The goal of Bible translation is for every person on earth to be able to worship God and understand His Word in their heart language. When people ask how many languages still need the Bible, we want the answer to be 0. And thousands of people around the world are working to make that a reality. But until that day comes, it's good to check in and see the progress that is being made toward that goal. So how's it going? First, it's important to know that there are more than 7,00

See what the Lord has done; See what the Lord has done! What we’ve been waiting for has come to pass; See what the Lord has done! These lyrics from a song by Nathaniel Bassey, a popular Nigerian singer, have been the song of our hearts over the past few weeks. After years of praying, planning, paperwork, and fundraising, we are thrilled to finally be able to introduce our family of seven! Our daughter, Evelyn Sharysse Campbell and our son, Levi Jack Campbell have officially a

This week, we wanted to share a video that Wycliffe recently put out. This one is extra special to us, not only because it's a story from Africa (though the other side of the continent), but also because Serge works very closely with our branch in Côte d'Ivoire! We know him personally and can attest to his love for God's Word and the work of Bible translation. This particular video talks about how the question of oral vs written Bible translation is really a both/and situatio

It's time for our annual financial update! First, "annual" really means as frequently as I remember. (The last one was in 2023!) Thanks to some great tools from Wycliffe, it's really easy for us to keep track of our finances and have an eye on how donations are coming in. I just forget to share with you all. So thank you for your patience. Second, every summary of our budget is a chance for us to thank the Lord for you all. The entire process of Bible translation can be very

As many of you know, our family has been on a long journey toward adoption. After months of waiting, praying, and navigating paperwork, we have reached a major milestone. We are finally preparing to travel to pick up our children! In the coming weeks, we will be traveling to Liberia, and then to the United States to finalize the process, before returning home with the two newest members of our family—an 8-year-old girl and a 6-year-old boy. They are biological siblings whose

I absolutely love etymology. I am the kind of person who is constantly, and probably obsessively, looking up where words come from. At this point, my kids know far more than they would ever care to know about word origins. I’m sure they will thank me for it one day... right? Finding out where a word comes from feels like uncovering a secret, a key that unlocks the "real" or "original" meaning of what we are saying. But in our quest for depth, especially in teaching, writing,

We had some really special visitors come see us! Jack's parents, Mark and Carol Campbell, and our niece, Vail, flew all the way from Utah to spend two weeks with us here in Côte d'Ivoire, and we had such a great time with them! We crammed so much into their two weeks here, and we still had a lot of down time to spend together at home. We don't take these visits for granted. I've read that one of THE BEST things that a grandparent can do to build relationships and bridge the g

How would you describe a banana? I assume the first words to come to mind would be yellow, curved, maybe sweet. Now imagine you've never seen a banana and you had to rely on these descriptions. If that's all you knew about it, and I handed you a banana, you could pretty easily deduce that what I handed you was a banana. But what if I handed you a fake banana? Would you be able to recognize it as fake? Depending on how good the fake is, if you were relying on the descriptions

Hello friends and family! We’ve transitioned squarely into the rainy season, where rain pours most every day and laundry takes days to dry. Having lived here for a few years now, we’ve learned to feel the slight changes in the seasons, and lately we’re really enjoying the cooler “feels like” temperature and the change of pace when heavy rains cancel our plans… much like snow days in the states! Our school year wrapped up really well, and we’re really excited to add two siblin

Imagine your church deciding to sponsor the translation of an entire book of the Bible for a community that doesn't have a single word of Scripture in their own language. Churches all over the country have started doing this through a program called Adopt-a-Verse, and it’s not as hard as you think. Before we talk about that, let’s look at what Bible translation costs. In the Bible translation world, the standard benchmark for funding field projects is $35 per verse. When you

Happy Pentecost! This weekend, we marked one of the most pivotal moments in the Bible. We celebrated the arrival of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Before He went to the cross, Jesus promised that He would not leave us as orphans. He died, rose again, and ascended so that the Holy Spirit could come and live inside us. Because of Christ’s finished work, we now have the very same power that raised Him from the dead living in our actual bodies. To understand what this means practi

As you may have already heard, we've been matched with a brother and sister in Liberia! We're feeling a full spectrum of things - primarily humbled by this opportunity, curious how this will all pan out, and confident in our faithful God! Jack wrote more about the "nuts and bolts" of this step in the adoption process in the last blog. As I've been sorting through my thoughts and reading book after book about adoption, I found it helpful to process through the writing of a lit

We have great news to share on the adoption front. We have officially been matched with a sibling group in Liberia! Last week, we received a referral of a brother and sister pair that have been awaiting adoption in the transition home for 4 years. We prayed about it and talked with family and happily accepted this referral. This is the step we've been waiting for! After our home study was completed, we moved on to what's called the Dossier. This prepared a folder of informati

I've often wanted to capture a "Day in the Life" of our home, but I always struggle to define what a normal day looks like for us! Recently, our life has felt like reading the book of Mark ("And immediately, this happened. Then immediately, that happened") or listening to an audiobook on 2x speed. With little more than a night's sleep between each activity, we're nearing the end of a really full and relationally rich few weeks. On March 20, two ladies who work in TCK care wit

I was recently chosen to be featured in the Wycliffe staff newsletter, in a section called “One of our Own”. A short article summing up our story was written to share with Wycliffe staff serving in the states and abroad. This week, I wanted to just share that article with you. It helps to share a little of our story from an outside perspective, and I love that it highlighted how encouraged we are by the church in West Africa. God is doing some amazing things in this part of t

Hello friends and family! Occasional thunderstorms overnight during the past few weeks signal that we’re soon heading into a rainier season here in Abidjan. Because we’re on the coast, it’s quite humid and tropical year-round, but we’re learning to feel the differences in seasons. The kids wish they could be experiencing some of the snow and ice that our families have this winter, but I’m also really glad to be dodging the crazy flu season we’re hearing about! Our papaya tre

Just over 25 years ago, Wycliffe set a goal to have a translation project started in every language that needed one by the year 2025. It was called Vision 2025. But this was not just a goal set at random or another goal in a large list. This target really sparked something in the Bible translation movement and is a huge part of what drove the movement to where it is today. While technically we did not achieve this goal (there are still about 600 language projects that need to

This week, our update is coming from a more global perspective. We love to share with you what God is doing in Côte d'Ivoire and in the small circles that we get to be a part of here. But there is some really exciting work being done all over the world. Here's a message from our Wycliffe President and his wife at the beginning of the year, sharing some of the ways we've seen God at work around the globe. And how the work of Bible translation is progressing in nearly half of t

Hello friends and family! Thank you so much for your prayers for our family and our trip “out west” at the end of January! We have so many stories to tell and pictures to show. Be sure to stick around to the end of the blog post to see Titus' video! A bit of context for the trip: As the linguistics coordinator for Côte d’Ivoire, Jack works with all of SIL’s current Bible translation projects at the level of linguistics. So, any time they encounter problems with their orthogra

Hello friends and family! Just a quick note of updates and prayer requests this week. We have a lot going on! We leave early tomorrow morning for a 12-ish hour drive to a village in the northwest of Côte d’Ivoire. Jack, along with his team of linguists, will be working with a group of national translators to work out some difficulties they’re having with marking tone in their written language. (It’s significantly more complicated than what I’m able to describe!) The kids an