The Lolo hear His “still, small voice”

11b Evale nohozaga nipevo nohokala na masika. Fiyeda ira nipevo nne nobwanyulaga mwangole eto mabwe kotweyaga vamentoni va NABWIYA, kalaga nga NABWIYA ali munipevoni mule. Mbwenye NABWIYA munipevoni mule kaalimo. Nipevo nne nagavirile, wohozaga indarandara. Mbwenye NABWIYA muindarandarani mule kaalimo. 12 Indarandara ile yagavirile, wohozaga munlo. Mbwenye NABWIYA mmunloni mule kaalimo. Evale munlo ule agavirile, azilege aligi nizu nowongela vati vati, nofwasela. 13 Mwa enne mulombwana Eliya agavwile nizu nne, ohotukulaga kapa yaye liye kunelana koveni waye.

There came of a wind, that one which brought down that mountain, also stones broke in the presence of the LORD. It seemed that the LORD was in the wind there. But the LORD in the wind there he was not. That wind when it passed, came an earthquake. But the LORD in the earthquake he was not. That earthquake when it passed, came fire. But the LORD in the fire there he was not. That fire there when it passed, what there was was a voice which spoke low low, calm. And then the man Elijah, when he heard the voice that one, took the coat his and covered his face. (1 Kings 19:11-13)

Lolo is a very expressive language. We have finished our first week and have completed the verses we were working on in 1st Kings and have started on 2nd Kings. It is a delight to find a translation that is so well done and so thought out. We’ve had some suggestions for how to make it more natural and clear, but not many, and so the work is going quickly. Also Mikael, the consultant-in-training I’m evaluating to become a full consultant, is doing very well. We both have done a lot of work in closely related languages, which gives us a hand-up in understanding the structure of Lolo. Barb is working on a Lolo text to find out how relative clauses work (which could make a big difference in how they are translated.)

It is nice living in a village setting. I’m not living in a thatched hut. We wouldn’t get much work done if we were, but I can see plenty of them from here. The children of the family I live with are out on their adventures with their African friends, since it is Saturday. Matt, my host, has the new gutter up to catch the water and send it to the tank as soon as the rainy season starts (any day). It is getting hotter every day but, except for one day, that hasn’t interfered with our concentration. Please pray for Debbie, my hostess, she has come down with something that is making her miserable. The baby seems to have it too.

I wish you could be here, to meet the friendly Lolo speaking people and Matt and Debbie and see the passion they have to see them get the Scripture. The day is coming when they will be able to read about God being in the “voice, low, low calm.” May you hear that voice this week.

In His service,
John

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Homeward Bound – to Mozambique!

I’m sitting in the Charlotte airport – missing my family already. Someone said that for international flights now one needs to come three hours early, due to heightened security. I’m not sure what they are talking about. Security was one of the easiest transitions I’ve ever had. That’s okay.

I’m on my way to Mozambique! A homecoming of sorts. I’m travelling to the small town of Derre in Zambézia Province, first time there. I won’t get a chance to go to Beira or Maputo or visit old friends. Sad that I get so close. But then this isn’t really a pleasure trip. We will be checking 1 and 2 Kings in the Lolo language. This is the last exegetical check before publication and is a chance to give the translation one more layer of improvement.  It’s been fun working with the language in preparation for the trip. It’s in the Bantu family and I see a lot of similarities with Sena. This makes it easier to help since I understand the language so much better than when I was working with Chadic languages in Nigeria.

The other purpose of the trip is to evaluate a translation consultant-in-training. This is his third evaluation and if he does well (as I expect him to) then he will be qualified to become a consultant. This is exciting, as the lack of qualified consultants is one of the bottlenecks in getting translations done. The trainee is a long time colleague and friend named Mikael. It’s great to be part of his process.

Barb was recently talking to a long (long) time friend, and was surprised to find out that she was not aware that we are supported via what I call the NPR model (i.e. viewers like you). We have a great team of financial partners who share our passion for seeing Bibleless peoples get the Scripture in their own language. But over the last few years some of our partners have passed away and others have entered retirement, so that we are now below 80% of what Wycliffe requires for us to continue to do this work. I would like to ask you to join us in prayer, as we seek the Father for full funding.

And please pray for the Lolo team over these next couple of weeks as we work to bring the stories Elijah and Elisha to life!  This stuff never gets old for me.

In His service,
John

Trail’s End

I went to my friend Carl’s memorial service last night.  I’d known him since 1979 when we showed up at SIL in Dallas to take our first semester of linguistics courses.  We took Evie Pike’s grammatical analysis course and studied phonetics under her sister, Eunice.  We studied translation principles and discourse structure, and emerged three years later with MAs in linguistics. We met our future spouses, married them and went off to apply what we’d learned – me to Mozambique and he to Papua New Guinea.

John and I kept in touch with Carl and Jody all our lives.  We rejoiced with them as God miraculously added three beautiful children to their family. We prayed as they endured the relentless heat and humidity of the Sepik River basin to bring God’s Word to the Yade people. We cried with Carl when he lost Jody to cancer several years ago.  And we rejoiced with him as he ventured back to PNG this past May to live among the Yade once again and complete the work he and Jody had begun.

On May 22 I opened my email to find a letter from friends of Carl’s in Papua New Guinea.  Carl had been doing a two-day hike through the jungle to attend a workshop with his translation team when he fell ill.  His Yade friends had carried him to a nearby village, where he died on May 19, surrounded by the people he had served for 34 years.

As I read the email, I was overcome by the sacredness of the moment.  The image in my mind of Carl entering glory surrounded by the Yade believers who loved him is one that will stay with me for a long time.

I don’t know how many years God will give me or John before our journey ends.  But I do know that when that moment comes, I want to be found being about my Father’s business.  All the stresses we have been facing with family, finances and health have tempted me, at least, to say, “We’ve done enough. I’m tired!”  But then John goes to Brazil and is once again embraced by a group of people who desperately long for the Bible in their language – 800,000 Chibi speakers with little Christian witness among them.  And the magic happens again – that joy, that challenge, that heart-breaking calling.  And I’m all in again.  For the long haul.

Thank you for being in with us, until all of us are called Home.

And Carl and Jody, your long hike is over.  Keep cheering us on until we meet again.

A Translation for the Gypsies

It was a cool day in southern Brazil.  There were 14 of us sitting on the floor, since there was no furniture. One of the gypsies picked up his guitar and began to sing praise songs, first in Portuguese, then in Chibi, his language. That’s when everyone joined in.  The grandmother in the room began to cry, hearing Jesus praised in her own language.

We talked of Bible translation and the translator showed great interest in everything I had to say (even though he knew much of it already – nice guy!) His eyes shone with passion. I gave him my copy of Tradução Biblica and everyone clapped. This wasn’t strange; these people are so generous and welcoming.

We talked of the persecution the gypsies suffer. They buy no furniture because they know that any day they may have to pick up and flee again. We drank strong Brazilian coffee. When they found out that it was my birthday, they sang “Parabens” (“Happy Birthday”) in Portuguese.

Then the family chief came by, a professional gypsy musician. There were lots of discussions about variations in Chibi and Portuguese. Everyone said I speak continental Portuguese and that I spoke it well. (If you have ever been a language learner you know what that means!) I followed most of the conversations, but when they talked fast I got lost.

Three women had sneaked out and came back with a birthday cake and cokes and candles that said “63”. The chief led everyone in another round of “Parabens”; then as we ate he sang praise songs and some traditional gypsy songs. We all got up and danced, gypsy style. I had to bite my cheek to keep from crying from all the extreme hospitality and fervor these people have for Jesus, especially considering that there are churches that are not open to them because of who they are. They know that they are part of a small movement that is going to influence the 800,000+ Calon here (Chibi is the language, Calon is the people.) The Calon in Portugal and Spain have already heard of their project and are waiting for their translation.

When it was time to go everyone stood up and they had a time of preaching, asking me to go first. I choked up and could barely talk, but finally managed to express to them how grateful I was for their openness, accepting me as a brother, celebrating my birthday with me, the musical entertainment, their love for Christ. I couldn’t have had a better birthday.

The next day I flew to the north of the country and met the other translation team. They were just as warm and welcoming. After doing some translation work we went to the beach and ate a very large fried fish, while looking out over the blue waters of the southern Caribbean. Everywhere we went our driver was handing out tracts and telling people about Jesus.

The reason for my trip was to meet these people with whom I will be working for the next few years. They are drafting the Scriptures for the first time in their language, then reviewing, testing, correcting and finally doing a translation of their work back into Portuguese. They will then send it to me to provide a final consultant check. All of this is done almost entirely orally, using Render software.

These are incredible people. Among the 800,000 Calon, only a few hundred are Christians, but they see it as their job to reach this large group, and they see translation as a key strategy to do that. I’m overwhelmed that I get to come alongside them in this effort.

And I’m grateful to you for praying for and generously giving to our ministry, for the part you are now playing in doing this translation for the gypsies. Bless you.

In His service,
John

A Breakthrough Translation Tool for Oral Cultures Being Used in Brazil

The Calon people in Brazil are descendants of gypsies who immigrated from Europe beginning in the 16th century to escape the Inquisition.  There are only 300 believers among them, and they live in fear of spirits and superstition.  They isolate themselves from Brazilian society, and refrain from sending their children to school to guard against outside influences. Even their language, Chibi, is to be kept secret, and there is great resistance to writing it down.

Last year a group of Chibi speakers became the first to attend training in how to use Render, a new software tool for doing oral translation developed through a partnership between The Seed Company, Faith Comes By Hearing, and Pioneer Bible Translators.  They have been making great progress since then, working entirely orally, with no written text.

Unfortunately, the translation consultant who has been working with the Chibi team is no longer available, and John has been asked to make a trip to Brazil to meet the team and consider becoming the translation consultant for the project.  He will be gone July 1-7, and would appreciate your prayers as he comes up to speed on a totally new way of doing translation and translation checking.

Click here for a one-minute video on how Render works – it was made in Nigeria and a number of those faces are dear to us!

According to translator Joaquim, “This is the life of Chibi people. Sometimes they’re at peace, but before long they’re in conflict again. There is a lot of fighting.” But he goes on to say that when they hold worship services, the people are calm. They respect God’s Word. And the translators are well received. Joaquim prays Gospel truth will transform this community.

Thank you for following us on our journeys, both spiritual and geographic, and for making a difference in a new people group, on a new continent. You are a huge blessing.

The gifts we bring

The year was 1987 and it was our first language survey trip ever. Our task was to determine if speakers of the Tharaka language of Kenya could be served by Bible translations from neighboring languages, or if they would need a translation of their own. We had only the day before met Zacchaeus, a seminary-educated speaker of Tharaka in the town of Meru in the hills near Mt. Kenya, and we were about to drive into the dusty dry region the Tharaka people call home.

As we crossed into Tharaka-land, we noticed a man standing in a tree near the road. He waved to us and called out something in Tharaka. Zacchaeus leaned over and shouted over the roar of the Land Rover’s engine: “What he is saying is, ‘Your name is: One Who Brings Something!'”

The man in the tree was right. Over the course of the next few days, it became clear that the Tharaka language was distinct enough to require its own translation of the Bible, and Zacchaeus, who days before meeting us had been praying for God to reveal his purpose for his life, heard the Lord calling him to the task of providing this gift for his people. Today the Tharaka people have the entire New Testament in their language.

Since that day, you have brought this gift to millions of people through your partnership with Wycliffe. Thank you so much for sending us on to Mozambique and, more recently, to Nigeria, where we have been serving as consultants for the past eight years.

This year, due to circumstances beyond our control, I will be unable to travel to Nigeria. Instead, The Seed Company is sending me to Tanzania to provide consultant help for a language there. My first trip is scheduled for the beginning of October, which will give me time to look at all the work they have ready for checking. It will be like coming home to be back in eastern Africa and working once again with a Bantu language. Even though Barb will not be traveling with me, her insights into Bantu discourse structure will be put to good use.

Over the years, in every language I have worked with, I have found that whatever contributions I have made are nothing in comparison with the gifts I have received, valuable beyond measure, from the experience of seeing God speak into the hearts of people for the very first time. That experience also belongs to you, for all the gifts you have brought to people like the Tharaka, over and over again. Thank you – on their behalf, and for all your partnership has meant to our family.

Spring is coming

 

In my Christmas letter I made reference to the list I had begun of “one thousand gifts I already have,” inspired by Ann Voskamp’s book, One Thousand Gifts.  As Voskamp chronicles the miraculous transformation she experienced through “this dare to write down one thousand things I love.” she affirms how over and over again, “thanksgiving always precedes the miracle.”

I have been giving thanks.  God has opened up sealed parts of my heart. And the miracles are coming.

Hannah has been on methadone since March of last year, requiring daily trips to a clinic a half hour away to get her doses.  It has kept her off heroin, but she has never felt well or whole.  In December Medicaid, which has been financing the methadone treatment, “happened” to decide that she was not eligible for it any more, and cut off her benefits at the end of the month.  She predicted a lot of repercussions from this, but one that none of us saw coming was that her boyfriend of nearly four years decided that this was something he did not want to deal with and left her for an old girlfriend, right after Christmas.  She recently confided to me, “I asked God to get him out of my life, just before my Medicaid was cut.”  God had heard her prayer, and intervened.  She is ready to turn her back on all the choices and associations that have caused her so much pain, and begin a new life.

Look out, world, here comes Derek!  He is asking me to prioritize my time to help “pave the road” for him, but he is definitely not spinning his wheels anymore.  He is looking into getting tested for Aspergers, so he can pursue accommodations to take college courses.  Please pray for the right connections and leads for him.

John‘s planned trips to Nigeria this year are on hold, due to internal problems with our national partner. Pray for Seed Company management and the affected translation projects as they seek the Lord’s direction on how to move forward. In the meantime, John continues to work remotely with the Nzanyi team and may travel to other communities in Nigeria or Uganda.

I continue to be available to help translation teams with grammar/discourse questions as needs arise, and I am also working on getting healthy after the stresses of these past few years – getting counseling and setting healthy boundaries for myself.  We are also working with a Partnership Development coach – thank you for continuing to pray with us for 100% funding.

Yes, this has been a difficult season.  Thanks for walking through it with us.  I want to share a song that has been a theme song for me:  Cherry Blossoms, by Andy Squyres, a local artist here in Charlotte.  Click on the link above for the video, and be encouraged:  Spring is coming!