z

"Thanks for putting together the Discovery program....it was the starting point of my journey so far and I can't wait to see what else God has in store for me! :)"
-Emily, Discovery alumni now serving with Wycliffe in a Limited Access Nation

Thinking about food

2011-05-13T21:51:00.004Z

Many people ask us what the food is like in Ghana. We really appreciate Anthony Bourdain's enthusiasm in eating everything put before him and enjoying all the spice and hospitality that comes with eating in Ghana. We hope you enjoy this glimpse into Ghanaian cuisine, and we also hope that you get to taste it one day. If you have already eaten some, what is your favorite dish? John says; fufu with light soup... Shevawn says, Red-Red;-)

for those of you reading this as a facebook note, the video is here: http://youtu.be/a93DUPwThmY

Choosing joy in May

2011-05-05T19:26:00.000Z

I woke up this morning at 5 am and my mind took off, thinking of a zillion things that needed to be done. There was no way I was going to be able to go back to sleep; May has definitely arrived, there is no doubt about it! Although our Discovery trips take place for 8 weeks beginning in June, with the exception of our debrief time with the team, John and I always find May to be the most grueling… and potentially the most stressful…month of our Discovery trip cycle. Because of this, you are likely to hear from us less often (responding to e-mails in a timely manner? Hah!) but we need your prayers so much! Here are some of the ways you can be praying for us up until our departure:

· For wisdom for each day, wise use of our time; what to let go of…. what to do… how to best do it.
· For patience and love for everyone we work with (participants, travel agents, co-workers… each other!)
· That we would continue to take good care of ourselves during this time (physically, spiritually and mentally) so we will be strong and ready to lead in June.
· For Uncle Alex in Ghana, as he finishes lining up our Ghanaian participants and the various language projects we will be sending them to work in. Please pray for both him and Wisdom, (our Ghanaian co-leader) as they work together to help prepare our Ghanaian participants for our coming time together.
· For the team leaders we trained for other trips, who are also busy preparing and conducting their pre-trip training with their participants online.
· For our finances; since the beginning of the year, our finances have dropped significantly. During the past 5 months we have received only 80% of our monthly support level. Thankfully, John’s consulting with The Well Churches has provided another 9%, but we are still running short now on a regular basis.

From this point through the duration of our trip, with the exception of our next prayer letter, our primary means of communicating will be via this blog. Our blog also automatically uploads onto our Facebook wall, so if you are our friend (or want to be) you can keep up with us there if you prefer.

Thanks SO MUCH for your prayers; we are counting on them and are so thankful for them!

In His love;

Shevawn & John Ramsey

Sit back and enjoy the journey!

2011-04-28T17:09:00.000Z

Recently John and I went on our annual spring vacation taking one of our favorite modes of transportation; trains. While enjoying our time immensely, we had some interesting experiences on our way back:

We sat idle on the tracks for a couple of hours while waiting for one of our engines to be replaced because of mechanical problems.

We waited at several scheduled stops longer than planned because people forgot to get off; once we stopped again a couple of blocks after a station for such a person.

My personal favorite; eight minutes before reaching a scheduled train, we had to stop so our current conductor could get off and a new one be driven out to us, due to some type of regulation as to how many hours they can work. We watched as the new conductor struggled to get up into the train on the outskirts of a town where there was no platform or anything to aid his entry.

AND we arrived at our destination 4 hours late!

All this caused us to ponder about travel experiences, both in the US and abroad. You see, whenever we take people to Ghana, they inevitably tell us stories of things they encountered during their travels that seemed inexplicable or even annoying to them. Yet if there was a Ghanaian on our train, I can imagine she would have been greatly perplexed as to why the conductor could not last eight more minutes before ending his sift. And to be honest, I have been much more stressed when I have sat on the side of the road in a bus in Ghana then I was on the train that day; I can only assume that one of the reasons for that is my comfort-in-the-culture level...which I think was also a factor in our Ghanaian friend James recent first time travel experience in the US. John was telling me how James encountered weather delays on his plane trips, missed connections, and the joys of the Greyhound bus experience, resulting in a much worse than anticipated experience for him. Tiredness, unfamiliar places, and unrealistic expectations were all a factor for him, as they can be for us and the rest of our team in just a few weeks time.....

Challenges....and thankfulness!

2011-04-13T19:40:00.000Z

A dear friend and supporter or ours wrote me recently " It seems to me that this year has been extra complicated for you; many challenges....I'm sure there have been great victories as well." As I sat and pondered her comments, I readily agreed with her assessments. I am so thankful for the peace we have experienced/are experiencing in the midst of all the complications, and the ways we have seen God work things out. I guess that's part of the benefit that come with both getting older and having experienced God's presence in our lives throughout our adult years. 8-) It truly is a blessing to have so many memories to draw from of how God has taken care of things in the past whenever present circumstances tempt us to worry or fear.

I also realized as I read her letter that we haven't conveyed to many people yet that I (Shevawn) am planning to go to Ghana with John on Discovery this year. We are so thankful that I have gotten the all clear from my Dr; I have had no significant issues while on the drug study and have not had another neurological episode since my initial experience 16 months ago. I am so excited and looking forward to both leading a trip again and getting to see so many people I know and love in Ghana.

Thankful for so much as we head into Holy week;

Shevawn

Mozambique Discovery Report

2011-04-07T23:07:00.000Z

We sent 11 Discoverers to Mozamique in 2010, it was the first time to that country and the first time team leaders had some very significant projects for the team to work on. The team was ready and willing to dive into the ministry of Bible translation and related work. They did lots of language documentation, phonology, translation, teaching, art, computer troubleshooting and more...

2 of the team members are currently in the application process with Wycliffe to go back to Mozambique to continue helping with the long term mission! 1 other team member is attending seminary, others have wedding plans, while some are still finishing school and/or paying off school debts. Please join us in prayer for each alumni to find their way into God's big harvest field as workers at the right time and place.

The Discovery team did a lot of good work on this CD for organizations working in local Mozambican languages. Its nearly identical to the website http://lidemo.net/

(to see the website, click the title of this blog post)

Prayer update

2011-03-31T22:09:00.000Z

Our time for receiving new Discovery applications is over, and what has transpired over the past few months has turned out to be very interesting. In November we wrote that for 2011 we had almost twice as many trips (7) and twice as many participant openings (74) available. We were very excited...and so you can imagine our surprise as the months unfolded and the number of applications we received were not at all what we expected. As of today, it looks like we will have 36 participants, half of what we were aiming for, and 30% less than we had last year. We have had to eliminate and consolidate some trips in order to make them viable; we will send a team to Ghana, Papua New Guinea, and one (instead of two teams) to Indonesia, along with several individuals to different places. GetGlobal, the other short term missions program in Wycliffe that focuses on the Next Generation, has half as many participants as we do, and the summer internships program at Wycliffe has even less. While we are excited about the trips we have going, we would appreciate your prayers for all involved as we seek to understand why this happened and what changes we ought to make in light of our decreasing numbers.

In a recent blog posting, we mentioned that the young man we had chosen to be our Ghanaian co-leader was unsure whether he could commit after all; this past week he let us know that he would not be available. We are thankful to be able to say that we now have another leader; since we had a very hard time choosing between all those who were available to help us, we see this as continued answer to our prayers. We would appreciate your prayers for good and timely communications with our co-leader Wisdom, Uncle Alex (who is selecting our Ghanaian participants and communicating with language projects that our participants will be working with) and others in Ghana as we all make plans and arrangements together.

We would also appreciate your prayers for the leaders of the other trips (David, Denise, Stephanie, David and Anne) as they begin pre-trip training with their participants online, and as they work out details of their trips. Please pray for Ryan and John as they work on logistics from this end… and for Sheryl as she does the same for two individual trips she is coordinating. This year our application deadline was several weeks later than normal, which means a shorter time period in which to pull things together; we’d appreciate your prayers for strength, wisdom, peace and joy in the midst of pressure. Please also pray for our participants, many of whom have less time to do their support raising than in previous years.

Thanks so much for partnering in prayer with us!

In His love;

Shevawn Ramsey

It Changes Everything: The Social Impact of Bible Translation

2011-03-25T00:45:00.001Z

"If you want to keep people subjugated, the last thing you place in their hands is a Bible. There's nothing more radical, nothing more revolutionary, nothing more subversive against injustice and oppression than the Bible."

-Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Discovery is recruiting future workers to help alleviate social injustice and poverty...
Please pray for our alumni as they often face quite a long and difficult path to become part of the long term work of giving people access to God's word in their heart languages.

click this link to watch the video: It Changes Everything: The Social Impact of Bible Translation The Seed Company

Watch the video and see for yourself the impact having a Bible in peoples own language can make!

Many years ago we decided to be involved with something of eternal impact... and many of you have joined us in this mission. I hope this encourages you to see the impact and know that you are part of changing everything!

2011-03-17T22:45:00.000Z

There are 8 days remaining for us to except applicants for this year’s Discovery trips...and we have many more openings than expected. Which is disappointing...and a bit stressful. We may need to cancel one of the trips slated for this summer...we are sad to have opportunities available that will likely not be taken advantage of. The other short term/internship programs in Wycliffe currently have even less applicants than Discovery does, so it's a bit of a dilemma. We would appreciate your prayers; for wisdom for all of us as we decide how to proceed, both short-term and long term...and for whomever God is nudging to apply for a trip this year.

Although the Ghana team is still 2 participants short, we began our pre-trip on-line preparations with the 6 who have been accepted, as there is less than 3 months before our trip will begin. All our non Ghanaian participants are female at this point...I said I would never lead an all female team (I should know better than to say "never" to God!) Of course, there will probably be some Ghanaian guys, so it’s unlikely the team will be totally female, but with our other two leaders being male this year...which brings me to another prayer request. After much prayer we finally decided on our Ghanaian assistant leader, who accepted...but recently informed us he may not be able to commit to the times we will need him for after all. Please pray for him and with us as we decide if he can still lead, or if we need to find another co-leader.

So many things to encourage us to remember that God is in control...and that we can and should totally trust Him for whatever transpires. I am so thankful to be in His hands!

In His love;

Shevawn

Wycliffe retreat day

2011-03-12T19:08:00.000Z

We and our Wycliffe colleagues took one day to get outside our office and connect with God, His word, to play and experience some refreshment. Since we couldn't connect with our Orlando colleagues, we headed to the beach... and it was a glorious day in the winter sun!

a great quiet spot to to interview a Discovery applicant while at the beach.

kites fly in formation... at first I thought this was one big connected kite, but turns out it was 6 people cooperating, syncronized kiting... fantastic.

in contrast to those kite flyers, this bicycle trickster was all alone in his world spinning and showing his stuff no matter who was walking by on this busy public sidewalk...

I do wonder what a world famous cheese strip is!

Discovery Alumni News

2011-03-08T00:45:00.001Z

While preparing for Discovery 2011... we receive alumni stories from 2008 and 2010. Join us in prayer for these 3 future Bible translators:

Discovery 2008

“The Discovery trip to the Solomon Islands in 2008 was a true confirmation to me that I could do the type of work and lifestyle required to work overseas with Wycliffe Bible Translators. Working with Solomon Islanders as they received the Bible in their own language for the first time was so powerful, motivating and humbling. Since then I have been filled with a desire to return to the Solomons to work on the many language projects left there, so that the thousands of other Bibleless people in that nation might one day read and understand God's Word in their own language.”

- (this couple met on the Discovery team... got married and are now preparing to serve in Wycliffe Bible Translators)

Discovery 2010

"... Please pray for me especially as I finish up this semester. I am focusing primarily on school matters, but also am trying to plan for my summer- I need to decide on a place to live and work for the summer and following months, and am also praying for a good co-worker for my OneStory mission Assignment with Wycliffe. Also, I will be applying to Wycliffe over Spring Break...."

Gender dilemmas

2011-02-16T23:25:00.000Z

Above is a picture of last summer's Ghana Discovery team. It is similar to the other 10 team photos we have on our office wall in one very significant way; western men are missing in action! Take a look for yourself; although our Ghanaian counterparts vary each year in their gender mix, ours is very predictable; 2 or at most 3 guys from outside Ghana participate in our trips each year. Will this year be different? Maybe...but not in the way we had hoped for. Currently John is processing 8 different applications for the Ghana trip...all from ladies! And the other trips are looking much the same at this point.

Now don't get us wrong...we are all for empowering women, and we are excited to have each and every one on our trips. But you have to wonder what is keeping the men back... Would you join us in prayer that the guys whom God is nudging to Discover this summer will take the leap of faith to apply and join us? Thanks!

Florida

2011-02-11T22:16:00.000Z

We were in Florida all last week for meetings with our Wycliffe colleagues. Shevawn started her trip with a bonus stopover to spend a few days with a friend in NC. John started his trip with a canceled flight leading up to a 16 hour door to door trip... we did work pretty long and hard all week, but made some progress in our programs and relationships. We returned to California quite tired. Right now is a crunch time for us in our Wycliffe ministry, both Shevawn & I are running just to keep up but still seem to be losing ground at the moment... we sure appreciate your prayers and support at this time.

Spanish Moss everywhere... great warm winter weather and a lovely lake... just be careful of those alligators!

Team building games can be fun;-)

The climb up was the easiest part... walking out on the little gang plank and taking that first step into the air is fear inducing, even with all those safety harneses! That's John up there... somehow Shevawn made herself scarce during this event!

Team Leader Training....round number two!

2011-02-04T00:35:00.001Z

Last night was our second Discovery team leader training phone call, and I was so thrilled with how it went! At first, I thought we were not going to be able to pull it off, as we had a difficult time getting everyone connected...possibly because of increased internet activity due to the Chinese New Year, as many of our leaders are living around Asia. But in the end, only one leadership couple was unable to participate...and the rest of us were able to cover in one phone conference what I had thought it would take two to cover. Not only did we cover it quickly, but the ideas that came out of our time together were so exciting! I feel like the hard and sometimes discouraging work of the past couple of months, as well as the concerns I had about how functional this version of team leader training would turn out to be, were worth it all. To those of you who have been praying...thank you so much, because I feel this really has been an answer to our prayers. Can I ask you to please continue to pray for both the next two scheduled phone conferences (February 15th and 25th, 6:15 pm PST) as well as my getting the rest of the info up on the site asap. (My trainees have now caught up to me, and I need to get a great deal more material on in time for them to be able to look it over before the 15th.) Thanks so much! Shevawn

Partnering with Multiple Generations

2011-01-25T18:43:00.002Z

Meet James, Rita and Charis...a lovely family. To us, they represent the future; not only because this past year they became our first ever financial supporters from Africa, but because they are….well… young! You see, this past year we have had several of our faithful monthly supporters have to stop or reduce their regular giving to us because they have gotten older and are struggling with reduced incomes due to retirement and or/health issues. While we ourselves are not getting any younger, we are not looking at retiring for at least another decade; however, over half of our current supporters will likely have retired before we do. That means we need more people in their 20’s-40’s to fill in the gaps….from all over the world! Please pray with us that God would touch the hearts of those who can begin partnering with us now and into the future.

(Currently, our monthly support income plus the extra John earns as a consultant for The Well organization puts us about $100 a month short of our support needs; however we just learned another supporter will be retiring this month and need to reduce their monthly giving as well…)

Team Leader Training update

2011-01-19T03:56:00.000Z

This past Saturday evening at 4 pm PST we held our first out of five projected phone conferences for the team leaders we are training for this year's upcoming Discovery trips. We want to thank those of you who knew and were praying while we connected 11 people living in four different countries via Skype for an hour and a half. The training session went really well; one set of team leaders experienced several dropped calls, but were always able to get reconnected with us quickly. We were able to field questions about materials the team leaders were able to access prior to our phone conference via our new team leader training website, which enabled us to cover a half days worth of material in an hour and a half. We are very encouraged with how things went; this has been a huge leap for us as we have spent over a year re-working our previous training paradigm from bringing our leaders to one place to train in person to being able to train leaders in multiple locations all over the world. This saves our organization money, as well as saving time for individual leaders, who no longer have to come to a two day seminar but are able to fit their training around their existing work schedules. We are so thankful for all that the Lord has done to make this possible, and for your prayers which were a part of the process.

Time in Tucson; Celebration and Grief

2011-01-13T23:46:00.000Z

Last weekend we took a quick trip to Tucson to join in the wedding celebration of David and Kemoy Addai, whose family has embraced us as one of their own since we first met over 24 years ago. It was a joy to be there...and to be able to celebrate my younger sister Allison's birthday the night before as well. But the happy times took a tragic turn quite unexpectedly on Saturday afternoon, and Sunday we spent the day with a church body that was mourning the loss of one of their members who was among the victims of the shooting spree the night before. Our hearts and our prayers are still with the people of Northminster Presbyterian Church as well as for the shooter and the many other people who have been so wounded by his actions.

Film Students Wanted

2011-01-05T00:44:00.000Z

Wycliffe Discovery Program from David Hepburn on Vimeo.

Way back in 2003, on a Discovery trip to Ghana, 2 film students teamed up and produced a couple versions of a great Discovery video. The videos have been used extensively by us in Wycliffe Bible Translators and by our colleagues in the Ghana Institute of Linguistics Literacy and Bible Translation for all these years.

Now is the time for a new fresh look at Discovery through the video lens....

Film students wanted to produce a new Discovery video. There are lots of trip options available, contact us so we can discuss options.

Christmas in Africa

2010-12-28T01:04:00.000Z

Just received this update from some of our colleagues in Ghana and wanted to share their story with you.

At many Safaliba festivals, people give each other gifts of sugar to help them in preparing tea and other similar sweet drinks which they don't consume much during regular times.

This past Sunday we were at a small Safaliba church, and we gave the leader several copies of the scripture portions which were recently translated. He glanced through them while the congregation was singing a song, and after they finished he announced that "Our friends have given us sugar and honey for Christmas!"

"Your words are sweeter in my mouth than honey!"
-Psalm 119:103

An International Christmas in HB?

2010-12-22T18:29:00.002Z

This advent season has been full of cross-cultural events for John & I...and you can imagine how happy that makes us! In the past few weeks we have:
*Attended an Interfaith Christmas dinner with Muslims and Christians together
*Baked Christmas cookies with our Turkish friends
*Decorated cookies with 40 mostly Hispanic children from the Oakview after school program
*Walked through and observed the Virgin of Guadalupe Celebrations in the Oakview neighborhood.
Each of these activities have brought us great joy..but the one that has impacted me the most this season was the VOG celebrations. We have lived here 15 years now and had no idea that such a big event was occurring each year just a 5 minute walk from where we live. It was like one huge block party, filled with food and parades and dancers in traditional costumes. There was this amazing community feeling.....what impressed me the most was how they had come together to create worship spaces right there in the midst of their neighborhood in which they were worshiping together, no clergy needed. I don't know if I have ever seen anything quite like it in the Evangelical community; it was quite inspiring! Our hope is that each of you will also experience joy and inspiration during your Christmas festivities!

December prayer update

2010-12-16T18:58:00.001Z

Christmas is almost here, and we know you have lots to do...so we will keep this very brief.

· Team leaders; we are still lacking leaders for one of our trips and team leader training begins the end of the month, so please pray for God’s provision here.

· Speaking of team Leader training; great progress has been made on the new training site and we think it is going to be much more user friendly for our leaders than what we did last year. Shevawn still has a great deal of material to put up there however, and is feeling like it is going to be very difficult for her to get everything up on time. We would appreciate your prayers.

· We need to prepare for several presentations we will be giving at a church that supports us in the beginning of January…and a prayer letter to go out by the end of January. Between our various Discovery responsibilities and the holidays coming up, again, things are feeling a bit tight. Please pray that what needs to get done will be accomplished…and for peace and joy in the journey.

And a very BIG praise; it was one year ago that Shevawn had her neurological episode that led to her MS diagnosis and subsequent participations in an MS drug study. She has not experienced another episode since that initial one and continues to do well on the drug study, for which we are very thankful.

Thanks so very, very much for your prayers!

In His service;

Shevawn & John Ramsey

Joy to the world...the Lord is come!!!!! Let earth receive her king!

Bible Translations in many formats

2010-12-07T01:31:00.000Z

Last month in Ghana our colleagues celebrated the dedication of 2 translations. The complete Chumburung Bible was dedicated in northern Ghana! The Chumburung language project has hosted many Discovery interns over the years and we have especially enjoyed the English translation of some of their wise & witty traditional proverbs!

The Nkonya New Testament was dedicated and a great celebration was enjoyed by many to congratulate the Nkonyas, and to thank all those who have, collectively, laboured for 22 years to make the day possible.

According to the Director of the Ghana Institute of Linguistics Literacy & Bible Translation this is a historic first for GILLBT...
"the first time that a New Testament has been dedicated in print form, at the same that it is simultaneously being made available in different formats, including on the internet and on mobile phones. This is certainly a technological leap in our work, and sets a standard for the other language projects to follow."

2011 Discovery

2010-12-03T20:06:00.002Z

The first Discoverer of 2011 is scheduled to travel to Africa for 2 months on January 5th.... but let me share part of the journey with you: We received an application from Megan for a summer 2010 Discovery trip, but due to scheduling conflicts, she had to cancel. Then in October of this year, just after we started advertising our 2011 trips, I received an email from Megan asking about potential late summer trip dates (that might fit into her schedule), because although she is considering a missions career, she is also currently pursuing her dream of singing professionally and is quite confident that God has her right where He wants her at the moment... so I wrote back suggesting she stay where God has placed her. I also suggested she read "Wide Awake" by Erwin McManus, to encourage her to follow her God given dreams... I wrote the following thinking I would not hear from her for a few years -if ever: "If and when God sends you on another mission (other than singing opera;-), I’d be quite pleased to help you find a next step into missions."
Well... less than a month later, after we posted an internship opportunity to be involved with music in Africa, guess who contacts me again? Yes, and after an interview, she was accepted for this position!

Please join us in prayer as she prepares for this mission trip in the midst of a busy schedule. And pray for clarity to choose between 2 very different life paths!

Thanksgiving

2010-11-25T07:30:00.002Z

Wow, it's been 2 weeks since we've updated our blog... let's blame it on our recent travel. We had a great road trip with a mixed agenda. We had a great time reconnecting with many friends who are ministry partners (they pray and invest in our ministry). It was great spending time with these dear friends whom we don't see as often as we'd like to. And as usual we are sorry we didn't get to visit with everyone we wanted to. We also visited with some Discovery alumni who just returned from their field assignment... we wanted to hang out with them and encourage them to consider joining our Discovery staff. We're praying for them as they seek what their next step will be.

And... we got to take a few days away to celebrate our 32nd wedding anniversary. Some friends surprised us and treated us royally to a night on the town and a a special hotel room.

We say a big thank-you to them for their creative gifts to us! God really used you to refresh us!

Any guesses where we traveled to by the picture above? OK, I don't think you'd guess, so I'll put another one below to help out. Whether you can guess or not...

Since you are reading this, we say thank you for caring enough about us to read this and to be our friends and support network. Blessings to you all!

Training Discovery Leaders

2010-11-10T00:59:00.000Z

Thanks so much for your prayers about team leader training! It has been an exciting ride just getting started…and we have much to praise the lord for!

Sooo….after learning about the in-house eLearning site on Friday, we had to register; I wrote to the register explaining our situation and asking if it would be at all possible to expedite the process. Monday morning he had us both registered (Lord, bless this man!)…..and by the end of the day, he had already constructed our “shell” and all that was left was to get an approval from HR and we could get in and begin working. Things were looking promising….so I was a little surprised to find that we were still waiting for that approval when I arrived at the office this morning. The approval did come in however in the late afternoon; but the wonderful thing is, we were still able to get a lot done this morning even without being able to work on our site. So we were able to look at an established course this morning, poking around and brainstorming how we could adapt and use what we saw for our course, then spending much of the rest of the day revising/preparing our materials so we can begin uploading them tomorrow.

In the midst of this major project...

we have received our 1st application for a summer 2011 Discovery trip!
we had a face to face meeting with one of our colleagues who works in the Philippines regarding sending communications interns to Asia begining 2011.
We are asking the Lord to send us one female intern to travel with an ethnomusicologist next January/February...

Prayer update

2010-11-02T22:22:00.001Z

Hmm...updating this blog on a weekly basis is proving to be a bit more challenging than anticipated! As we continue to do our best, here are some of our current prayer requests:

. Most of the Discovery teams for 2011 are now lined up .and somehow we have wound up with almost twice as many trips (7) and twice as many participant openings (74) as last year. Hmmm.kind of wondering how we are going to pull this off with the same number of staff involved..there's a prayer request for you! It's actually pretty amazing, since two months ago when some of the trips we had thought would happen fell through, we were really wondering where we were going to be having Discovery trips going to instead.

. We would also ask you to pray that the team leaders for these trips will all be confirmed before the end of 2010 so that we can begin our team leader training in a timely manner. Speaking of which.

. Next week Shevawn and Justin (the director for GetGlobal, http://www.wycliffe.org/getglobal another short-term mission program of Wycliffe Bible Translators) will be working together to put our team leader training materials on a different website, one that is designed for e-classes. Justin has participated in another course on this site already, and we think it will help deal with some of the problems we had training off of the previous website, which was primarily designed for social networking. We would appreciate your prayers as we prepare for that week and then as we work on this project. Justin is in Dallas, so he and Shevawn will be working on this via phone conferencing together; Shevawn is really looking forward to collaborating with Justin on this project.

Thanks so much for your continued partnering with us!

Ghana trip debrief in pictures

2010-10-22T22:11:00.000Z

After 6 weeks of Discovering ministry, it was time for our debrief. The team got to do a lot of travel to important and beautiful places in Ghana while we helped each other make sense of what we experienced on the trip and to get ready for our Next Steps into mission. This picture is of the Cape Coast Castle built in the 1600's

Church services were a highlight.

We had lots of different accommodations during our trip. This is a guest house in Cape Coast.

We stayed at an orphanage too

Our good friends Richard & Charlott Ekem hosted us at their home in Winneba. Charlott is a fantastic cook and they are both role models of business people pouring their lives and influence into ministry for the long haul.

in the midst of all the travel, we had lots of team meetings and discussions...

A highlight of debrief in Tamale is dinner at Schaefers home, where 2 generations of Bible translators serve faithfully having been involved significantly with at least 4 different translations of the N.T. plus consulting on OT projects... quite an inspiration!

Kakum National Park is beautiful to see the rain forrest from tree top heights.

this is the road to Nzelezu

Nzelezu, this was my first time ever to visit this unique village on stilts in the Western Region of Ghana. According to tribal legend, a giant snail led their ancestors to settle in the middle of this lake.

thanks to all our partners for praying and otherwise contributing to a great Discovery team. Our thanks also go to Maame Efua & Papa Andoh for helping John lead the trip!

This comment from one of our team participants helps sum up:

"Hmmmm lots to think about. But I am very very grateful for the debriefing as a team in Ghana - I know I said before I was impressed by it, but I really want to reiterate that - I am so grateful for everything you made us think about and do and process/etc.

I am planning to one day work in Bible translation. If you think of me I would sure appreciate prayer."

Good times in the NorthWest

2010-10-13T22:30:00.000Z

John and I have been back almost a week now from our trip to Oregon and Washington. Although our visit was marred a bit by my having a cold that rather inconveniently began the day we began our travels, it really was great to be able to spend time with so many of our partners. It was wonderful to be able to hear their stories and get updated on what is happening in their lives; it gave us the opportunity to become reacquainted with their struggles and their joys.

We often found ourselves feeling very thankful that in the midst of all that's going on in each of their lives, they continue to choose to support us financially and pray for us. Trips like these not only help us strengthen our relationships, they also are excellent reminders to us of how very important each and every partner of ours is to the work we do and our being able to continue doing it. We are so thankful to the Lord for how He has brought so many different kinds of people from so many places to join together to help to recruit young people for the work of Bible Translation.

While in Seattle, we also got to eat Ground Nut soup and rice balls with Tim, a Discovery Ghana alumni from 2008....

....as well as spend time with our daughter Leanna and son-in-law Mark and tour the Theo chocolate factory by their apartment. Joy!

part 2 Ghana ministry

2010-10-02T20:10:00.001Z

Hillary's 1st gift of a chicken

Cooking class

serving together

comuting to work in Tamale

Jisonaayili Baptist church-

coffee break is a highlight at the GILLBT office

2 Discoverers and their driver

Burkina Faso market

Passionate Discovery

Literacy promotion

Vagla womens group

Bulsa village

Delo Bible translation

Discoverers and Bible translator in Pusupu

Bibles in many languages... but over 2000 languages are still waiting... how can you help?

Ghana Ministry time -part 1

2010-09-24T16:38:00.001Z

Going to farm is a good way to start as a learner in a community.

There were many ways to promote literacy and try to help in this project.

Motorcycle lessons I

Motorcycle Lessons II

Guitar lessons for our blind pastor friend

Bible translation

Farming II

Derrick traveled "overseas" without leaving his home country of Ghana.

Discovery Ghana Orientation

2010-09-15T23:31:00.000Z

All these pictures are taken by various members of the 2010 Ghana Discovery team during our orientation week...

On a tour of the GILLBT headquarters, the non-print media department is an oasis of cool breezes, places to sit and creative ways to give scripture to people!

Discovery participants write a great team agreement!

setting a good example for Discovering something new... Green Abunu-Bunu soup with fufu eaten communally!

tropical rain storm didn't stop us from taking public transport out to eat at a a chop bar.

the quickest way to adapt to local conditions is to have some new clothes made

some important points to remember before going independently into the local market

there's lots to do at market besides buy needed items; make local friends, learn some culture and language, eat new foods and enjoy getting lost.

mentoring is a fun, natural way for everyone to learn.

the team leaders; Mr Wumbe, Maame Efua and Papa Andoh

Because orrientation and the world cup futbol coincided, our schedule had to be adapted a bit;-)

Well... there was more than one world cup game with Ghana playing that week!

Spiritual warfare talk given by Pastor Johnson Asare.

Discovery team meets their mentors at Jisonayilli Baptist Church

Discovery Alumni update

2010-09-09T19:36:00.001Z

Before I post pictures of this year's Discovery trip... (I promise they are coming soon), I wanted to share this story of a Discovery alumni whom I sent out the first year I was coordinating Discovery trips. This is an inspiring story. Watch and let us know what you think.

Transformation in Ghana

2010-09-01T00:26:00.000Z

http://www.theseedcompany.org/video/transformation-ghana-interview-with-kwame-nkruma

When we first moved to Ghana we did our village living for a month with the Schaefer family who were overseeing the translation of the Farefare New Testament... The village of Zuarungu was our introduction to rural life in Africa and the Schaefer family were wonderful mentors to us. Whenever I meet someone from there, I still love to greet "good morning" in the local Farefare language.
Now this people group has the entire Bible in their heart language... (John attended the Bible dedication in 2008)
Our good friend Kwame Nkrumah describes some of the changes that have happened to the Farefare people now that God speaks their language. This 2.5 minute video is inspiring and amazing. Click the link below to watch.
http://www.theseedcompany.org/video/transformation-ghana-interview-with-kwame-nkruma

Back in the swing of things

2010-08-26T19:10:00.001Z

John arrived on Saturday as expected...and then was surprised by the romantic night I had arranged for us in a nice hotel in Long Beach. Usually when we return from several months away, we roll in and start getting re-situated a bit, looking through the mail and such...but doing this helped him to totally relax not only his first day back, but the first couple of days back in our condo as well. We enjoyed a nice walk along the marina at sunset, and even found a free sax concert to listen to, which is one of John's favorite things (live music outside).

Now that he is refreshed, he is back in the office again....working through an in-box full of e-mails. I am busy planning our annual fall trip to visit partners; this year we are heading up the West Coast. We would appreciate your prayers as we figure out our itinerary plus put together our next prayer letter before we go, in addition to our Discovery tasks. I think we are going to move our trip up a week or so earlier than I had originally planned to take advantage of the nice weather...so between that and the time I took to drive with Leanna and Mark to Seattle, things are going to have to come together pretty fast. I am confident that all will work out as we seek the Lord's leading...whether plans go the way I desire them to or not!

Hope you are enjoying your last days of summer....I know we are! Beautiful sunsets and warm weather...what a gift from God!

Shevawn

"Our greatest fear as individuals and as a church should not be of failure but of succeeding at things in life that don't really matter." Tim Kizziar

A wonderful trip!

2010-08-19T19:39:00.001Z

What a wonderful time I had driving with Leanna and Mark to Freemont, WA; we were blessed with great weather, excellent health and energy and no travel mishaps. Mark was amazing as he drove the rental truck first through quite a bit of unexpected traffic getting out of LA on Sunday afternoon (not the most fun way to become acquainted with a heavy and large vehicle)....and then up and down the beautiful but challenging mountains we encountered in our travels. We arrived at their apartment at 1 pm on Tuesday...just as three other grad students from Mars Hill Progressive Christian Institute, where Leanna will be doing her studies, showed up to help us unload the truck and car....done in less than 30 minutes! It was great to get the bedroom and kitchen set up....and then take an exploratory walk around their neighborhood. I flew back the next day....wishing I had made plans to leave a day later because we were having such a great time together!

John has reported that Jordan is also doing well as he settles into his new location and studies. Tomorrow John and Bob are expecting to drive from the village they are in to the airport to begin their journeys home, so unless you hear otherwise, we are looking forward to being together again Saturday afternoon. We are going to be off the grid for a few days as we enjoy our 17th honeymoon (OK...not sure that number is totally accurate, but we've had more than a couple in the 31 years we've been married) but sometime next week we will be back in communication. Thanks, , thanks THANKS so much for your prayers...all the time, but most especially throughout this summer. What a blessing they have been to us!

Some unexpected travel for Shevawn

2010-08-12T21:53:00.002Z

The last two weeks of John's time in Ghana have been eventful for me in some very fun ways. First, I have been enjoying having J and M, along with their wonderful children C and C, stay with me here in our Condo for much of their 2 week visit to our area. It has been so wonderful to have them around....in addition to the joys of being with dear friends, I'm having a number of flashbacks to the days when we traveled around visiting our supporters when our kids were little. Good memories...while new ones are being made!
And speaking of our kids, on this coming Sunday I am going to take an unexpected trip to Seattle, WA as I help Leanna and Mark drive a U-Haul and one of their vehicles to their new home for the next couple of years. We hope to make the drive in 2 1/2 days so we can unpack the afternoon we arrive....then I plan to fly home on Wednesday. John is (as posted previously) traveling every day through his departure from Ghana on Friday...so the only Ramsey who is not planning to be on the road is Jordan, who is beginning his studies at the Akrofi-Kristaller Institute. As many of you know, travel is always a stretching experience for me ( I know, I know, God has such a sense of humor!) so I appreciate very much your prayers for my travel anxieties and experiences.
Thanks so much for those prayers!

In His Love;
Shevawn

Church Planting in Ghana

2010-08-10T17:16:00.001Z

John will be traveling in southern Ghana (now that the 2010 Discovery team is gone) to encourage our Ghanaian pastor partners in the planting of simple churches in Ghana. Please pray for these churches to be encouraged by our visit but to not become dependant or attracted based on us as foreigners being involved. We want these to be Ghanaian house churches and not copies of American or western house churches. My role specifically is to be the cultural bridge person... to help facilitate clear communication between our Ghanaian partners and the American partners. I would appreciate your prayers for wisdom and discernment, to be a good listener and a good servant to all we encounter.

Below is plan A of our travels to meet the churches in each of these localities:
10th and 11th AUG. .........Pastor Bobs Arrival from USA and a day rest for Bob will be fine.

12th AUG. .......Assin Foso, Assin Akrofuom, Abeadze Domenase. ( CENTRAL REGION )
stop over in my village to pass the night.
13th AUG....... Eikwe Nzema, Prestea. ( WESTERN REGION ) the night will be pass in Eikwe.
14th AUG.....Assin Praso, Obuasi where we meet Pastor John Kusi Appiah. ( ASHANTI REGION )
the night will be pass in Obuasi.
15th AUG...... OBUASI.
16th AUG...... Akoasi, Mraeso. ( EASTERN REGION )
the rest of these days will be bases in Mpraeso while we travel to the next places because of accormodation.
17th AUG...... Maame Krobo ( AFRAM PLAINS )
18th. AUG......Bepong. Abetifi.
19th. AUG...... Back to Akim ODA for a pastors conference and our preparation to set for ACCRA to depart.

Ghana Discoverers depart

2010-08-05T21:09:00.000Z

The Ghana Discoverers have departed for their homes... The leaders have debriefed and reports need to be written... but first some few days of sleep will be in order for all of us. Thanks for your prayers and as our team continues to process their experiences, please pray for lasting impact for the Kingdom in their lives.
thanks,
john

The final days of Ghana Discovery 2010

2010-08-02T17:50:00.001Z

Only a couple of more days of Debrief before the team members go their separate ways and begin their individual re-entry experiences. Here's what lies ahead for their final days together as a team:

Tuesday August 3rd: In the morning, the leaders will conduct their final feedback session and then the team will split up into their home culture groups in order to focus on preparing for their re-entry process. The Ghanaian participants will go out to lunch at a place that closely reflects their usual lunch out experience as students; they will talk about what it feels like to be separated from their ex-pat friends as well as how they feel about the discovery program and re-entering their various situations. They will also have some "fun" choosing some type of activity that is typical to how they usually have fun together with their friends. Meanwhile, the Ex-pats will be taken out to lunch at a Western style take out place (something they have not experienced since the trip began), and discuss together how they are feeling about the experience. After that, they will be culture stressed as they are taken to a luxury hotel to spend time swimming and journaling about what they are feeling and thinking. John will also guide them through some discussions about re-entry and reverse culture stress; the idea behind all of this is to give them an opportunity to experience some of that while they are still together and can learn some skills to help them when they are begin encountering it on their own.
The team will reunite in the evening, (we have found that separating them for a few hours and then bringing them back together again before the final good-bye seems to make the departures less traumatic the following day.) Then they will host a dinner party for as many of the Ghanaian alumni from previous discovery trips who are able to come and participate. The alumni are always excited to meet the new Discoverers and hear how the people in the project sites they were assigned to are currently doing. This year the new Director will address the group, as well as a couple of other Ghanaian members of GILLBT, something we are very excited about!

Wednesday August 4th - After one final devotional time together, the team will have the day to finish packing up for their coming departures and to hang out together; those who are ready to depart will have the option of going exploring wherever they desire in Accra together. The Ghanaian participants will leave at different times throughout the day, with the ex-pats scheduled to fly out in the evening; many of the Ghanaians will try to hang around long enough for a last lunch out together as a team...but most will have departed before the ex-pats head to the airport. After John sees the ex-pats off, I can predict he will return to the guest house and go to bed before 9 pm!

Thursday August 5th- The three leaders will spend the day debriefing the debrief :-) and writing up notes so we can make necessary changes for the next trip. Often, the Ghanaian leaders will want to leave in the afternoon to return to their homes....and John will head to bed even earlier then the night before.

Friday August 6th- Monday August 9th- This is the time we slotted for John to have some R&R before beginning his activities for the Well. During this time he will be joined by our son Jordan, who will arrive on the 6th from S Korea, where he has been teaching English to school children for a little over 4 years. Jordan is moving to Ghana to begin a his graduate studies at the Akrofi-Christaller Institute of Theology, mission and culture. John is looking forward to this time with Jordan as well as the opportunity to visit the campus, which is located about an hour outside of Accra. We are so thankful for how God worked this out for them to be together during this window of time we had scheduled months previously!

And that will take us up to John's time with the Well....more info about that in our next blog update! Thanks so much for your prayers throughout the Discovery trip; we would appreciate your continued prayers as John seeks to refresh and recharge before beginning 10 days of traveling and visiting various churches and pastors for The Well.

On the Road again!

2010-07-27T19:45:00.001Z

For the next few days, the Discovery team will combine their debriefing process with travel. They will head South-west, where they will visit different sites in Ghana that they have not yet seen, as well as meet some friends and colleagues of GILLBT. Eventually, they will wind up in Accra, the capital city, to finish things up. Here is what their planned activities looked like as they prepared to depart:

Wednesday July 28th - Traveling ALLLLLL day as they head towards the coast. Your prayers are greatly appreciated, as an entire day on the road is tiring...as well as probably the most dangerous activity they engage in when they are in Ghana.

Thursday July 29th - Some travel and sightseeing during the day; in the evening they will work on a Personal Assessment that will help bring up some issues for them to think through before they re- enter their home cultures. They will also work on graphing their emotional ups and down throughout the trip to prepare for a discussion they will have together tomorrow evening. In addition to these activities, the leaders will conduct a couple more of the individual feedback sessions.

Friday July 30th - The plan for today is for the team to tour a village and travel to Winneba, a city on the coast where good friends of both GILLBT and the Ramsey's will host them for a few days. In the evening, the team will analyze the chart they worked on yesterday as well as compare the expectations they recorded pre-trip with the realities of what they actually experienced during their time in Ghana.

Saturday July 31st - The team will stay in Winneba all day/night, so they will have a heavy debrief schedule. Together they will talk about how God made a huge investment in their lives this summer...and then they will spend time together in small groups and individually thinking through/discussing about what the return on His investments might look like. They will do some brainstorming and goal setting as they seek to figure out how to integrate their summer experiences into their lives in a way which will produce much fruit for the kingdom. They will also be finishing up the preparations for their 10 minute talks....and the leaders will hold 3 individual feedback sessions.

Sunday August 1st - Another day in Winneba - the team will put together their own worship time, during which they will share communion together. The rest of the day is for rest and relaxation...although the leaders will need to hold 3 more of the feedback sessions sometime during the day.

Monday August 2nd - Today the team will travel back to Accra to the GILLBT guest house. Because this will only take about half a day, the leaders will hold 3 more feedback session during the afternoon. During the evening, the team will reflect on where their identity and self worth lie....and then they will break into small groups and hear each others 10 minute stories!

As you can see, the team will spend 4 out of 6 days on the road...and the leaders will be conducting 11 different individual feedback session during this time as well. That takes a lot of both physical and mental energy for the three leaders; their stamina is I am sure what they would say is their biggest prayer request during this time. Thanks so much for uplifting them in prayer...and the whole team as well... during what is the most important part of the whole trip.

Next week I will post their itinerary for the final days of Discovery....and some interesting plans that John has for his time in between Discovery and The Well.

Tuesday July 27th Debrief plans

2010-07-26T22:30:00.001Z

This morning the Discoverers get to hear each others 3 minute stories. It's always exciting to hear what they want to share with the various groups that will ask them to tell about their experiences when they return home. This will take most of the morning…and when they are done, they will receive instructions on how to prepare their 10 minute talk!

The rest of the day they will have free to go into Tamale so they may purchase any travel gifts they would like to get for friends, family….and maybe themselves as well! Then they will be busy packing for their early departure tomorrow.

This is usually a very hectic day for John as he tries to finish his own packing, deal with various Discoverer issues and spend time saying good-bye to the many Tamale friends who will drop by through out the day to say Good-bye. He would really appreciate your prayers for energy, patience and joy throughout the day.

Preparing for debrief and what the first few days will look like

2010-07-15T21:42:00.001Z

There is slightly less than a week now before the Discoverers head back to Tamale for debrief, and John is busy pulling together their itinerary and arranging their transportation and accommodation. He would much appreciate your prayers as he seeks to get things wrapped up before the arrival of the team...as well as get as much rest as he can so he can fully recharge his batteries for the upcoming two weeks of Debrief. This last part of the Discovery trip is always the most rewarding AND exhausting time; it is likely we will hear very little from him as things are ongoing. I will try to give you the play by play like I did during Orientation, so you will be able to better visualize and pray for him and the rest of the team during this time.

Today I am going to post the first several days of debrief, because, following the excellent example of my son Jordan and the encouragement of my husband John, after today I am going to take a break from e-mail/Facebook/blogging until the 26th of July. So, without further ado......

Wednesday July 24^th& Thursday July 25^th - Although most of the team will arrive back sometime on Thursday, a few will show up a day earlier. Most everyone will be excited to come back, see their team mates, and tell their stories; John, Papa Andoh and Bernice will be all ears! Thursday evening will be a lot of “housekeeping”, telling the team what to expect in the next few days, getting everyone back into “team” mode after being in independent partnerships for four weeks. As a team, they will begin this period of time together focused on identifying what they need to do in order to successfully re-enter their home culture and integrate what they have learned from this trip into their lives. One of the first steps in that process will involve having them think of 3 interesting words they can use to summarize their Discovery experience. They will also shift their daily goal setting sessions back to time with a team leader instead of their partner as the leaders help them stay engaged in the culture during debrief while thinking thorough their re-entry strategies

When the participants return, they will bring back with them feedback forms filled out by their work supervisor, the family they live with, their partner and then one they fill out on themselves, all of which they will give to their leaders. Then the leaders must take their own past and present observations of the participants, combine it with what they read in these other feedbacks and digest it all so that they will be prepared to interact with each participant in a one hour personal feedback session sometime during the next two weeks. This is a wonderful time to help participants process their experience and help answer any questions they may have, as well as guide them to available future missions opportunities.

Friday July 26^th & Saturday July 27^th – During these two days the Ghana Institute of Literacy Linguistics and Bible translation that we partner with will hold their Annual General Meeting. Discoverers will be involved in serving in many ways (ushering, helping in the kitchen, taking official notes) as well as spending some time sitting in the sessions, listening and observing. It is a great opportunity for them to learn about how a National Bible Translation Organization works. While this is the main focus of these two days, also during this time the team will share their three words with each other, and receive instructions on how they can now plan a three minute talk using one or more of those words. In addition to this, one of the evenings John will host a meeting with many of the project staff workers who will have traveled to Tamale to attend the AGM to answer their questions about the Discovery program and find out who would like to have Discovers help them out next year.

Sunday July 28^th - The Discoverers will visit various churches in the morning and have free time in the afternoon. In the evening will follow one of our favorite Discovery traditions; dinner at the Schafer’s. Bob and Nancy Schafer (and if they are doubly blessed, their son Paul with his wife Jen and their family) always cook an amazing meal (pizza anyone?) and share their equally amazing life stories of living and working in Ghana with 4 different translation projects between them.

Monday July 29^th – Now is when the participants begin processing in earnest. They will spend the morning with some specific questions/suggestions to sit with God with…in the afternoon, they will get together with a couple of teammates they know least well and share what they are hearing/sensing /learning. Spending three hours alone with God can be a bit stretching for some….but it is foundational to the rest of what they will do together and a time they are very grateful for when concluded.

In the evening session together, they will talk about how we go back home embracing humility, being careful not to succumb to pride after having gone through such a life changing experience. Then the leaders will break them into spate cultural groups to address any issues specific to each culture in order to help the team clear up any possible misunderstandings and keep unified as a team.

And that will take us up until I will be back on e-mail, ready to send another update. Thanks so much for reading….and for your prayers!

In His love;

Shevawn Ramsey

Road Trip Ghana-Style

2010-07-09T12:11:00.000Z

The day after we celebrated Ghana's Republic Day, I joined Pastor Johnson Asare and his daughter Serwah on a road trip to Kumasi to celebrate Johnson's Seminary graduation... it was a full day affair with "all protocalls observed"! What a joy and priviledge to be there for this event in the life of a brother, friend and partner in ministry here in northern Ghana. We slept in Kumasi one night and then headed to Johnson's fathers village where we slept 2 nights at his fathers home and visited many family members while we enjoyed and adapted to the "village life".

On Sunday we headed out to "Edwinasi"... otherwise known to me as Johnson's late mother's village and his "hometown". This historic village was established in 1917 I learned as the village chief gave me a personal tour of many village highlights...

some of the original houses... Pictured is the oldest one I photographed, number 5!

Of course meeting the people is the highlight of village life (and the food of course)... but here are some new friends I had the pleasure of meeting, both adults and children...

As the chief and I walked the village... entering houses and greeting people as we went... we came to one house where he said, this is my Queen... so we took a picutre with the Queen Mother and the Chief.

We visited the primary and Jr High Schools...

This huge house sits not far from the schools, overlooking a beautiful valley with hills in the distance.

But the most terrifying thing was our walk through the gods house, where real idol worship is real... note juju hanging in the courtyard. The chief pointed out a locked door where the gods are kept... we then ventured to the edge of the forrest where fear prevails, also related to the gods...

Please join me in prayer for the village of Edwinase where they have God's true word in their language but have not integrated it into their lives. Pray also for the Chief... his task is difficult and he also needs to turn to the true God.

Meanwhile, back in HB

2010-07-08T21:27:00.001Z

While the Diskies are busy out in their various assignments, I thought this might be a good time to update our readers on how things are back here in So Cal. It's been four weeks now since John left for Ghana, and while I miss him more and more each day, I have yet to experience loneliness. I am enjoying spending extra time with our daughter Leanna and son-in-law Mark, as well as finding many opportunities to love and serve others right here, where God has put me for this summer. I'm enjoying working on a few projects around the home and office while making progress at slowing down my pace of life just a bit.....yeah!

Health wise, I am now 18 weeks into the drug trial I am on and doing wonderfully. I have not experienced another MS episode since the first one that led to my diagnosis in December, and I have regained all the strength I had lost in my right arm during that time. I have had what I believe could be a couple of small side effects from the drug, but since it is a double blinded study, neither my Dr or I know if I am truly on the drug or not....however, nothing has caused significant discomfort or hindered me from living life as I am use to living it. I am truly thankful and grateful for that...but I will also be thankful and grateful for whatever comes my way tomorrow or the next day. I am very hopeful that next year I will be back in Ghana helping John to lead a Discovery team.

Thanks so much for all of your prayers for both John and I as well as the team. When I was talking with him today, we discovered that our prayer requests for each other were the same; that we would be fully present, seeing, loving and experiencing the people and blessings that God is bringing our ways each day while also being focused and wise enough to do the tasks that need to be done. I imagine we can...and should...pray the same for you!

In His love;

Shevawn

Discovery Ghana Interns

2010-07-01T14:00:00.000Z

... here is the 2010 Ghana Discovery team... as they spend a month in a GILLBT language project learning and serving. These prayer requests from one of the teams are pretty representative for all Discoverers:
That God gives us protection, love & peace with all those around us. that God would help us accomplish some projects even as we don't know what we're doing yet. That God should grant us humbleness to learn from our host families and project supervisors... and that God would give us direction and courage to move into future ministry!

Jordan & Cephas Ntrubo Language ProjectAngelina & Dannielle in the Buli ProjectBritt & Adwoa -DEG Project; living in a Chiefs Palace!Derrick overseas in Tampulma.Hillary & Nana Addo; Non Print Scripture in Use. Samuel & Kafui serving R.I.L.A.D.E.P in Saboba.Nicolas & Zach in Nawuri Project.

Emily & Naa Densua Vagla project.

Emily & Shell serving with SILDEP in Tumu.

Ramsey Discoveries

Prayer update

Alumni

¡Bienvenidos Jorgito!

An Extraordinary Policeman!

Fight Poverty with Linguistics?

Edziban naa! Dzi dzi (It is food, eat it!)

Kingdom

10 Quotes to Inspire

10 Quotes to Inspire Your 2012 Resolutions

Merry Christmas from us at Wycliffe Bible Translators

Are there 2 Josephs in the story?

Pray

Trauma Healing in Africa

Adventure Race

The Andes Challenge!

Summit a mountain, Ice climb a waterfall, Snowshoe frozen creeks, Discover a hidden mountain village

Race to 2025 bridges the adrenalin of adventure sport that some people crave, and the extreme adventure that Jesus calls His Church-to make disciples of all nations.

This race is sponsored by Wycliffe Canada, and they welcome participants from USA!

Thankfulness

Arizona Trip

Da Jesus Book

Groundnut Soup Sunday

Injustice

10 things you didn't know about Burkina Faso

Bible Translation may be more than you think it is...

Freedom

Discovery Mentor Weekend

Discovery team bus trip Accra to Tamale

Baby Olive has God Parents

Discovering the Beauty around us

Embedding the work of Bible Translation in the African Context

Ramsey Update

Back in California!

Mere hours left of Discovery

Getting ready to travel

Discovery prayer update!

All together again in Tamale!

Prepping for debrief

Nearing the end of ministry projects

Brings back memories.....8-)

Friday update

Tuesday in Tamale

Tamale Night On The Town

Orientation narrative in the words of one of our participants

Ghana Discoverers 2011

Discovery Orientation

Participants safe arrival

So much to be thankful for

Olive

Prayer request

Enjoying Ghana!

Safe Travel

Traveling...

The time is almost here!

Ghana Discovery 2011: current plans and answered prayers

A little bit of craziness

Discovery Quote

Thinking about food

Choosing joy in May

Sit back and enjoy the journey!

Challenges....and thankfulness!

Mozambique Discovery Report

Prayer update

It Changes Everything: The Social Impact of Bible Translation

Wycliffe retreat day

Discovery Alumni News

Gender dilemmas

Florida

Team Leader Training....round number two!

Partnering with Multiple Generations

Team Leader Training update

Time in Tucson; Celebration and Grief

Film Students Wanted

Christmas in Africa

An International Christmas in HB?

December prayer update

Bible Translations in many formats

2011 Discovery

Thanksgiving

Summit a mountain, Ice climb a waterfall,
Snowshoe frozen creeks, Discover a hidden mountain village