March 09

Hi guys.
By urban southern California standards, we have a reasonably big back yard, with lots of
trees and hedges, the clippings of which far exceed the capacity of our allotment of trash
cans. So for Christmas my mother-in-law gave me a
mulcher. (Those of you who know my mother-in-law,
you won't be so surprised; she's the one who gave all the
guys toilet plungers in their stockings a few years ago.)
Now I've never been a big fan of yard work; when I was
growing up I always equated it with "cruel and unusual
punishment". But now it's taken on a whole new
character. I'm sure it's the mulcher. I tell ya, this thing
can do entire trees; you just feed the pieces into the shoot
and it grinds them up and spits them into a bag. This is
much faster and much more fun than having to rake
leaves into bags and cut and organize branches into
neatly-bundled units that the trash people will haul off.
So, since Christmas I've been mulching the dickens out of
anything remotely botanical that I can trim, chop, hedge,
clip or mow. And the end result is piles and piles of …
well, chewed-up trees….all kinds of stuff that I can
recycle back into our hard adobe soil and maybe actually
get our lawn to grow something besides weeds.
In a way, this whole mulching-the-backyard thing is a sort of parable for the way life in the
US has been for Melanie and me since coming back from Peru. In the 3 decades we've
worked with Wycliffe – and with the Wanca Bible translation project in particular – we've
been privileged to gain lots of valuable experience and skills in a number of areas. So rather
than throw all this growth away, it's being recycled elsewhere. For example, Melanie was
always heavily involved in our kids' education in Peru and is really a great teacher, so she's
been teaching kids Sunday school at church and substituting in the local school district. It
puts a healthy measure of fear into her students when the first thing she tells them is "I've
raised three boys, so don't think you're getting away with anything!" She's not really that
mean…most of the time.
My own "recycling" has been elsewhere: I've been able to consult with translators for various
language projects. I've also been able to provide input into the development of courses
geared towards native speakers of indigenous languages who want to translate the scriptures
for their own communities. And as part of our Wycliffe assignment in the US, I've been
teaching linguistics students at Biola University who plan to be directly involved in the
technical aspects of Bible translation in the future. Sometimes I even get to do two or three
of these things at the same time…like last semester, I was scheduled to be in Peru for 3
weeks to consult with the team working on scripture translation for the Yora, a small group
in the Peruvian Amazon. But I was also scheduled to be teaching a translation class at Biola.
So how could I be in both places at once? Well, I decided I'd try teaching my translation
class in the US from the Amazon jungle using Skype, webcams, and some computer desktop-
sharing software. The result? Virtual omnipresence! I shared with my university students
 about how certain principles of art are applicable to
the field of translation, and then, with the help of
some interpreters, my students in the US were able
to meet the Yora translation team "face-to-face"
and also observe an actual translation checking
session in progress.
This semester in my Seminar on Linguistics and
Biblical Exegesis we are going to do something
similar, only it will involve the Wanca project's
translation of Genesis and maybe Psalms. All this
to say that I'm thankful the things we've learned in
one isolated corner of the world extend much
farther than what we originally envisioned.
So what's coming up for us in the near
future? For starters, Melanie has been
invited to go in May as part of a small team
from our church to help train a sister church
in India in children's education. This is a
great honor and opportunity and I'm sure she
will be a tremendous asset. So please pray
for her as we look to God to provide the
finances for this.
I will continue to teach classes at Biola until
May, but then we are both planning to go to
Peru in mid June for about a month to do
some on-site translation consulting with the
Yora and Wanca Quechua teams. Then in August we are scheduled to go to Nepal to lead a
short linguistic workshop for mother-tongue translators. Never been to Nepal; never taught
this kind of a workshop. Should be interesting for all of us! So I'd appreciate prayer for that
as well.
We are thankful our kids are nearby and are doing well. Lucas continues to thrive at Biola
studying music. Between going to his orchestra performances and his occasional visits to our
laundry room we see him on a fairly regular basis. Ryan and Kenlynn are loving married
life, and, like so many, are gaining new depth of character as they trust God to navigate them
through the waters of limited employment in a hard-hit job market. Erik's been considering a
career change, and in June he leaves for Korea for a year to try his hand at teaching English
as a second language. He's a good teacher, just like his mom, and of course I'm thrilled he
has interest in something linguistic! Although we're not particularly looking forward to 12
months without him (who are we to talk after having spent most of our married lives
overseas?) we are very glad for the sense of direction he has, we are thankful that God's hand
is on his life, and we are confident that that he really will shine in this. (Even so, come
quickly, June 2010!)
Economic uncertainty, children moving overseas…hmmm. Bumps in life make me reflect.
When I think about it, there are probably more similarities between me and our back yard
than I'd like to admit, namely the presence of weeds. Weeds have some nice qualities:
 sometimes they sprout interesting-looking flowers and they
certainly show a remarkable resilience to adverse conditions. The
thing is, you don't really want them, and even though you work to
get rid of them, they grip the ground with enviable tenacity and
persistently re-emerge right in the places you thought you'd pulled
them up. As I dig around in the expanses of dirt behind our house
trying to transform it into something beautiful, I think about
weeds: things I wish weren't part of life, not just the external
difficulties that impose themselves on us, but also the weed-like
areas of my character, with roots that go deep into hard, dry ground
and resist extraction: fears, doubts, attitudes, thoughts and actions,
that sap my relationship with God, and rob me of my joy. As I've
learned from dealing with our own local, and very robust,
infestations, sometimes the only way to get them out is to stab the
earth and break up the ground that surrounds them. And then they
may come out, but only with a careful, firm grip coupled with a
determined, slow, even pull.
Even then, they leave a hole
as they drag out pieces of the
earth with them. I myself am
such a garden and the Lord is
the one who tills me, weeds me and prunes me with an
eye to turning this parched, cracked soul into something
lush and beautiful, that bears fruit and brings honor to
him. His word promises me that he will succeed. I
know that even his severest mulching is most merciful,
and that he can heal and smoothe over the empty spaces
where the weeds once were.
I'm half-tempted to apologize for lapsing into these
somewhat personal reflections, but I won't because you've shown us repeatedly that you are
interested in us as people, and not just in the activities we perform. Truly God has graced us
with your friendship, your prayers, and your sacrificial gifts in this time of unprecedented
worldwide financial turmoil. So, from one gardener to another, thanks for tilling, planting,
weeding, and watering alongside us in a world ripe for harvest.
In his careful, firm, determined, even-handed, loving, and most merciful grip.

Snail Mail: Rick and Melanie Floyd,

16135 Sunny Ct.
Whittier, CA 90603
Email: rick_floyd@sil.org
melanie_floyd@sil.org
Phones: Home: 562-321-5442
Rick: 562-665-3364
Melanie: 562-665-3969
Rick's occasional blog (new url): www.amatterofsighs.blogspot.com
Info & Gifts: Wycliffe Bible Translators, Box 628200, Orlando, FL 32862-8200