Six Month Update

May 17, 2013 by Leave a Comment

It’s been six months since Seed Sowers was published!

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God continues to use the stories – especially among young people – to challenge others for His service!

Do you have stories to share about how you are using Seed Sowers? Let me know. And if you’d like to see pictures from many of the Seed Sowers stories, click on the “pictures” tab at the top of this page.

And if you don’t have a copy of Seed Sowers yet – Grace and Truth Books now carries it. If you’re interested in the e-version, it’s available on Amazon.

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Next Item Up For Bid…

April 8, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Every year Wycliffe Associates here in Dallas hosts a Pie Social and Auction. Many people from Wycliffe’s Linguistics Center, where we serve full-time, donate items for the auction and all proceeds go to support Bible translation projects around the world.

Several weeks ago, John suggested I donate a copy of Seed Sowers for the auction, but then someone gave us another idea: how about having some of the retired missionaries whose stories are featured in Seed Sowers autograph their stories in the book?

What a great idea! Thankfully, many of the missionaries live in the Dallas area so we were able to collect many signatures for the book.

The WA Auction was this past Friday and I was a bit nervous about how the book would sell.

So imagine how thrilled I was when my little ole book sold for $120!

Honestly, when I saw the signatures filling the book it almost made me want to buy it myself. However, I was so glad for the lady who purchased it because I know she’ll really treasure it.

Click here to read more about the auction and here to read more about Wycliffe Associates work with Bible translation.

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Seeing the Results of Seed Sowers

January 15, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Although I’ve had many people within the missions community tell me they’ve bought the book, Seed Sowers was not really intended just for missionaries.

It’s really targeted for the younger generation — giving them a heart for missions and seeing that God can use regular, everyday people to do great things for Him.

So you can imagine how encouraged I’ve been to hear from people who have been sharing the Seed Sowers stories with young people. Here are two examples:

From a youth pastor: I read two stories from the Book Seed Sowers: Gospel Planting Adventures to the teens.  Both told the stories of Wycliffe missionaries who made great sacrifices to bring the Gospel and God’s Word to people groups who had never heard or read the Bible in their own language.  Harriet Fields & Hattie Kneeland risked their lives to bring the gospel to the Matses people in Peru who were notorious for their violent treatment towards outsiders.  God also used a 17 year old young man name Ronnie Snell to help them! 

Two Machiguengas, 17 year old Ronnie Snell, and Harriet Fields shortly before they made first contact with the Matses in Peru

Two Machiguengas, 17 year old Ronnie Snell, and Harriet Fields shortly before they made first contact with the Matses in Peru.

The second story was of the Benson family, also serving in Peru, and how God spared them from the hands of terrorists in Peru.  As they were traveling from village to village showing a film based on the Gospel of Luke they were kidnapped by local terrorists.  Instead of killing them they confiscated all their belongings, including the film.  They then showed the film to several hundred of their fellow terrorists & as a result several came to Christ.  We challenged the kids to think about where they can make sacrifices to follow God in their everyday lives.  

From a teacher: Along with the Bible lesson, I like to spend some time talking about missions with the 8-12 yr. old girls on Wednesday nights. Thanks to Gwen Toliver’s book “Seed Sowers” I was able to read them a story about a single missionary to Brazil named Rose. The girls were captivated! …What a great book! May God be glorified through it.

I am grateful for those of you who have been sharing Seed Sowers with the younger generation.

Harriet Fields and Gwen Toliver (and squirmy baby!) – Summer 2012

If you have shared Seed Sowers with children, will you let me know? I’d love to hear how God is using the book and I’ve been passing these comments on to the missionaries. It’s encouraging to them as well to hear how God has used their years of service to challenge young people.

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In the Middle of the Peruvian Jungle

January 7, 2013 by Leave a Comment

betty boys

One of the very last interviews I did before I sent Seed Sowers to the publisher was with Betty Snell.

Some of you may recognize her name because her son Ronnie wrote about his adventures as a missionary kid. She’s holding him in the picture above when their family first arrived in Machiguenga territory in Peru.

Her story is one of the stories in my book that is sad, but with a lovely sense of humor included.

Atahualpa, one of the men mentioned in “It All Started With Dionisio”, is now a faithful believer in Christ and here he is studying the Machiguenga Scriptures in 2010.

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Betty is a remarkable lady and a talented linguist herself. Since her husband Wayne’s death, she continued to work with the Machiguengas. She lives in Texas now, but recently completely a bilingual dictionary for them.

If you haven’t grabbed your copy of Seed Sowers yet, it’s available for your Kindle on Amazon for just $3.99. 

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One Thing I’d Like To Change

December 11, 2012 by Leave a Comment

The problem with books is that they are rather, well, permanent. With the internet, you can go in and push this lovely thing called an edit button. Books, not so much.

When I started writing Seed Sowers, I began to collect pictures from the missionaries I was interviewing. It was an amazing slice of history to see them pull pictures out of storage, out of scrapbooks, off their walls. Absolutely incredible.

Pictures like Jim and Gloria (Gray) Wroughton getting married in Lima, Peru in 1953 –

(Picture courtesy of Jim and Gloria Wroughton)

Their story is featured in Chapter 13 of Seed Sowers and, while Gloria was still single, she was among the group of about twenty people who were the first modern-day Bible translators to enter Peru, along with Cameron Townsend.

Or these pictures of Harriet Fields and Hattie Kneeland –

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They made “first contact” with the Matses people in Peru. The Matses had a terribly violent reputation, but the “two Harriets” were who God used to bring them the Gospel. That story is in Chapter 10 of Seed Sowers.

Victorino and Eduardo (two Machiguenga friends), Ronnie Snell (17yo missionary kid and author of “It’s a Jungle Out There”), and Harriet Fields blazing a trail to meet the Matses.

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The plane used to drop gifts down to the Matses. Note the “gift basket” full of pots and pans.

(Pictures courtesy of Harriet Fields)

The time I spent with Harriet was like gold. What a dear lady – she has such a heart for the lost. Most people would call her incredibly brave; she said she was just doing what God wanted her to do and there was a big team of people supporting her through prayer.

Another couple that still amazes me is Bob and Jo Ann Conrad. Their work in Papua New Guinea was record-setting – they were the first couple to translate the New Testament for four languages. Absolutely incredible.

Here’s a picture of the makeshift houseboat they built when they first went down the Sepik River to the Iwam people.

Yet their missions career got off to a rough start – cannibals were involved, as well as serious health issues that resulted in Bob’s harrowing ride in which he was strapped to the luggage rack on the outside of the helicopter and… Well, never mind, you need to read Chapter 7.

I had about twenty pictures compiled ready to go into the book as I finished the final manuscript when I found out something that nearly made me sick. Almost all of the pictures were too poor of quality for the publisher to use. We had even been aware of that and tried to scan them at a higher dpi, but it wasn’t enough. A few of the pictures were able to go on the cover, but the other pictures were unusable.

My only consolation is that I still have this website! So, if you click on “pictures” in tags or categories (look on the sidebar to your right) OR if you click on pictures at the top of this home page you can see more pictures.

I’m trying to get all fancy and make an actual gallery for you to go through, but I have to get some input from people smarter than me.

For now, enjoy the pictures that are already on the website!

And today is the day that I announce two winners for the current giveaway –

Martina

Sharon Burroughs

Congratulations! I’ll be contacting you via email to get your snail mail address.

If you did not win, you can get your own copy off of Amazon. It’s available for $12.88 (paperback) or for only $3.99 for your Kindle.

Happy Reading!

Filed Under: giveaway, pictures, writing Tagged With: ,
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