Mbeya Planning Meetings

March 4, 2014 in Africa, Bible translation, Front, Language, Mark, Tanzania, Wycliffe

Msafiri and Flavian

After spending a week in Dar es Salaam and a week in Dodoma, we flew to Mbeya for planning and review meetings with the team serving 13 language communities throughout Mbeya, Iringa and Njombe regions. This project, with the potential to impact 2.5 million speakers of the 13 languages, was started in 2003 and currently has around 70 staff working both in Mbeya town and in the surrounding communities.

Several of the translation teams are moving forward fast and approaching the completion of the New Testament in their languages, hopefully in the next 3 years. At the same time, some of the other languages have recently begun the process of developing writing systems, and are hoping to start translating the first Scripture portions in the next year or two. Read the rest of this entry →

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First SIL Tanzania Flight

February 22, 2014 in Africa, Front, Mark, Tanzania, Wycliffe

First SIL Tanzania Flight

Tanzania is a large country, and travelling can be a major challenge. For example, going from the main city of Dar es Salaam to Mpanda, where we were living last year, took an exhausting 30 hours of driving over paved and dirt roads. Earlier this month I had the privilege of being a passenger on the first operational flight of a new (to us) plane which should allow easier travel for our colleagues working with SIL around the country, and even allow access to some areas that are almost impossible to reach by road.

The plane itself is a small Cessna 206, with room for a pilot and 5 passengers (or 4 passengers and their luggage!) We were piloted by Steve, who has experience of flying in various countries around the world, and had been looking forward to this first flight for a long time! Steve, an SIL/JAARS pilot, seconded to MAF under a partnership between SIL and MAF Tanzania, will continue to operate the plane, based out of the town of Mbeya in southwest Tanzania.

Our flight took two and a half hours from Dodoma to Mbeya, a journey that would have taken probably 10-12 hours by road. Apart from arriving refreshed, we also enjoyed some great views along the way! Read the rest of this entry →

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Dodoma Planning Meetings

February 18, 2014 in Africa, Bible translation, Front, Language, Mark, Tanzania, Wycliffe

Discussing literacy initiatives

Two weeks ago I joined our staff in Dodoma, in central Tanzania, as they reviewed their current activities with the Alagwa, Burunge, Mbugwe, Rangi and Sandawe language communities and planned for next year. I lived in Dodoma in 2004-05, so it was encouraging for me to see how the team has grown and made a huge amount of progress in the last 8 years. The Burunge have almost finished drafting the entire New Testament, and will hopefully publish it in the next couple of years.

I was encouraged to see the commitment and dedication of the Dodoma team as they work to translate the Scriptures and to see transformation in the lives of individuals and communities in the region. It was also exciting to hear stories of the enthusiasm of people in the rural areas to receive materials in their local language, and good to hear the ideas of the team for making these materials more easily accessible to more people. Read the rest of this entry →

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Borrowing words? Or stealing?

January 7, 2014 in Bible, Bible translation, Language, Mark

Bible

Earlier this week I came across an article about how 300 Bibles in the Bahasa Malaysia language were seized for using words that originated from the Arabic language, including the word for God. This seems to be the latest in an ongoing controversy in Malaysia about whether Christians speaking Malaysian languages should be allowed to use words that historically came from Arabic in their translations of the Bible in those languages.

From a sociolinguistic point of view, a language borrowing “loan words” from another language is something that happens all the time. Of course, “loan words” is something of a misnomer, as the new words become as much part of the language as any other words, and will never be returned! English has borrowed words from a whole range of languages – French, German and Greek to name just a few.

Whenever a new concept occurs in a language, there is a need to name it, and the new name is almost never random. People generally make up the new name, either by modifying existing words in the language (hence we now talk about a “selfie”), or by using the word that was already used by speakers of another language for that concept (e.g. “pizza”). Sometimes the name is borrowed from a similar concept in another language, but the meaning changed, for example the English word “safari”, meaning a trip to see wild animals, comes from the Swahili word meaning “a journey”. The word then becomes a legitimate part of the language – a Swahili speaker can’t tell an English speaker that they are using the word “safari” wrongly just because its meaning in English is different from its meaning in Swahili. Read the rest of this entry →

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Adventures in California

November 20, 2013 in Church, Culture, Front, Life, Mark, Wycliffe

SONY DSC

Although we are currently living in Oregon in the US, Laura is originally from California and still considers that to be her home in many ways. Recently we were excited to be able to spend a couple of weeks in California visiting friends, supporters and our supporting church in Petaluma.

We had an amazing time, and loved being able to catch up with friends who we hadn’t seen for a couple of years. Our time in Petaluma was also really encouraging, particularly as we spent an evening with the church home group that has committed to supporting us in prayer and practically in whatever ways they can. We were really glad to have the opportunity to spend time getting to know the group better, and felt humbled by their enthusiasm to support us and our work in whatever ways they can. Read the rest of this entry →

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