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Tidbits from November Travels
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November was another month of fun and exciting travel for Caitlyn and myself (Michael) as we took a little break from work and visited many of our friends and family in three different states. It was a huge blessing to rest for a bit, and we made many connections for our upcoming journey to Japan.
Our first stop was in Maryland, where we stayed with a family just south of Baltimore. Caitlyn and I have many friends and even some family members who live in the area — so many that we had to create a spreadsheet just to figure out scheduling to meet up with everyone. Fortunately, everyone’s schedules worked out just right, so we saw everyone on our list and even got to add in some extras.
Of course, you can’t go to Washington D.C. without seeing some museums! We ended up spending a full day at the Museum of the Bible. The museum’s highlight for us was at the end of an exhibit covering the history of Bible translation. After learning about how the Bible was translated and promulgated throughout many countries, we entered an oval-shaped room full of bookshelves. Every language in the world, including sign languages, was represented by one of a few items: a complete Bible translation, a portion of a Bible (e.g., a New Testament), or an empty slot for a language in which the Bible did not yet exist. The last section was by far the biggest. We also learned that there are still 829,955 Bible chapters left to translate before the Bible is accessible in all languages. Seeing the vast translation work still needed, depicted in this visual way, was very humbling, to say the least.
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A small look into the room about Bible translations. The blue section (10 bookshelves total) had languages without any translations. The small yellow section with four shelves covered all the languages with complete Bibles. Not pictured are the bookshelves with translations in progress.
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On Sabbath, we attended the Triadelphia SDA Church, where we had the pleasure of meeting Doug Venn, former Director of Urban Missions at the SDA General Conference. He talked with us about Japan and the work being done in Tokyo. We also had the pleasure of going to the General Conference building later in the week, taking a tour, and having a conversation with some former AFM missionaries who were involved with the Mission Unusual: Tokyo church-planting initiative taking place right now in Japan. They will connect us with the workers in Tokyo so we can dialogue with them, receiving advice and tips even before we launch.
After our adventures in Maryland, we went south to Tennessee to have Thanksgiving with Caitlyn’s family and give a presentation about Japan to the South Bay SDA Church. On the way down, we had a short stop at Hartland College in Virginia to visit with some former AFM student- and short-term missionaries attending and working at Hartland.
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Us with the group from Hartland after a good meal.
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Once we had our first Thanksgiving in TN, we went up north to Ohio to have our second Thanksgiving with my family. We had a great time and played many rounds of Settlers of Catan and other fun board games.
We plan to stay in Michigan this December and connect with people and churches from here. It will be nice to avoid traveling for a few weeks. We hope you and yours have a wonderful holiday season and enjoy time with family and friends!
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Exploratory Vision Trip to Japan
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We have received official approval for a two-week exploratory trip to Japan to visit potential project locations, meet people living there, and do more research for AFM’s new project. To say we are excited would be an understatement. We do not yet know when we will go, but we plan to do live streams from Japan and take many pictures, which we cannot wait to share with you!
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Upcoming Speaking Appointments
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- We will speak at the Greeneville, TN, SDA Church on January 7, 2023.
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Would you like us to come and speak at your church, vespers, or small group and share about missions, tell mission stories, and talk about the needs of the unreached? Please let us know. We are willing and able to travel!
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Praises & Prayer Requests
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- We are once again grateful for safe travel to a wide variety of places. Praise God for great friends, wonderful families, reliable cars and good traveling weather!
- One of our two fundraising goals has been met! We have officially reached our goal for our one-time launching fund. Please pray our monthly support goal will soon be met so we can attend training this coming summer and launch to Japan in the fall of 2023.
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We would love to hear back from you. Always feel free to reach out, ask questions or just let us know how you are doing. You can reply to this email or give us a call/text at ***.***.****. We would be happy to pray for any requests you might have.
Thanks so much for your support!
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Michael & Caitlyn Babienco