Christmas is coming! @1_book a meaningful opportunity this season!
I was in Starbucks last week and I realized I was hearing the bell-ringing and cheery tunes of Christmas melodies! How exciting!
And also last week, I had the chance to attend a dinner hosted by OneBook, a partner organization of Wycliffe, that seeks to fund national Bible translation projects. The main speaker was Efi Walters, incoming Director of CABTAL. I had the privilege of working intimately with CABTAL in a language project in Cameroon this summer, along with 11 other Canadians. He shared about the change that God is bringing to language communities in Cameroon as the Bible is translated and literacy materials are produced and used. I mean not only are people able to learn about Jesus, but they are learning how to self-purify their drinking water, thereby reducing cholera! So cool!
So – as Christmas approaches and we rush into a season so special, but often quickly is overrun with busyness and materialism, I want to encourage you to purchase your gifts through OneBook. They have an online calendar where you can actually donate to translate ONE VERSE of the Bible in a language from Burkina Faso! What an incredible gift you can give someone – participation in the Bible being accessible and coming alive!
Look at the gift catalogue on their website here: www.onebook.ca ! Don’t stop there – check out their website, picture and stories. Capture vision for what God is doing around the world!
Rape, Violence = the Bible brings hope
I read some news articles this week about an ethnic language group in Cameroon that I visited with my Dad this past July. You can read for yourself here, but basically a group of Aghem women have been refusing to work in the farms and protesting to the authorities after a recent series of sexual attacks, one woman even dying of fatal wounds. It is estimated that 20% of women in Cameroon are raped with another 14% escaping from rape. That is over 1/3 of the ENTIRE female population of a nation experiencing sexual violence. Many of these women come from ethno-linguistic minorities and are also the victims of larger economic and political frustrations and issues. Without a written language or education in the mother tongue, development is stifled and these women are limited in achieving the productivity and self-confidence possible to improve their quality of life.
There is a lot to say on this issue of violence, but language development and Bible translation can bring hope and healing and enable worldview change that can put a stop to this situation. Literacy, education and the spiritual transformation of Jesus encounters through Scripture can change the world! Especially for these women in Aghem.
There is a Bible translation ministry in Aghem now. There are literacy classes that many women are attending. God is bringing healing and hope through his translated word. Dad and I were able to sit in with Aghem translators who were working on Revelation 8. I would like to challenge you to pray – pray intentionally, pray deeply, pray desperately, pray passionately – for the Aghem people, these women and the impact of the Bible translation project there. Revelation 8 talks about the prayers of God’s people rising along with incense – it is a beautiful and welcome scent to God. In prayer we have a mysical engagement with God to affect change in our world.
Pray for Aghem.
Watch the impact of God’s word on the life of people and communities:
A Bigger Goal-new video on Teaching overseas!
Interested in using Teachers College in missions? Have a B.Ed and want to teach in a new context?
Check out Jen’s experience as a teacher! She wanted to support children’s education as well as serve an even bigger goal!
Wycliffe anthropologist publishes research on HIV/AIDS
Bible Translation and HIV/AIDS?
David Beine, an SIL anthropologist and Wycliffe USA member, publishes research in October 2011 issue of Global Journal of Health and Science. He looks at the efficacy of HIV/AIDS prevention efforts and argues for adapting information to fit global cultural norms, using Nepal as an example. You can read his article here:
http://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/gjhs/article/view/10300/8694
An understanding of…cultural influences must undergird our efforts and result in culturally appropriate education materials and methods that incorporate these features if we are to succeed in reducing stigma associated with HIV and AIDS in Nepal.
You can also read more about Beine’s background and other published research here: http://sil.org/sil/news/2011/hiv-aids-research-journal.htm
Cholera + Bible translation?! @wycliffe_canada video!
Check out this video on an awesome and energetic Argentinian lady pursuing God’s heart and living big adventure….
Cholera reduction and Bible translation??
“I am a very common person.. but I understood that God used the most common person in the world!
“We need more people coming to help us…. especially young people!”
Check it out…
ranslation kits sent to remote areas
Wycliffe Associates, an international organization that involves people in the acceleration of Bible translation efforts, is working to give Bible translators a safer, more effective option to dangerous travel by providing Translation Acceleration Kits.
Consisting of a small, portable netbook computer, a satellite communication terminal, a solar panel, battery, and power supply, the kits enable Bible translators in remote locations to communicate with translation consultants through a satellite connection.
“This new satellite technology is a safer and more effective option, especially in dangerous regions of the world,” said Bruce Smith, president and CEO of Wycliffe Associates. “I believe this new technology is a must – especially in places where terrain, violence, or civil unrest hinders translation efforts.”
Smith points out the technology can not only save lives, but change lives. National translators, who work in remote regions of the world where travel is dangerous due to civil violence or difficult-to-navigate terrain, often put their lives at risk to work collaboratively on translation projects. Wycliffe Associates has identified some 300 locations worldwide where Translation Acceleration Kits can be used to enhance Bible translation efforts while helping to reduce threats to the translators’ personal safety.
Such locations include Nigeria, where religious complexities, corruption and language barriers make travel difficult and dangerous, and Papua New Guinea, where the terrain includes both mountains and jungles that present numerous challenges to reaching translation centers for training courses and checking translation. Just recently, Smith and a team of Wycliffe Associates volunteers installed kits for 24 national translation teams in remote locations in Nigeria. The language communities these teams serve amount to more than 4.3 million people.
Wycliffe Associates is raising funds to provide Bible translation teams with the Translation Acceleration Kits. The cost of each kit is approximately $3,500.
Wycliffe Associates involves people in accelerating the work of Bible translation through their time, talents, and treasure. Because millions of people around the world are still waiting to read the Scriptures in the language of their heart, Wycliffe Associates is working as quickly as they can to translate every verse of the Bible into every tongue to change every heart. The organization partners with nationals, mother-tongue translators, staff, volunteers and supporters to direct and fund these efforts, as well as provide logistics, networking, and technical support. Through a growing global network, Wycliffe Associates is striving to overcome local limitations of time and resources to achieve the goal of beginning the translation of God’s Word in every remaining language that needs it by 2025.
In 2010, the organization mobilized 4,381 volunteer and staff members to accelerate Bible translation in some 59 countries. Additional information is available at www.wycliffeassociates.org or by calling 1-800-THE WORD (1-800-843-9673).
HEY — I wanted to let you know of an exciting opportunity THIS SUMMER! Have you wanted to find out quickly and effectively if you have a skill in languages or linguistics? Are you interested in discovering a passion and gift for linguistics and Bible translation?!
Wycliffe and Tyndale University College in Toronto, Ontario have partnered together to offer an inaugural linguistics summer session in 2011! In this summer program from June 13 – August 12, 2011 you will…
This summer semester of linguistics courses can/will…
1) be transfered to your current university program as electives
2) effectively prepare you for grad level work in linguistics and translation (even if your current degree has NOTHING to do with languages!)
3) help you test the waters of the kinds of skills and work involved in Bible translation in just a summer
4) give you quality education to do an effective internship in a language ministry overseas with Wycliffe
Check out this website for more details: http://www.tyndale.ca/summer/linguistics-school
NOTE: There are generous scholarships available for those who are interested in taking these courses for preparation of involvement in missions
Please contact myself at jessica_dempster@wycliffe.ca or Myles Leitch, the program director, at mleitch@tyndale.ca for more information!
Missions and Bible Translation – imperialism or important?
FOOD FOR THOUGHT TODAY!
Some excerpts on an article “
Christian Missions and the Western Guilt Complex”
by Lamin Sanneh – Yale Professor of Missions and World Christianity:
Missionaries of course went out with all sorts of motives, and some of them were clearly unwholesome. Yet if we were to try to separate good from bad motives, I daresay we would not, after a mountain of labor, advance the subject much beyond the molehill of stalemate. We might, for example, take a little out of the cultural imperialism bag and put it into the social-service category, and ascribe both phenomena to Western cultural conditioning. But that exercise would do little to further our understanding of the nature and consequences of cross-cultural missions.
Instead of examining motives, I propose that we focus on the field setting of missions, where local feed-back exerted an influence all its own. And what stands out in particular about the field setting is the emphasis missionaries gave to translating Scripture into vernacular languages.
The translation enterprise had two major steps. One was the creation of a vernacular alphabet for societies that lacked a literary tradition. The other step was to shake the existing literary tradition free of its esoteric, elitist predilection by recasting it as a popular medium. Both steps stimulated an indigenous response and encouraged the discovery of local resources for the appropriation of Christianity.
Often the outcome of vernacular translation was that the missionary lost the position of being the expert. But the significance of translation went beyond that. Armed with a written vernacular Scripture, converts to Christianity invariably called into question the legitimacy of all schemes of foreign domination—cultural, political and religious. Here was an acute paradox: the vernacular Scriptures and the wider cultural and linguistic enterprise on which translation rested provided the means and occasion for arousing a sense of national pride, yet it was the missionaries—foreign agents—who were the creators of that entire process. I am convinced that this paradox decisively undercuts the alleged connection often drawn between missions and colonialism. Colonial rule was irreparably damaged by the consequences of vernacular translation—and often by other activities of missionaries.
Read the whole article at http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=143
Eagles Wings – thoughts by Erika
Featured Blogger – Erika, from the Global Adventures Certificate at Heritage College. She, along with 9 others, is coming with me to West Africa for 2 months in May and June. She, along with the others, is writing a blog, documenting her preparation – spiritual and emotional.
She wrote in January about the meaning of Is. 40:31 and soaring on wings like eagles – check out her thoughts and blog entries:
http://erikacameroon.blogspot.com/2011/01/eagles-wings.html
I love that she writes
“The beautiful thing about scripture is that time after time the scripture interprets scripture.”
The Holy Spirit is active and our God is ever revealing! SO COOL! And he does catch us with His own wings….. read her post! 
(and Deuteronomy!)
Hot new video on Language survey from @Wycliffe_Canada #missions #bible
Check out this real-life, interview style, interactive AWESOME new video from Wycliffe Canada!
Take a journey to Papua New Guinea and you’ll learn about Language Survey!!
