WordsforLife
Autumn 2012
wycliffe.org.uk
Front cover: A woman from Guatemala. Photo by Stephanie Willis. Below: A translation team at work in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Photo by Heather Pubols.
Welcome
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If it was your job to pick mission workers, would you have chosen the boy who prayed that God wouldn’t call him to be a missionary? What about the father who would have to travel many miles away from his family to get involved? Or the maths teacher who hated learning languages? Perhaps not, but God chose them. In this edition of Words for Life, I’d like to introduce you to some of the people who are involved pioneering the work of Bible translation. They are translating the Bible and teaching literacy and developing alphabets and analysing languages. Perhaps they were not always the most obvious choice for the work, but God is using them to reach the world with the good news of his love. I hope you are encouraged as you read their stories and see how their work impacts lives and communities. I also hope that, as you read about them and about the ways more people are getting involved in Bible translation, you will be inspired to pray for this work and to tell someone else that millions are still waiting to hear God speak in their heart language.
Hannah Thomas Editor E: hannah_thomas@wycliffe.org
Wycliffe Bible Translators, Wycliffe Centre, Horsleys Green, High Wycombe, Bucks HP14 3XL T: 01494 682 268 E: askus@wycliffe.org Scottish Office: 342 Argyle Street, Glasgow G2 8LY T: 0141 248 5555 E: scotland_uk@wycliffe.org Northern Ireland Office: 342 Beersbridge Road, Belfast BT5 5DY T: 028 9046 9905 E: nireland_uk@wycliffe.org
Contents
‘With your unfailing love you lead the people you have redeemed. In your might, you guide them to your sacred home.’ – Exodus 15.13
P3 Welcome P4 Not needed, but wanted P6 Too long P10 Tones, explosions and putting preachers right P13 ‘I really didn’t want to go’ P16 Journey into mission P19 The latest news
Wycliffe UK Ltd. is a charity registered in England and Wales, number 251233 and a charity registered in Scotland, number SC039140.
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Eddie Arthur
Not needed... but wanted One Saturday morning, several years ago, I decided to board out the floor of our loft and to get our two sons (then aged 11 and 14) to help me. We had a great time as I showed the lads how to use the jigsaw and the power drill, and the three of us set about measuring, sawing, and fastening the boards in place. Every now and then, my wife Sue would appear at the loft hatch bearing big mugs of tea and plates of digestive biscuits. It was a brilliant morning, me and my boys working together. I think I’ll remember it for the rest of my life. Now, if the truth be told, it would have been much quicker to do the job on my own, but it wouldn’t have been half as memorable. I didn’t need their help to lay the boards on the loft floor, but I wanted to work with them. Have you ever wondered why God calls us to mission? Why on earth would he put the treasure of the gospel into clay pots? Cracked pots, at that! It isn’t as though he needs us. If all he wants is to see the gospel preached and the Bible translated, he could call on an army of angels who could do the job more quickly and impressively than you or I. God doesn’t need us to reach the world for Christ any more than I needed my boys to help me lay some floorboards, but he wants us to be involved. God loves us so much that he wants us to work alongside him in his amazing work of taking the good news of his Son out to the whole
A family in the Democratic Republic of Congo. A woman prepares to pound yam. Photo by Heather Pubols.
world. A call to mission isn’t an order that we should feel guilty about; it’s a glorious invitation to join the living God in the most exciting adventure that the planet has to offer. There are many ways to be involved in mission: giving, praying, going or telling your friends about what God is doing. However we are involved, we come closer to the heart of God and he uses our experience to help us grow more like him. God doesn’t just use us to reach out to the world; he is at work in our lives, too; transforming us. God will reach out
to the world; the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God as the waters cover the sea, and people from every tongue, tribe and nation will worship the Lamb. When God calls us to be involved in mission, he invites us to join him on the winning team. You’d have to be mad to turn this offer down!
Eddie Arthur is the executive director of Wycliffe Bible Translators in the UK.To read more of his musings, visit kouya.net.
A young boy helps with the harvest. West Cameroon. Photo by Sean Stark.
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Too long
‘I enjoy doing translation. Every day I read the Bible! Most importantly, I am doing God’s work.’
The confident and passionate voice comes from the corner of a small courtyard of dusty, mostly empty rooms. Sunday, the speaker, works there with his colleague Alaska. The two men have been working together since 2006, translating parts of the New Testament into their own language, Nyankpa, a language of Nigeria. From the small and unassuming office, their passion shines forth. The sign on the door as you enter is one clear example: it reads, ‘Don’t kill your mother tongue! Speak your mother tongue to someone close to your heart.’ Sunday, with his ‘machine’
Alaska and Sunday started the Nyankpa translation work together when they
took an introductory translation course. But they then struggled to receive enough support from the local communities to continue. Because of the difficulties, Sunday left the project to study at a seminary, while Alaska continued to push on with Bible translation. Sunday came back. His help and enthusiasm have been a great encouragement for Alaska, but the challenges have not disappeared altogether. Burdens still press hard. Even the work integral to the translation is not without battles. To test the clarity of the translation drafts with Nyankpa speakers, Sunday often has to travel across country on his motorbike (he calls it his ‘machine’). It often has problems, and during the wet season he struggles to get to the villages. When he does get there, testing is sometimes far from easy: Nyankpa has four dialects, and finding a translation appropriate for all four is a process that can cause disharmony and antipathy.
These struggles with language and travel could have led Sunday and Alaska to despair. Instead they rejoice.When people hear the translations, Sunday says, they are ‘amazed at what they were hearing.’ Discussion with communities is often tremendously fruitful, especially in the hunt to discover the best way to translate complicated terms.
Alaska
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‘It’s been long, too long – we understand the word of God better in our own language.’ The excitement isn’t limited to the community tests. Although local churches are not yet completely bought into the translation, when the draft passages are shared, the response is clear: ‘It is received with happiness; they love it!’ says Alaska. ‘Formerly people didn’t understand much, but now they are understanding.’
language, Nyankpa, and the more widely spoken language, Hausa, in which local Nyankpa Christians currently read the Bible: ‘Hausa is not our language. It’s a foreign language. The Nyankpa is more clearly understanding for us. It’s been long, too long [because] we understand the word of God better in our own language.’
It’s obvious, really, when you hear the comparison Sunday and Alaska make between their own
It’s not just easier to read; it’s more clear, not only in small details, but in the most significant phrases. Take the word the Hausa translation uses for God: Allah. This word is totally foreign, with totally different connotations, for Nyankpa speakers. The Nyankpa word for God, Odyong Afang, makes more sense, and avoids the misunderstanding. So the work is difficult, but necessary and well received. It is opening up new understanding – accurate understanding – for Nyankpa speakers. Alaska and Sunday are persevering. They have already drafted the Gospels. They are sharing God’s story. The Nyankpa translation is funded by donations from the UK.
‘Who may ascend the hill of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart… He will receive blessing from the Lord and vindication from God his Saviour.’ In the Salt-Yui culture of Papua New Guinea, dirty hands indicate a hard worker, but a person with clean hands is considered a lazy person. How would you translate the verse above for the SaltYui people? It’s one of the challenges on Wycliffe’s mobile discovery exhibition. What do people think of Wycliffe’s mobile discovery centre? Ruth was at the Christian Resources Exhibition earlier this year where it was on display: ‘It’s always a conversation starter. One of the things people like best is how it communicates how complex the translation process is: without fail, people leave with a stronger appreciation that God’s word is available and clear for them.
‘But it is still a shock to many people when they see the facts about the millions who still don’t have God’s word in their language.’ ‘Every church should see this.’ To have the mobile discovery exhibition in your church or event, book now by phone or email. T: 01494 682339 E: communications_uk@wycliffe.org
If you want to pray for Mary’s work, get the latest copy of our prayer diary, Call to Prayer, from wycliffe.org.uk/pray or by contacting us (details on page 3).
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Tones, explosions and putting preachers right How have you been involved with Wycliffe?
Mary Pearce
Meet Mary Pearce, a linguistic consultant and coordinator of linguistics work in Africa and internationally.
In 1992 I went to work among the Kera people in Chad and stayed until the team finished the New Testament translation, which was dedicated in 2006. About 3,000 Kera people came to the celebration and the New Testaments sold out. It’s really encouraging to think that today 5% of the Kera have their own New Testament. They are now translating the Old Testament. It is changing the Kera. Leaders in the churches used to read the French Bible, then translate it into Kera, and that was their way of preaching. If you wanted to know what you should and shouldn’t do, they just told you and you could not question.
But now people are reading the New Testament themselves, and saying, ‘Hang on, that’s not what the New Testament says. It says....’ In a way, they are answering back but they are doing it in the right way, finding out what God actually said. While I was doing translation, I was always interested in the linguistics side and particularly in the fact that Kera was a tone language. If you say something with a high tone, it means something different than if you say something low. In my spare time I tried to figure out ways of analysing it. In 2002, I went to University College London to do an MA in linguistics, but then I stayed on to do a PhD. I finished in 2007, and then went back to Chad as a consultant.
What challenges have you faced? One of the toughest times was when I went back to Chad after my PhD. Six days after I arrived, they had an attempted coup. We followed the instructions of the French who told us to pack our bags and go to a school in the middle of the night. When we got there, we weren’t sure how long it would last. Thanks to a wireless connection that shouldn’t have been available, we all got at least one email to our relatives. I sent an email to my sister and she got 600 people praying that day. At about nine in the morning, we heard bangs. It was the rebels coming. Suddenly the French soldiers yelled, ‘Get under the tables.’ We spent
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the whole day under those tables, with shelling and guns all around. It was like when a whole battle goes on in a film; it was that intense. We were very aware that God was with us. We felt the fear – the adrenaline was running – but much deeper than that we sensed peace, that God knows. Even if this is my last day on earth, he’s in control. When we eventually got out to Cameroon there was a lovely atmosphere among the group. We were asked to sing grace, and I’ve never heard a choir like it – and I sing in choirs! It was just beautiful. We were so full of praise that God had kept us safe. What do your current roles involve? Now, I am based in the UK but I go to Chad for three months each year.When I’m in Chad I help with workshops, particularly for language groups that haven’t got their language written yet. I’m also an international coordinator, which is an administrative and mentoring role. It includes a wide range, from organising conferences and circulating linguistic information around the world, to encouraging linguists, teaching and doing research. I’ve also recently taken on the job of Africa Linguistics Coordinator. It’s a lot, but the jobs are similar, so I can use what I learn in one to help me with another.
Celebrating the Kera New Testament
Why does Bible translation need linguistics? Translation is a linguistic activity: it’s not just about getting one word in one language, putting it in another language and you’re done; it’s a whole lot more complicated than that. If you haven’t got a good basis of linguistics to start with, people may not even be able to read the published New Testament. If people can’t read it, it just gets left on the shelf. And that’s tragic. Last year I led a workshop with three language groups. All of them have got some Scripture already published, but they can’t read it. They’ve got writing systems that don’t work. At the closing ceremony, people from their language communities were all having animated discussions about their writing systems. We hadn’t completely worked everything out, but we left them with choices to take to their language committee, to decide which way to go.
Mary needs people and churches to partner with her both in prayer and finance, so that she can continue her work. To get in touch with Mary and receive her news, visit wycliffe.org.uk/mpearce or contact us (details on page 3).
Researching the Kera language
‘ I really didn’t want to go’ Name: Jonny From: Leeds
Role: Linguist Location: Eastern Europe
Due to the nature of Jonny’s work, the photographs we’ve used here are not from his location.
so important that when you receive that call that you follow it and go where God leads you.’ I can remember praying that God would never call me into mission, because I didn’t want to say ‘no’ to him.
When I was young
Wowed
I’ve always known about Wycliffe (my grandparents supported Wycliffe missionaries in Papua New Guinea and in South America), but I never had any intention of ever joining a missionary organisation or even doing ‘Christian’ work. At church, when I was little, the pastor would sometimes talk about being called into mission work; he would say, ‘It’s
I really enjoyed foreign languages at school and I studied linguistics at university, which I absolutely loved. At university I became involved with something called Globe Café. It was an opportunity to get to know international students and become friends. Once a week we would provide a meal for everyone.
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The language I worked with has really strange sounds that you’d never hear in English. There’s one word, the word for oak tree, which is the closest you can imagine to the sound of a cat meowing followed by someone getting ready to spit. It’s an interesting language to listen to! There was a lot of work recording people speaking and listening, trying to identify all these different sounds. Following that we started working on an alphabet. We worked out how different sounds can be written down and differentiated. We worked on an alphabet poster. When it was nearly complete, a grandfather I’d been working with showed it to some of the children to see if they could read the words. The poster had pictures with the word in their language. They were thrilled that they knew what these words were. It was exciting to see that.
From jungles to bus journeys While I was helping one evening in the kitchen I got into conversation with a lady, telling her about studying linguistics. She said to me, ‘Ah, I’ve just been on something called a WOW week* with Wycliffe.You should definitely go along; I think you’d be really interested.’ And I remember thinking, ‘No, I definitely wouldn’t be.’
She made a connection between Wycliffe and linguistics, but I thought Wycliffe was just about translating the Bible: I’d definitely never seen myself doing that! I decided to go along to find out more about the linguistics. I’d always thought Wycliffe was a brilliant thing, so if nothing else maybe I could start supporting the work. I really had a change of heart during the week. I felt God showing me that he’s given me a love for linguistics and this is a way I can use this gift in his service. I may not be personally translating Bibles, but I’m part of the process.
Work begins For the last year I’ve worked in a mountain community in Eastern Europe. At the moment the focus of our project is getting the alphabet written down, understanding how the language works, and getting to know people in the community.
Where I am is totally different to what I expected. The impression I’d had of a missionary was someone going to a village in the middle of the jungle, living there for 20 years and coming back with a finished Bible. And that’s certainly something I couldn’t see myself doing. But being a part of the work is so much more team-based, doing the work with the local people. One of the hardest things is doing simple things in another culture. Like getting on a bus where I am: who is it appropriate to sit next to? how is it appropriate to sit? where is it appropriate to look when you’re on the bus? how do you know who you can give the money to and who you shouldn’t? All these silly little things but they add up. You are constantly having to think. It can be quite an effort.
What should you do? If people feel the same ‘That’s definitely not for me’ I felt, I would recommend they find out more. The WOW week really showed me what different opportunities there are. Different types of people with different skills can be involved. To see that was also helpful for other people on the week with me. Some didn’t end up working with Wycliffe but it helped them to answer the question, ‘What does God want for me in the future?’ *The WOW week was Wycliffe’s week-long course for those interested in finding out more.To find out about its new and exciting successor The Next Step, have a browse through pages 16-17.
Find your next and nearest event at wycliffe.org.uk/events or give us a call (details on page 3).
Journey into mission
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Stewart Johnson
God has called us all into his mission and his purposes. For some, this will mean going in at the deep end, right into overseas mission. But even when this call comes, they aren’t called to go it alone. (left) Stewart Johnson, at the first The Next Step event in September
Wycliffe longs to see the whole church, not just individuals, journeying deeper into the mission of God. But to do that,Wycliffe needs to find new ways of letting people know about the mission need and the ‘call to go’.The first stage: refreshing our enquirer events, so that they have the whole church family in mind. Let me introduce these new events:
Event: First Steps Length: 1 day Location: Belfast, Linlithgow, Gloucester and the Wycliffe Centre, High Wycombe (with more to come) First Steps builds on the great foundation already laid by its predecessor, Wycliffe and Me. The name change reflects that it isn’t about just Wycliffe and Me. In fact it’s about Overseas Mission and Me and My Church! These events are opportunities for lots of mission organisations, partnering together, to introduce mission to the UK church. Event: The Next Step Length: 4 days Location: The Wycliffe Centre, High Wycombe The Next Step is not just an invitation to individuals, but also asks church leaders to come along, so that the whole local church can take a Next Step into Bible translation together.
The event opens up the grand picture of mission and Bible translation, and builds on firm foundations of Window on Wycliffe (WOW), another former event. Event: Two Week Stint Length: 2 weeks Location: the South of France Camping in beautiful France, in glorious weather, with the thrills of a new look at mission thrown in? Yes please! The Two Week Stint is an adventure into the details and experiences of Bible translation, with spiritual input as well as some outdoor thrills.
involvement and commitment to God’s work overseas. Please pray with us that churches will catch the vision, and that these events will inspire and equip people to share God’s word with the world.
We pray that these new takes on the ‘call to go’ will encourage whole churches – not just individuals – to journey towards greater
After many years working with Wycliffe in Africa, Stewart Johnson is now leading the UK Church Engagement team.
The latest news What about the children? WYnet, Wycliffe’s youth programme, has ended after years of engaging UK teenagers in Bible translation. Through WYnet, young people learnt about God and mission, and supported and visited the Bassar translation project in Togo. The translation has been blessed by the commitment of these teenagers and will be launching the whole Bible very soon!
Biblefresh continues Thanks to the generous gifts of UK Christians during Biblefresh, more than £40,000 has been raised for New Testament translation into the Bissa Barka language of Burkina Faso. This money will cover the costs of setting up and the first year of translation. We continue to trust that God will provide for the next few years, as the translation progresses.
So why shut down a programme that has been working so well? Wycliffe is as passionate as ever about getting young people involved in God’s mission. But we don’t think that the mission commitment of churches should be split between age groups. As we help leaders to excite young people about mission, we hope to see strong churches, unified across age ranges, proclaiming Jesus to all nations.
Moving Recently you may have noticed an advert in some of the Christian press saying that the Wycliffe Centre is up for sale. Well, it’s true. Wycliffe exists to enable all people to engage with the Bible in a language that speaks to their heart, and the challenges of running a conference centre take valuable time and energy away from our core purpose. Therefore, we have chosen to put the Centre up for sale. Please pray for us during this process. We will keep you up-to-date with the latest news through Words for Life. If you’d like to hear more about this and other stories, sign up for our bi-monthly e-newsletter (wycliffe.org.uk/subscriptions). You can receive prayer information and answers about Wycliffe’s work in our prayer diary, Call to Prayer. To sign up, go to wycliffe.org.uk/pray or call us (details on page 3).
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WordsforLife
European Training Programme
Whether speaking to asylum seekers in Birmingham, street children in Kolkata, or a farmer in rural Ethiopia – everybody meets language barriers. If you have something to say, you need to say it in the language people speak.
Bible Translators and many others involved in cross-cultural mission. ETP provides training in language learning, linguistics, literacy, translation, multilingual education and a range of other areas which can help you prepare to meet the world.
The European Training Programme (ETP) is part of the worldwide training network of Wycliffe
E: etp_uk@sil.org W: eurotp.org/uk
wycliffe.org.uk Wycliffe UK Ltd., a company registered in England and Wales, no 819788; a charity registered in England and Wales, no 251233; and in Scotland, no SC039140 Registered office: The Wycliffe Centre, Horsleys Green, High Wycombe, HP14 3XL.VAT no 195702346