News from Jay & Diane Beeman @ Pioneer Bible Translators

Jay & Diane Beeman

Refugee children waiting outside before they receive help with their homework A couple of people we are praying for these days. . . We’ve been helping adults and children at a church-sponsored refugee center in the heart of Dallas. A couple of weeks ago we had a little girl show up from a Middle Eastern country. We can’t give you her real name, but if you say “Shazam” that’s real close. The refugee kids here are placed in a school grade only by age, and not by aptitude. She was bringing in math, reading and science homework, but she knows no English and couldn’t even begin to complete her assignments. So, we went to Walmart and bought one of those books with big letters to trace and bright pictures to go along with the alphabet. The next time she came we started with A for apple, then B for ball and so on. Along with the alphabet, she’s learning English words. You’ve never seen a child so happy to be able to learn something. We are excited for her and will help her as much as we can to catch up to her classmates. We pray for her that through the witness of the Christians at the refugee center and the strong Christian influence in the Dallas area, she will grow up hearing the message of Jesus and accept him as her Savior someday. Every week we help the adults with conversational English. We are normally given a guided lesson to help the students with vocabulary and grammar, which is supposed to be completed within the hour we are with them. One of the gentleman that Jay is helping is a refugee from Myanmar. He belongs to the Rohingya people who are mostly Muslims. As our lesson started, he was asked to tell something about his people. He gave the strong impression that nobody had ever sat with him and listened to his story before. For the next fifty minutes he told all about the persecution that he and his family had suffered from Buddhists who push them out of the country (This is no secret. You can just Google “Rohingya” and read about it). After leaving their home, they were bounced from country to country as refugees before finally ending up in the United States. They long to return, but will probably never be able. We pray that this man and his family can adjust to life in the United States and eventually call it home. We also pray that they continue to have loving Christians around them, helping them through the transition. And, we pray, more than anything, that even though they lost their homeland, they find Jesus. On Sundays it has been our pleasure to be able to worship at a Swahili service that is hosted at a congregation on the north side of Fort Worth. Most of the members are Congolese, so it’s been like a reunion to be with them. The service is much louder than we are used to at our worship back home. There’s a lot more singing and a little bit of dancing. The preaching is very animated, and the services lasts at least two and a half hours, but the people always make us feel very welcome. We are thankful for the warmup to be living full-time again in East Africa. Since our last news - Adding to our already hectic schedules, Diane is taking a college level class (online) from Johnson University on Foundations of Ministering Cross-culturally and Jay is taking one (also online) on Cross-cultural Church Planting. We are thankful for the opportunity to study and stretch ourselves, learning how we can better build bridges with those to whom we will minister. - We’ve moved from a mobile home to a one-room efficiency apartment. Aside from having to go outside to change our mind, we are doing fine. Seriously, we continue to thank God for the way he takes care of us. - After confirming a few verbal commitments, we should be about 5% within being fully funded to go to the field. If you are interested in partnering with us, please see the details at https://pioneerbible.org/give/JayAndDianeBeeman Please save for us the desiccant packets (silica gel) you might get in your medicine or vitamin bottles. These will be very helpful to us in keeping different things free from moisture in the tropical climate. Thanks. We’d love to hear from you. Our mailing address through December 11th is   Jay & Diane Beeman 7500 W Camp Wisdom Road Dallas, TX 75236 We kindly ask that you not forward this email. If you would like someone to be on our our email list, please let us know. Thank you.

Thank You

A big thank you to everyone who prepared food or helped serve. We made 20 take out meals and we served 60 meals at the Place. Again thank you to everyone who made Wednesday a huge success.

Michael