Recently a badly infected toe required a trip to see a doctor in the capital city of Senegal. The Balantas in the village where she lived did not have time to help her check Romans 5-11 so Susan found several Balantas in Dakar who were able to help her check the translation.

She's working on that section of Romans while staying at the guest home and hopes to check with her Balanta friends when she returns home after the harvest. The people will have more time then and will be able to give serious attention to the important message in Romans chapters 5-11.

Susan delights in the ways that God grants opportunities to work on the Balanta Scriptures. She compares His gift of language helpers to walking carefully down a muddy slippery road on a gray day and turning the corner to find that God has splashed a double rainbow across the sky -- just for her pleasure.

Pray for Susan as she continues to translate God's Word into the Balanta language. Pray also that God will prepare hearts to understand and accept the Gospel message.

Geguuta was one of the first Balantas to put his faith in Christ and Christ alone, and the place he chose to talk with Dan was where Dan's older brother, Joey, was killed by a crocodile many years before. He shared with Dan his joy that in spite of the tragedy, Dan's parents, Elmer and Jean Rabe, stayed and shared God's Word.

"The death of Joey became a planted seed," Geguuta said. "Today the number of believers in the Lord Jesus among the Balanta people is increasing -- praise the Lord!"

That growth is the very reason Dan and other NTM leaders in Senegal were visiting the Balanta people, among whom Dave and Tippy McKee and Susan Logsdon serve.

"We had many challenging discussions on some very practical issues that we face while working as fellow members of the Body of Christ alongside the Balanta believers," Tippy wrote.

A number of Balanta believers have the potential to teach God's Word, and the group talked about how they can better equip these men to teach. The evangelistic Bible lessons, which move chronologically from Creation through the Resurrection, need to be "established in their thinking so that they are able to give it out to others," Tippy wrote.

Yet because they come from an oral society, it can be overwhelming to read the lessons again and again in order to be ready to teach them. "We considered … recording the lessons for them to listen to over and over before they teach," Tippy wrote.

Recorded lessons may also be an answer for unsaved Balantas who will not come to believers' meetings because of fear of what might happen if they stray from traditional ways, yet who are curious about what God's Word says.

And the recordings could also prove useful for believers in other villages who want to share God's Word with their neighbors.

Pray that this practical step will be possible. Pray that the Balanta believers will be very much involved, equipped to share, and built up as a church through this.