TRIMMED EXCERPTSo when I got back to Matamata after the time in Wellington, we went off to find a suitable Bible College. We went to Faith Bible College, where we felt we could best fit. Milton Smith said "No, you need more than we can give…
TRIMMED EXCERPTWhen we first made contact with the language group we wondered about their unique ways but just put it down to cross-cultural differences and figured that every translation team would face difficulties and oddities. We just have to tough it out. But we did wonder.…
TRIMMED EXCERPTWhen we were living in rural villages in Indonesia, we usually stayed with the Village Chief (Kepala Desa) and his family. In the village of Bonelemo where we had decided to make our base to work in the southern region of the language group, we…
TRIMMED EXCERPTWe all have stories of when we thought we knew for sure God's will for us at a particular time only to find out we were wrong. Let me illustrate by another Ian story. There was a time back at the beginning of my "walk…
TRIMMED EXCERPTI know a young woman in JPCC who when faced with the issue of choosing her life partner, told the guy in question that she had a life verse. In order for her to know if he was God’s man for her he had to…
TRIMMED EXCERPTWednesday June 10th 1981 Yvonne was praying in her Quiet Time as per usual. She was going through the church directory and praying for people in order. She came to Ian and Tania Vail on the list and started praying for us. As she prayed…
TRIMMED EXCERPTAllow me to make it clear to you how oral societies work from what I observed working among them. When we worked in Sulawesi, Indonesia among the Rongkong we had to collect and collate language material in order to learn the language. How do you…
TRIMMED EXCERPTI was told by a Deeper Bible participant in Jakarta when the class were celebrating my 63 birthday, “Pak Ian, you are only halfway through your ministry. You have many long years left Pak.” I said, “I thought you liked me.” He said, “We do…
TRIMMED EXCERPTMy late Greek Professor, Dr Basil Brown, used the following illustration to explain variant readings to the class. He asked, “If you were attending university or technical institute or teacher’s college and you missed a particular lecture, what’s the best way to get the notes?”…
TRIMMED EXCERPTWe are all on this earth to learn the lesson and admit when we are wrong or don't measure up to God’s standard. But in reality there is a step prior to that – admitting that God is a reality. I was an atheist until…