We are Eric and Cheryl, and we are involved in Bible translation. Neither of us is linguists. We came to this particular ministry in an unusual way. God had given us an open path to the Central African Republic, and we were very willing to follow that path. My husband had graduated from Purdue University in 1967 with a degree in civil engineering. I graduated the same day with a degree in elementary education. After working as a field engineer for a few years, Eric began to explore possible ministry opportunities overseas, and God opened all doors. In 1970 we joined Baptist Mid-Missions, an independent faith mission agency. We attended Grand Rapids Baptist Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Eric graduated in 1971, and I finished my degree fifteen years later. We visited 96 churches in the next 14 months, and about thirty of those churches gave toward financing our ministry.
In September 1972, our family of four left for Switzerland for language training. We studied there for 22 months and added one daughter to our two sons. In July 1974 we flew to Africa. There we worked as Bible school teachers, church planters, disciplers, mentors, and yes--a bit of building and definitely school teaching. Our fourth child, a second daughter, was born in the Central African Republic (Ippy). We loved working there, and stayed until Cheryl had a liver transplant in 1996. This effectively closed the door to living in Africa for the foreseeable future.
As Cheryl was healing from her months of illness followed by major surgery, we asked the Lord how we could continue to be international while living somewhere in Michigan, which was a requirement for the first few years for the follow-up from Cheryl's transplant at the University of Michigan medical center. Bibles International, the Bible Society of Baptist Mid-Missions, was God's answer.
