News from Sarah Casson, Feb. 08
Working with SIL in Arua, Uganda.
Imagine... The story of Joseph and his brothers tops my list of favourite Bible stories. It's not just a spellbinding masterpiece which moves me to tears every time. It's also packed full of hope: God wove even Joseph's direst moments into his international rescue plan.
I was trying to imagine for a moment what it would be like not to know that story, or only to have heard snippets of it in classroom French, in the way people without the Bible in their language may have heard it. For a start, my understanding of God's ability to work in the worst circumstances of our lives would be diminished, and of the link between an individual life and God's overarching purposes.
Then I tried to imagine hearing and understanding it clearly for the very first time, gripped by the suspense, new possibilities opening up before me of knowing this God who transforms the tragedies in his people's lives and weaves them into his own unimaginable plans.
The end of the beginning... Some of my friends and colleagues in DRC will soon be hearing the story like this for the first time, along with the rest of the book of Genesis. In March we will hold our last Genesis translation workshop in Arua. It will be the culmination of two years of hard work for the translators in the six Congolese languages involved, and for the trainers and consultants too.
Our first task will be to check the remaining seven chapters in each language to make sure there are no misleading omissions, additions or changes, and that it sounds 'sweet' to native speakers. Next we will need to run fiddly electronic consistency checks on the spelling and formatting. And finally the moment we've all been anticipating: printing a trial edition of Genesis. This will be the first portion of the Old Testament in any of these languages.
Thank you for your prayers for this work over the last two years: Genesis in these six languages is a miracle that only God could have worked!
Translation into life... Publishing a copy of a translated book of the Bible is a euphoric moment for those of us involved in translation, but it's just one step along the long road of translating God's Word into people's lives. However accurate and natural a translation is, if people don't use it, it's worthless. But if you've never had any books in your own language before, let alone a Bible, it's not easy to know what to do with it once you get it. An important part of our work in SIL is what we call 'Scripture Use' work.
Scripture Use is all about helping people to use the Bible in their daily lives so that they know how to live and grow as God's children.
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There are lots of ways of encouraging people to apply the Bible: AIDS workshops, trauma healing seminars, song writing workshops, Bible studies about family life and about good leadership, introducing lessons from the Bible into schools' curricula... |
Jesus Film showing in Omiti
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Hearing with the heart... Scripture Use isn't just about reading the Bible in print. For many people, watching the Jesus Film, which is based on Luke's Gospel, is the first exposure they have to the Bible in their own language.
The week before Christmas I was very privileged to be in Mado, DRC, again, home of the Omi language project, for the dedication and first public showing of the Jesus Film in Omiti. People packed in from all over the place to join the celebrations.
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Under the shade of orange tarpaulins lashed to eucalyptus poles in the whipping wind, hundreds crowded round the TV monitors with rapt attention. I was struck by a group of older women who, eyes glued to the screen, drank in every phrase, nodding in wholehearted agreement as Jesus taught about not worrying about food and clothes but giving our attention to God's kingdom instead. Ripples of laughter, gasps of surprise and murmurs of approval left us in no doubt of people's emotional participation in the story as Jesus' actions amazed them and his words touched them in Omiti. We're praying that as Jesus words' penetrate people's hearts they will also transform their lives. |
church catering for the crowds
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God's names... Last year I wrote about some of the challenges of translating the term 'God' and the personal name for God, 'Yahweh', into Omiti. After the Jesus Film dedication, about seventy church leaders from the Omi community met to discuss the issue. I knew the subject was controversial, and sure enough, the discussion got pretty heated at times – what we call God is an emotional subject which deeply affects the way we relate to him.
In the end we decided to postpone the decisive vote because not all the denominations were well represented at the meeting.
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Even so, the discussion was valuable because it allowed people to air different opinions, to realise the complexity of the issue and to commit themselves together to the long search for the best solution. |
celebrating with singing in Omiti
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Meanwhile, in the trial edition of Genesis we will continue to use "Nzambi", the word for God borrowed from Bangala, the language of wider communication in the area. This term has less emotional resonance for people than the choices in Omiti, but provokes few strong negative reactions.
Kenyan crisis... I'm sure that you've heard about the violence that erupted in Kenya in the wake of the disputed December elections. One Kenyan friend and her family had to flee for their lives because their neighbours, from a different tribe, threatened to kill them in retaliation for killings in another part of the country. Many Kenyan friends and colleagues have found themselves in danger, their livelihoods lost, or their lives disrupted. The sudden surfacing of long-standing ethnic tensions has been deeply disturbing.
The crisis in Kenya has had a knock-on effect on Uganda and other surrounding countries. In Arua we have had fuel shortages, power rationing and water problems. The generator which provides electricity for Arua town depends on fuel which has to come from Kenya on the main road which passes through the troubled western region of Kenya. The water company here in turn relies on electricity to pump water. Recently there have been long queues of people brandishing brightly coloured jerry cans, patiently waiting at boreholes. Can you imagine getting up at midnight to queue for a couple of hours to fetch water for your family? This is now a daily reality for some people. I'm very fortunate to have a good water tank so I can store water on the days when water does arrive. I've found it harder to manage the lack of electricity because I depend on my laptop so much for work.
Hopes for peace... While Kenya has nose dived into crisis, there have been encouraging developments in peace talks in both DRC and Uganda. In January various parties involved in the conflict in the North Kivu region of DRC came together to try to bring an end to the fighting. Meanwhile peace talks between the Lord's Resistance Army and the Ugandan government aimed at ending the conflict in northern Uganda have been going on for the last eighteen months. Just this week there has been decisive agreement on the issue of how to bring the rebel commanders to justice. There is a tangible sense of hope in the country that the twenty one year old conflict may at last be on the verge of resolution.
See you soon! There's been a recent change in my plans for home leave. ECG and I have decided that instead of coming back to the UK for a year in 2009, I should take six months of home leave from April 2008. So I will be arriving in the UK on April 7th. I will be based at my aunt and uncle's home in Twickenham for a good chunk of the time, as well as teaching on a translation course at the Wycliffe Centre near High Wycombe in May. I'm looking forward to catching up with lots of you in the next few months.
Thank God...
for the completion of Genesis in six Congolese languages.
for being able to hear God's Word in our own languages!
for progress in the peace talks between the Ugandan government and the LRA.
Please pray...
for a just resolution to the Kenyan crisis which addresses the underlying issues.
for adequate and easily accessible water for everyone in Arua.
that people will use the newly translated versions of Genesis, and that God will speak to them and shape their lives as they do.
May the hope of the resurrection fill your heart and shape your life this Easter.
With love, Sarah
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