Here it is! The link to the page with all the information about the trip I hope and pray I will be going on. http://www.wycliffe.ca/involved/instigate.html#cam
If you don't want to go look it up, don't worry. I've got your back.
From May 14th to July 5th, which is my mom's birthday, by the way, a group of 10-12 adults will be living alongside the Aghem people. We will be living with them and learning from them. This is a group of people about the size of Gainesville who all speak the same language, Aghem, and are mostly all subsistence farmers.
Now, stop for a moment. Close your eyes. Well... Turn off the music playing, tell the person you were talking to to be quiet for a second, and concentrate on this image.
You are a man, just getting by as a subsistence farmer. You plant maize, peanuts, plantains, and yams, and probably have some chickens and goats. For your whole life you have been raised to believe you need spiritual protection. You see nothing wrong with the church, and think maybe the Christians are right, but find the animistic practices of your fathers to be more rewarding and real. Why do you think that? Because the Bible hasn't been translated into your mother tongue. Sure, the pastors of the churches tell you about this god who sent his son to save the world, and they tell you about a book all this is contained in, but you can't read it. They have no copy to give you in your own tongue. Maybe you know a little English, but it's not your language. It is not as easy to understand.
What do you think now? These people are stuck in poverty and spiritually lost because they have no written language and no one has translated the Bible for them yet. Now, all of a sudden, a group of people came and taught them how to translate it for themselves. Sure, there are linguistics and Biblical consultants to help, but the Aghem people are mostly doing this for themselves. Wycliffe knows any non-native speaker, however fluent in the language, would mess up somewhere. There is no way to know all the idiosyncracies of a language unless you are a native speaker in it. So Wycliffe provides these language groups with the training and help they need to translate the Bible themselves. Linguists come in and teach them how to write down their language, going through all the possible sounds and assigning written forms to them. It's really, really cool work, and I could talk about it for ages, explaining what I know in detail and how much I want to do this, but suffice to know,Wycliffe trains them in Linguistics and English so natives can translate the Bible into their own language.
What the team will be doing, is going in and supporting the use of the parts of the Bible which are already translated. They are working on the New Testament and already have Luke translated, but the translators have offered the churches an opportunity to send in the scripture they are going to use in sermons, and they will go ahead and translate them so the pastors can use that part of the Bible. Oddly enough, not all of the churches are taking advantage of this, even though the ones who have are seeing increasing numbers of those who understand and are more open to hearing about God. The teams goal will be to make people want to learn to read and want to see the Bible translated. We will also be taking language classes so as to better reach the Aghem people. I'm going to learn an obscure African language!!! It's so exciting!!
The team leaders are chosen, Jessica Dempster and Sarah Barnes. I talked to Jessica today, and they seem to be very excited about going back (they've already visited and worked a little with this people group) and taking a team willing to work and share their excitement for God with the Aghem people. Please pray that a good team will be found (they still need more people to apply, so if you're interested, let me know!!), financial support will be given to everyone chosen, and pray for the team leaders to have wisdom and be able to chose the best team possible. Even if it doesn't include me.
If you don't want to go look it up, don't worry. I've got your back.
From May 14th to July 5th, which is my mom's birthday, by the way, a group of 10-12 adults will be living alongside the Aghem people. We will be living with them and learning from them. This is a group of people about the size of Gainesville who all speak the same language, Aghem, and are mostly all subsistence farmers.
Now, stop for a moment. Close your eyes. Well... Turn off the music playing, tell the person you were talking to to be quiet for a second, and concentrate on this image.
You are a man, just getting by as a subsistence farmer. You plant maize, peanuts, plantains, and yams, and probably have some chickens and goats. For your whole life you have been raised to believe you need spiritual protection. You see nothing wrong with the church, and think maybe the Christians are right, but find the animistic practices of your fathers to be more rewarding and real. Why do you think that? Because the Bible hasn't been translated into your mother tongue. Sure, the pastors of the churches tell you about this god who sent his son to save the world, and they tell you about a book all this is contained in, but you can't read it. They have no copy to give you in your own tongue. Maybe you know a little English, but it's not your language. It is not as easy to understand.
What do you think now? These people are stuck in poverty and spiritually lost because they have no written language and no one has translated the Bible for them yet. Now, all of a sudden, a group of people came and taught them how to translate it for themselves. Sure, there are linguistics and Biblical consultants to help, but the Aghem people are mostly doing this for themselves. Wycliffe knows any non-native speaker, however fluent in the language, would mess up somewhere. There is no way to know all the idiosyncracies of a language unless you are a native speaker in it. So Wycliffe provides these language groups with the training and help they need to translate the Bible themselves. Linguists come in and teach them how to write down their language, going through all the possible sounds and assigning written forms to them. It's really, really cool work, and I could talk about it for ages, explaining what I know in detail and how much I want to do this, but suffice to know,Wycliffe trains them in Linguistics and English so natives can translate the Bible into their own language.
What the team will be doing, is going in and supporting the use of the parts of the Bible which are already translated. They are working on the New Testament and already have Luke translated, but the translators have offered the churches an opportunity to send in the scripture they are going to use in sermons, and they will go ahead and translate them so the pastors can use that part of the Bible. Oddly enough, not all of the churches are taking advantage of this, even though the ones who have are seeing increasing numbers of those who understand and are more open to hearing about God. The teams goal will be to make people want to learn to read and want to see the Bible translated. We will also be taking language classes so as to better reach the Aghem people. I'm going to learn an obscure African language!!! It's so exciting!!
The team leaders are chosen, Jessica Dempster and Sarah Barnes. I talked to Jessica today, and they seem to be very excited about going back (they've already visited and worked a little with this people group) and taking a team willing to work and share their excitement for God with the Aghem people. Please pray that a good team will be found (they still need more people to apply, so if you're interested, let me know!!), financial support will be given to everyone chosen, and pray for the team leaders to have wisdom and be able to chose the best team possible. Even if it doesn't include me.
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