Pitterle Family
BP 11004
Boutique Digue
Antananarivo 101
Madagascar
Via France
(261) 20 22 48155
(261) 33 11 55644
July 2003
Dear Friends and Family:
We convey a heartfelt THANKS to everyone who
gave and especially to those who prayed to make these past three
years in missions possible for us!! We have now begun our
fourth year and another term. With your help, precious
children in Madagascar (M’car) are receiving God’s word
and the awesome news of Jesus. The Lord has promised that
His truth will set people free.
Grace continues to bring much joy to our
lives. Stephen and Leigh recently completed fourth grade.
And John has started sending “e-mail,” actually short
messages, to some pastors here via his cell phone.
Last month there were 29 students who
graduated from the Assemblies of God Bible school. They
will be assigned to work in various locations. Shortly
after the graduation, our supervisors left the country for a
one-year furlough. Now we are manning the ship alone until
perhaps the end of August.
In June, John started an evangelistic
English lesson near the main university here. We also
helped two Australians visiting to “spy out the land”
here regarding the possibility of helping to start (a) Christian
school(s) in partnership with local churches. They said
they had a fruitful time here including a very positive meeting
with the Director of Private Education.
We are thankful that the Book of Hope (BoH)
has been more in demand, as the school year ended, than ever
before here with more than 110,000 books sent across the island
or distributed to children in April and May. In April, a
missionary took 1,200 books to Morondava on the west coast.
The day after he called for 1,500 more books, we just
“happened” to find out that another missionary friend
was going to that city and could take the books. Isn’t
Jesus great! We also sent 4,200 books with a pastor as he
returned to Vohipeno in the southeast.
40,000 books for elementary school students
were sent to the north of the country. Then in early June,
we received 250,000 new books (see above photo), including
versions for both Jr. and Sr. high school students for the first
time. Pastor Mirana, our main BoH pastor, received the
first books off the delivery truck to bring to the north. Then
he conducted training in the school districts of the northern
province.
In May, Pastor Nicolas and John did two
training sessions for pastors and for leaders of the Lutheran
schools in Antsirabe and beyond. This was followed by
sending almost 30,000 books to Antsirabe, with about 22,000 of
these for the students in the Lutheran schools. Jesus is
touching lives here through the Book of Hope.
In order to increase the effectiveness of
the BoH program here, we have made numerous copies of the
Malagasy training video and they are being sent across the
island. For example, the Lutheran school directors received
a copy for the Antananarivo region at their June training.
In June, the first Jr. and Sr. high school
students received Malagasy Books of Hope. We are also
almost completed with revisions for all three Malagasy versions
of the BoH (to correct mostly typographical errors that do not
affect the meaning). And time permitting, we hope to start
condensing the Sr. high / university version to a smaller book,
as has successfully been done in other countries.
We have been seeking translators and editors
to work on what should be the first Malagasy study Bible and we
have a good team that may need a few more workers. In June,
the project coordinators from America visited again and answered
John’s many questions as well as doing two days of training
for our team. Lord willing, we hope that the finished
Bibles will be shipped to M’car in 2007. This is a
very big project, with more than 1,100,000 words and more than
2,100 pages to translate, and your prayers would be greatly
appreciated as John coordinates 8 – 10 workers or more.
We believe this tool will be like a mini-library for pastors and
Christians since there is not much Malagasy Christian literature
available.
In the meantime, there is much that needs to
be done. First an office needs to be prepared, furnished,
and equipped with computer equipment and a printer. The
first of several team meeting is scheduled for the 4’th of
July and we hope to come to agreement on abbreviations, important
terminology, and translations of titles for articles, charts, and
maps. After this foundational work, we hope to finish
translating and editing all the notes and study materials for the
book of Genesis before September 30.
Although we have already started our next
term, we still need both regular and one-time contributions in
order for us to continue with the ministry here. Our
account balance has steadily declined and become rather low
during the last three years, and it would be very helpful if it
could be replenished somewhat. Nonetheless, Jesus has been
faithful and we have not lacked for anything we need.
Please click on the pledge
form if you believe the Lord would have you to partner with
us. Everything you need to know is on this form, including
the mailing address. The last three lines, starting with
“Church to credit,” are optional. Donor a/c # can
be left blank for first-time contributions. On the memo
portion of the check, you can put, “Pitterle MA
292883.” And if you know any people or churches that
might be interested in helping to get God’s word to the
people of M’car, please feel free to pass this on.
Thanks again to everyone who has helped us
in this mission. We need you. Please keep in touch
and let us know if you have any prayer requests.
In
His infinite awesomeness
and
awesome infiniteness,
John, Leigh, Stephen and Grace