Missionaries Chris and Janine Pluger, along with their son Sean, will begin translation ministry with the Nsenga people of Zambia on August 23rd.  Last summer, Chris traveled to the Nsenga area to meet with leaders there to determine whether this would be an appropriate placement for himself and his family, and God answered with a resounding ‘yes’ through the following encounter:

An Nsenga elder told me a story. 

“An eighty year-old man goes to plant a mango tree. His grandson says to him, ‘Why are you doing this? You will die soon. You will never eat the fruit from this tree.’ The grandfather says, ‘All my life, I have been eating mangos from trees I did not plant. But now, before I die, I want to plant a seed so that other people, even you, will be able to eat mangos someday.’”

Then the elder said to me, “Many of us on this Nsenga Bible Committee will not see the end of it, because it is the work of many years. But our hope is that, like that mango seed the grandfather planted, the Nsenga Bible will bear fruit for many many years to the Nsenga people, so that our grandchildren might hear, read, understand and believe God’s Word in their own language.”

If you would like to learn more about the Nsenga work, you can visit The Plugers‘ personal web site.