If you ask David & Naomi Coward where home is, they will say, “Home is where the Lord sends us.” They actually have a small sign in their house that says just that.

The closest place to home (in the US) would be Virginia and North Carolina where they attended college and where family members live. Naomi graduated from Liberty Baptist College with a degree in Missions, while David graduated from North Carolina State University with a degree in Engineering. Some years later, while on furlough, David also earned a Master’s Degree.

David and Naomi both joined Wycliffe Bible Translators in the ‘80s while they were still single. They were married in 1984, and their daughter Hannah was born in 1990.

As missionaries with Wycliffe, their assignment took them to Southeast Asia where one of their first tasks involved learning the language and culture of the place they have since come to love and now consider home.

In 1999, their work of community development and translating portions of Scripture into one of the minority languages was suddenly interrupted. Internal violence erupted in the area where they were working, resulting in the need for the Cowards to be evacuated.

In 2002, they were able to return to Southeast Asia. They continued working with the same language group, but took on more of a training and consultant role as the mother tongue translators formed their own organization. In the past few years, this translation team has been able to draft portions of Genesis, Luke, Acts, James and Revelation.

Currently, the Cowards are in the U.S. on furlough. Hannah is attending Liberty University. David and Naomi are working on assignment in Waxhaw, NC, where they are telecommuting via e-mail and Skype and working on the translation by reviewing and editing the drafts of the translation team.

Since they've been in the States, they've been dealing with things like getting Hannah set up in college; reconnecting with churches, family, and friends; the long-distance communications involved in their work; and the logistics of American life, such as getting driver's licenses and cars, medical and dental check-ups and procedures, and trying to figure out why there needs to be 202 different kinds of cereal and 22 different packages of toilet paper to choose from.

Please be in prayer for them to have wisdom to know where God is leading them for their next season of service. Also pray for protection of the lines of communication between them and their translation team, and for the Holy Spirit to be changing lives of the people on their team as they meditate on His Word.