Barbara and Joel Trudell

P.O. Box 44456

Nairobi 00100, Kenya

Tel: +254-20-724-744

Mobile: +254-735-893-746

Hello from warm and muggy Accra, Ghana! I've spent a lot of January days in my life feeling chilly - but these days aren't them.

The month of January has been quite a ride - literally! After a whole week on the job in Nairobi, we took off for Yaounde, Cameroon and a series of meetings there. Leaders of SIL and of SIL's closest African organizational partners came together to talk about strategies for moving the Bible translation task ahead in the next three years. We were German, Cameroonian, British, Chadian, Congolese, American, Kenyan, Republic-of-Central-African, and more! And as a nice sidelight, it was terrific to see a number of our friends from the year we'd spent in Cameroon in 2002-2003.

Joel especially is gaining extensive "on the ground" orientation to his new role in Wycliffe Africa Area. This segment of the SIL/Wycliffe work focuses on getting more Africans to join the Bible translation work as peers - trained to the same levels as SIL workers are, and supported by their home churches, not simply employees of an expatriate organization. In this role, Joel's been to Benin and Togo in the last few weeks, and after Ghana he will go on to Ethiopia.

I, on the other hand, get to go home to Nairobi at the end of this week - hurray! My new job has me in charge of a team of SIL consultants, meant to serve SIL and other Bible translation organizations across sub-Saharan Africa. I find that I like working to make a group of people more effective in their jobs. The consultant team members live in different parts of Africa; I was amused the other day to receive a recommendation for a book on virtual teams from a friend who noted that he is also "trying to manage a team that is distrusted across Africa." I think he meant "dispersed" and his spell checker got it wrong.... at least I hope so!

Here is one of our African colleagues, Michel Kenmogne, with Joel in Yaounde. Michel is the director of the Cameroonian Bible Translation and Literacy agency; he has a Ph.D. in linguistics and is a very talented leader as well. (Also Joel wanted you to see his new African shirt.) (Embedded image moved to file: pic06334.jpg)

How you can pray for us this month:

- We're thankful for good health so far! Safety too. Joel's trip to Togo, Benin and Ghana was accomplished on a series of very interesting roads, but he arrived in Accra safe - if dusty.

- The month of February holds more travel yet, as Joel embarks on some orientation programs and I go to more meetings outside the country. We are told that our life won't always be like this - and indeed, it is mainly a series of coincidental meeting dates that has kept us on the road since early January. But you could pray that we will stay sane and productive while continuing to travel.

Thank you friends! Your prayers, financial help and loving messages are very important to us. Lord bless you!