PHOTO PROVIDED / THE VILLAGE REPORTER
SPREADING THE WORD … Sunday, July 26, was a very special day at First Baptist Church in Stryker. Bethany Ingram was commissioned to go forth representing the church as a Bible translator to a language group in Africa. She was appointed four years ago by Baptist Mid-Missions and their arm, Bibles International. This is a faith-based mission, so she has been putting on many miles and many prayers to raise the needed financial and prayer support. Having recently reached that 100% mark, the church was ready to plan a special ceremony of “laying on of hands” for the church leadership and congregation to commend her to that ministry. It was an emotional start to Pastor Sean Ingram’s message from Acts 13:1-3. He was feeling pride, joy, and some sadness as now his only daughter would be leaving home for further preparations including some language study in France before going to the language group in Africa where she will be a translation consultant. She is gifted in languages and has made two short introductory trips so far to Chad to help with the ongoing translation projects there. Until there is a complete Bible, it usually takes years of cross-checking for accuracy before going to print.