Excerpts from the Martins' Memos News Briefs - September, 1995

Translator Family Moves in: Crickets Move Out

On August 1st the Martin family moved into their house in Dallas Texas, after a long trip from Papua New Guinea. Having forgotten that Texas sometimes has more aggressive "critters" than Papua New Guinea, they were surprised to find that several crickets had taken up noisy residence in the Martin house. "We don’t see as many crickets in the house as we did at first," Bill says.

The Martins also report that, after 7 weeks, they finally feel like they have settled in and have (mostly) adjusted to the culture of the Dallas area.

Computer Science major goes off to College

Three weeks after arriving in Dallas from overseas, missionary kid (MK) Joel Martin, 18, traveled 1,000 miles northeast to Upland, Indiana where he began his College career at Taylor University.

Joel’s roommate is another MK named Jon Bransford who grew up in Kenya Africa, and is majoring in Biology. Joel reports that life in Wengatz Hall never has a dull moment. He says, "I keep meeting new people every day, but I don’t even know all the people in my wing in the residence hall yet."

Email letters to Mom and Dad reveal that he is also involved in a brass ensemble (playing tuba), chorale, accountability groups, freshman orientation, a very active MK group, work-study, residence hall meetings, etc., etc., etc...

What weighs less than a plastic cup, but holds more than 100,000 pages of books?

It’s called the "Translator’s Workplace." It is a Bible translator’s reference library being put on a single CD-ROM. This technological marvel is being developed jointly by Bible translation organizations to assist Bible translators in their work. A small army of people have been working for over two years gathering and formatting the information for the TW. The TW project is still in development.

During his furlough, translator Bill Martin is helping to organize and process the Translator’s Notes part of the project. Bill is seeking to make the Translator’s Notes as "user friendly" as possible for national translators, for whom English is a second language.

New Computer Speeds up the Work

While still in Papua New Guinea, the Martins were able to sell off all their old outdated computer equipment. With the proceeds combined with some savings, they were able to buy a new Pentium multimedia computer. Bill reports that "there is no more waiting on the computer! Things that used to involve waiting for minutes before, are now done in an eye-blink!" Bill also says "we are really are grateful to our supporters for enabling us to set aside savings to make our computer upgrade possible."

Mother Bird Ponders Nest

The Martin family Mother Bird Lenore Martin says, "Our first ‘baby bird’ has left the nest. We are very thankful to the Lord for having had the past 18 years to nurture Joel, but felt it was the right time to give him that gentle nudge to try out his wings."

Mother Bird went on to say, "On the one hand I am enjoying having less food to prepare (Joel is 6 feet, 200 pounds and eats lots) as well as lots less clothes to wash, but we sure do miss the dimension that Joel’s presence added to our family.

Although family dynamics will never be the same, we look forward to having Joel home with us over Christmas Vacation."

Stamp Hobby Helps Tenth Grader Finance New BMX

Jason Martin, who is turning 16 years old on October 1st, recently bought a new "GT Fueler" BMX bicycle. To help finance his purchase, Jason found a buyer for part of his stamp collection. "I am still collecting stamps," he says, "but I am narrowing my collection down to mainly Papua New Guinea stamps."

Bill Martin (and Lenore).

Top of Page

Back to Newsletter Archives

Home Page