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Welcome, Selah Grace Elizabeth!

Selah was born to us on Match 18th, 2018, weighing in at a healthy 8lbs, 14oz
We praise God for a safe delivery without complication, and for His grace which has sustained us.

Alexis is thankful for a smooth delivery & for labor that lasted only 5 hours.
Andrew is overjoyed about having a second girl. He hopes to have a bunch of girls.
Mariah is happy to have a sibling, someone to talk to, and eventually to play with.

About the name:
סֶלָה Selah

Selah is also thought to be rendered from two Hebrew words: s_lah, “to praise”; and s_lal, “to lift up.” Another commentator believes it comes from salah, “to pause.” From salah comes the belief that selah is a musical notation signifying a rest to the singers and/or instrumentalists who performed the psalms. If this is true, then each time selah appears in a psalm, the musicians paused, perhaps to take a breath or to sing a cappella or let the instruments play alone. Perhaps they were pausing to praise the One about whom the song was speaking, perhaps even lifting their hands in worship. This theory would encompass all these meanings—“praise,” “lift up,” and “pause.” When we consider the three verses in Habakkuk, we also see how selah could mean “to pause and praise.” Habakkuk’s prayer in chapter 3 inspires the reader to pause and praise God for His mercy, power, sustaining grace, and sufficiency.

Perhaps the best way to think of selah is a combination of all these meanings. The Amplified Bible adds “pause and calmly think about that” to each verse where selah appears. When we see the word selah in a psalm or in Habakkuk 3, we should pause to carefully weigh the meaning of what we have just read or heard, lifting up our hearts in praise to God for His great truths. “All the earth bows down to you; they sing praise to you, they sing the praises of your name. Selah!” (Psalm 66:4).
(Thanks for the explanation from https://www.gotquestions.org/selah.html ) 

Special Bookshelf

This is a very special bookshelf. It's filled with one of every Bible translation currently in print. While it stands as a symbol of progress, the empty shelves are a daily reminder to me of the work yet to be done.

As Alexis and I walk past this shelf on the way to class at GIAL in Dallas, we are encouraged to be a part of what God is doing to bring the good news to those who do not yet have it in their heart language. We praise God for the 2,422 language projects currently underway and look forward to joining that number very soon.

What should be done about these 1750+ waiting language groups? We receive such a wonderful invitation from our Lord and Savior in Luke 10:2, where Jesus says. “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest." God has designed that by praying for the mission field, we become a part of what moves it forward.

Will you consider joining us in prayer for the work of Bible Translation?

Praying to and Praising the God of the Harvest with you,

- The Olsons

Linguistic Studies in Full Swing!

"You may be in the right school when your professor wrote the textbook for this subject" I told Alexis the other day.


Seriously, we are so tremendously blessed to be studying at Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics (GIAL) in Dallas. This is the world's center for Bible Translation Training. It's hard work when in a given week, we may be working with data from 10-20 languages---but we are learning the principles of language learning, which will be invaluable to our future as Bible Translators with #LBT.

Alexis Olson working on developing a grammar for Tok Pisin (a language used in PNG). This is a daily process in our homework and is good practice.

Here I am pictured with Paul Kroeger, the world's premier scholar for "Field Grammar". (He's teaching us how to make a dictionary and grammar from nothing) He wrote the textbook for the SIL class on Grammar.

Sarah Kozsan, our classmate, is putting liquefied charcoal on our professor Adam Huntley's tongue to show how a sound is made in the mouth. Tongue markings are visible on the roof of the mouth. This is called "Pallatography", and its used on the field when trying to document certain linguistic sounds. (Photo cred: Miranda Kay)

Here we are in Language and Society class, talking about "Multiplex Social Networks". We used strings to visualize how the different roles of society interact with each other. In this class, we talk about the socially appropriate ways to introduce change---such as Bibles and New Dictionaries.
It's a full course load, but we are enjoying it and thankful to God for this opportunity. Thank you to those who have supported us already in the Bible Translation mission that is soon to begin. Thank you Lutheran Bible Translators for your oversight in this training.

"this work had been accomplished with the help of our God." - Nehemiah 6:16

Training Begins

We are leaving this week to begin training in Dallas, TX at the Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics. Ahead is a year of intensive linguistics study, where we'll learn concepts, programs and methods used to accelerate Bible Translation on the field.
We pray that God will use this time to help us build friendships with fellow missionaries and equip us with tools for the years ahead.

Mariah is now 10 months old! She is eating Cheerios, exploring every new environment and practicing her intercultural communication (Jabber) every day. She also loves to wave at people and see new faces.

We are so blessed.








Please keep us in your prayers, our first newsletter comes out this week!

Announcing the Two-Way Prayer Team

We're pleased to announce a new way that you can become involved in our missions work.

We're calling it the "Two-Way" Prayer team, because we wanted to assemble a team of people who are committed to pray for us on the missions field, just as we are also committing to praying for you in the Home-Mission field.

Most missionaries have a "Prayer Card" which often makes it on fridges of people who are thinking about them and supporting them as a reminder to people to pray. As a part of the Two-Way team, we'll actually be thinking about you and praying for you. Your "Prayer Card" will be printed and kept in our home on the missions field.

These photos serve a couple purposes. First, they serve us as reminders to pray for you. Second, as people come to visit our homes, we can use your photos as a touchpoint to talk about the believers in the USA who are also praying for them.

To this team, we'll be sending email updates, messages on Facebook, and plan to call them about once a quarter to get updates about how to pray for them as well.

Click this link to sign up: Two Way Prayer Team

Our First Video!