Pitterle Family
Pitterle Family
c/o Willis Walk
249 Amblewood Way
State College, PA 16803
(814) 867-5789
jpitterle @ yahoo .com
(delete blank spaces in e-mail address)
July 2004
Dear Family and Friends:
We want to especially thank the Lord and
also everyone who has partnered with us, prayed for us and the
people of Madagascar, and who has given to help support our
ministry here. We could not have done this without you.
In the past few months, more than 2,500
junior and senior high school students in Tamatave, on the east
coast, received Books of Hope. Some elementary school
students received Books of Hope in an area of the capital
nicknamed Texas. Later the school director invited the
pastor to come and pray for the students before their critical
final exams that determine if they will continue to the next
grade. (In elementary school!) Pastor Célestin gave
books to children in Ambohimahasoa (see picture above). Another
church in the western part of the capital recently gave books to
more than 1,100 students who may now have their first book about
Jesus of their very own. We pray that Jesus will draw them
to Himself and that they will walk with Jesus the rest of the
days of their lives.
In the past three months, John finished
training 65 Bible school students and both he and Pastor Nicolas
trained two area churches about Book of Hope distribution. We
also recently finished revisions for the new Malagasy high school
/ university version of the Book of Hope.
In our time here, about 1,090 people,
representing most of the denominations in this country, have been
trained to distribute the Book of Hope. 550,000 Books of
Hope have been shipped to Madagascar. Almost 400,000 of
these books have been sent out across this country, in all 6
provinces and to most of the biggest cities as well as numerous
smaller cities. All of the school districts in the northern
province of Antsiranana (aka Diego) have received the Book of
Hope due to the work of our on-fire leader with a passion for
children – Pastor Mirana. We have heard many good
remarks from pastors and others regarding the Book of Hope
program in Madagascar. Thank you so very much for helping
to make it possible to share the awesome news of Jesus with the
precious children of this nation.
A few days after we leave Madagascar,
Nate and Tammy Lashway, children’s pastors / missionaries
will arrive. We are very excited about this. Jesus
loves the children of this nation so much that he worked this all
out so that more children will hear about Jesus, begin and
develop living relationships with Him!
Thank you also for helping to get (what
we believe will be) the first Malagasy study Bible to be one year
towards its completion. By God’s grace, we equipped an
office, recruited a fine multi-denominational team of about 15
(see photo below) with several adjustments along the way, trained
and managed them, coordinated many things, had 2 meetings per
month, did much editing, and more. We have also created a
Word macro (program) the team will continue to use to search for
and correct more than 100 common errors.
With the generous assistance of Wycliffe
London, we have received the computerized scripture text for the
first few books of the Malagasy Bible. Their work continues
on the rest of the Bible. Now that we have the electronic
Bible text, Life Publishers has started working on the final
formatting for the first books of the Bible, including both the
Bible and all of the corresponding study materials.
At the end of June, we submitted all but
one of our regular 4’th quarter files on time. (And
that one file just got more or less lost in the process.) Our
team has completed the study materials for Genesis through Song
of Songs, which is half of the Bible text.
The study Bible project has consumed most
of our time but the team is now progressing very well. Things
have been put in order for what may be a few weeks
until the missionary who is the managing editor of this program
returns. After that we pray for a smooth transition as we
hope that things will continue to go well. Thank you again
for helping to make it possible to produce a tool that will help
Malagasy people to study the word of God. We believe this
study Bible will be like a mini-library for the pastors here as
there is very little Christian literature available in the
Malagasy language.
You have also helped us to serve the
church here in various other ways. John taught some English
classes, “Personal Evangelism” to two different classes
of first-year students at the Bible school, and “The
Biblical Theology of Missions” to last year’s
third-year / graduating students. We pray that they will,
in turn, train others to obey the Lord and fulfill the call on
their lives. We were also able to help oversee the
mission’s vehicles and the driver for a while as well as
keep the field books.
We are currently giving away many of our
items and selling some others. We plan to leave here on
July 19 and return to the States on the 20’th. John is
still looking for a job and has a tentative job interview lined
up at the Applied Research Laboratory of Penn State University.
Although we do not know where we will be
living, we hope to end up in our previous hometown of State
College, PA. We will soon be looking for several important
items like an economical, reliable (used) car as well as a
computer. If you have any suggestions or ideas, please let
us know. We will also be looking for a place to live and
then we will have to furnish it.
Our short-term e-mail address will be
<jpitterle @ yahoo .com> (please
delete the 3 blank spaces in this e-mail address). Please
do keep in touch with us.
Once more, we cannot thank everyone
enough who has prayed and generously given to make it possible
for us to be here in Madagascar for about four years. Thanks
to Jesus, and with your partnership, many children have received
the good news of Jesus in a form they can understand. And
in the future, many other people will receive what will probably
be the very first Malagasy study Bible.
In His infinite awesomeness
and awesome infiniteness,
John, Leigh, Stephen and Grace
