by Chris Urton from the Spring 2000 issue of The Storyboard.

A couple years after Lori and I were married, I started working at a new job. I made some new acquaintances at work. One of the things my “new friends” and I did after work was to go out and have a couple of cold ones while we shot some pool at a neighborhood establishment.

Going to bars two or three times a week was becoming routine. I began smoking marijuana occasionally just for some extra “fun.” After a couple hours of drinking, I would go to the babysitter’s to pick up my little daughter, Stephanie. I didn’t even think twice about driving drunk with her in the car. I was playing Russian roulette with this precious gift that God had given us. Thankfully, I made it home with her every time.

One Friday, I stayed a little too late at the bar. The babysitter called Lori at her workplace to tell her that I hadn’t picked up Stephanie yet. Lori then had to start calling the bars I frequented. However, by that time I had picked up Steph and gone home. Lori arrived later crying and very upset. That was how my actions were making my wife feel. It broke me. We both yelled at each other. I locked myself in the bedroom. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what the future held. Lori had a Living Bible in our bedroom. I knew that the book of Revelation was about the future. So I started reading. As I read my way through this book I discovered the condition I was in. I had no hope because I didn’t have Jesus in my life. There was a change after that Friday. We started going to church that Sunday. Several weeks later I was baptized.

Perhaps I made that decision because I had God’s Word in an understandable form. I don’t know if I would have picked up the Bible if it had been an older version. If so, I don’t know if I could have understood it well enough to make that decision.

This is the reason why we are in Papua New Guinea with Pioneer Bible Translators. People need to be able to learn of God’s love for them in their own language. Our prayer is that someday we can give someone the Bible in his heart language and that it will make a difference in his life.

Chris and Lori came to PNG to work with PBT in 1998 and have worked among the Sob people since 2001. They are currently rough drafting the book of Luke in the Sob language.