Homegrown Missionaries

Dave Lux is the son of Bill and Rosemary Lux who did live in Hopkinton then after retirement moved to Manchester.

Dave and Cindy Lux have spent most of their married life as missionaries in Africa.  They raised their children there, educating them at home until they were ready for high school, at which time they sent them to boarding school.  Now all the children are either married, working or still in college in the United States. 

With the advancement of computer technologies and many years of training the local people to continue on with the translation of the Bible into the local languages, they are able to spend part of their time back in the States still staying in contact by computer and e-mail, but they still need to return for part of most every year to their team in Cameroon.

 As you can see from the following letter, they are close to finishing the translation of the New Testament in the language of the Noni and Misaji people.  This has taken over 20 years to accomplish working with the local people, educating them in God’s word as well as putting together a team to continue to work with them through all these years. From this letter it appears their schedule plans for finishing the New Testament this year or next. 

Since I have known Dave’s mother and father most of my life, I have kept in contact with Dave and Cindy through some of their mission work, praying for their safety and progress.  I thought you might find the following letter informative on mission work at just one site in a third world country.    -- Marcheta Cooey.

Dear Praying friends,

    We arrived back in Yaounde after a week away from the Personnel Department of SIL here in Cameroon. We spent the past days with the Noni team and with our Misaje teammates planning for the drafting of the final 20% of the Noni New Testament and for the continuation of language development work among the seven Misaje languages. We want to briefly share some requests with you.

*Please pray for our work this week which will focus on debriefing about 50 members from the SIL Chad branch as they were evacuated from the capitol of Chad (Ndjamena) this past weekend because of rebel warfare. Perhaps you heard of this in the news. Anyway, Cindy and I will both be involved in helping with debriefing our colleagues and helping them work through this difficult time. Pray for God to give us love, grace, wisdom, and compassion as we interact with them.

*Pray for God to send hostel parents who can serve as parents for approximately 10 SIL high schoolers attending Rain Forest International School this August 2008. These students' parents live out in village allocations and conduct their Bible translation projects while their kids are schooling in Yaounde. Pray for God to send capable hostel parents by July 2008!

*Pray for the Noni team as they finish translating 2 Timothy and Titus this month. And keep on praying for them to have wisdom, strength, hardiness, resolve, and joy as they work together on the following schedule:

         March      test the books of Matthew, 1 & 2 Thessalonians, 1&2 Timothy, and Titus with three separate listening groups in the village

    April-July              translate John

    August        translate 1,2,3 John,

    September-December    translate Revelation

*Pray for me (Dave) as I need to check their translation drafts of Romans 7-16, 2 Corinthians, Ephesians, 1,2 Thessalonians, 1,2 Timothy and for Cindy as she checks the Noni Reading/Writing Book and prepares it for publication.

*Pray for our Misaje teammates, Rich and Katrina Boutwell, and Chris and Kay Smoes, as they continue to focus on learning the Nchane and Kemezung languages.

 Thank you for praying for us! We appreciate your support and intercession on our behalf and on behalf of the Noni translation team and the Noni and Misaje peoples so much.

In Christ,

Dave and Cindy Lux