The Higby Family

Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

29 October 2007

Dear friends,

Ruth Dolly is a translator for the Lobiri language in Burkina Faso. She works together with a team of two men in a small village in the heart of the Lobiri language area, translating the Old Testament. They are now almost finished with the book of Second Samuel and are preparing it to be checked by a translation consultant. Since the consultant doesn't speak any Lobiri, they use a special computer program to go through the text and give a word for word translation of Lobiri into French. As the program encounters an unknown word, Ruth creates a new entry that contains the grammatical information and translation of the new word. This information can then be reproduced as a dictionary in the local language at a later time.

On Friday, I (Doug) received an emergency call from Ruth. Something happened to the settings on her computer and the program stopped working. I tried to help her over the phone at $0.35 a minute, but we didn't get anywhere. The village of Bouroum-Bouroum has no phone lines, and her only contact with the outside world is by a single cell phone tower. In the past when Ruth has had similar problems and needed computer support, she had two options: make the six-hour bus trip to the capital with her computer, or pack it up and send it with someone else. In either case, no matter how minor or severe the glitch was, she was looking at a three or four-day interruption in her work, plus the expense of the trip and lodging in the capital. In the past, such problems were usually solved in five or ten minutes, but an expert has to actually see the problem in order to fix it. Computer techies aren't much use blindfolded!

It was time to apply a new technology to solve this problem. I asked Ruth where the nearest Internet cafe was and she told me of a place about 18 miles away. We set a time, and at three in the afternoon, she plugged her computer in and went to the website I directed her to. She then clicked on my name, which gave me complete access to her computer. Although the connection was painfully slow, I was able to move her mouse and see her screen on my computer 400 miles away. In about half an hour's time, the problem was solved and Ruth was overjoyed! Now she is back on schedule to complete Second Samuel in time for the consultant to check it. The software that makes this possible is rather expensive, but the company's owner supports Bible translation and has given free licenses to Wycliffe. We praise God for the way technology is advancing His kingdom, and for the way He uses many servants with different gifts to accomplish the task!

Partners in the Gospel, (Phil 1:5)

Doug (& P.J.)

Praise and Prayer

• The boys' report cards are coming in a week, but instead of being at the receiving end, P.J. finds herself at the giving end in her new role as secretary for the International School of Ouagadougou. The software system used to create the reports is giving problems and she is under a lot of stress right now. Makes us wonder why we can't go back to those nice hand-written report cards. Please pray that P.J. will get through this first major hurdle in her new position.
• Doug is having difficulty locating an assistant teacher for the big language software consultant training event in March. It is too much to handle all alone, so please pray that God would direct him to the right person.
• The value of the dollar has fallen by 15% since we returned to the field in 2005. Since our local currency and expenses are tied to the euro, our support is down almost $1000 per month. Some of this can be made up through the school tuition assistance provided by P.J.'s position at the school, but not all of it. Please pray that the Lord would provide for this need, either by a reversal of the dollar's fall or through additional support.