Every Tongue

“It’s like the people in the churches are waking up”

Mark — Thu, 17 May 2012 11:20:30 +0000

In addition to serving language communities by helping them to develop and write their languages, our hope and prayer is that as we work with the church to start to translate parts of the Bible into these languages that people will read these Scriptures and be transformed through doing so. Along these lines it was encouraging to hear a report recently from Mbeya Region, to the southeast of Katavi, where newly translated portions of Scripture in the Malila language are impacting the Malila community.

Eddie has quoted another colleague, John Macaulay, who reports that

A few weeks ago, the Malila translators returned from a village where they had done some review on Luke 13-24 with the community. I asked them about the results of the review, and as we were talking, they began telling me about a couple of pastors who said that there have lately been some changes happening in their churches. When I asked the translators to explain, one of them said, “The pastors have started to use the translated Bible portions in their services, and people are very excited about it. It turns out that a lot of people who thought they understood the Bible in Swahili are now realizing they don’t. They’re hearing it in Malila and getting it for the first time.

Many of the older people who only speak Malila have starting praying in Malila in the services. In the Bible studies and church groups, people who never used to say anything are participating now, because they feel free to use Malila to discuss things. More and more people want to learn to read, so they can read the Malila for themselves, and the pastors say that the Malila scriptures have stirred a lot of interest in studying the Bible. And we can see it too—it’s like the people in the churches are waking up. Some people who aren’t even Christians come sit with us just so they can hear something in Malila, and then we get the chance to read the gospel to them.”

We pray that the Malila people would continue to engage with and be transformed by the Scriptures in their language, and that in the coming years the various language communities here in Katavi Region would also have that same experience!

Bio-diversity and Linguistic Diversity in God’s Creation

Mark — Sun, 13 May 2012 14:03:21 +0000

There are around 6,900 languages spoken around the world today, and probably several million species of plants and animals. A BBC article today suggests that those areas of the world that have a particularly high degree of biodiversity are often the very same areas that are the most linguistically diverse.

The report also mentions that there are a large number of both languages, and also plants and animals, that are endangered and threatened with extinction in the coming decades. What is a Christian response to the fact that this diversity is threatened?

One response is say that languages, and to a lesser extent plants and animals, only have value in the degree to which they are useful to us, and so there is little reason to mourn their loss. In fact, in the case of languages, the reduction in diversity can actually make the task of communication easier, so the loss of languages may even be welcomed.

But I would suggest that a pragmatic view that only sees species and languages as having value based on their usefulness to us doesn’t do justice to God’s creativity and his instruction to humanity to be good stewards of his creation. Plants and animals are valuable simply because God created them, and because he said they were good. Similarly, languages are valuable because they are also part of God’s diverse creation, and are spoken by people who are of great worth.

In God’s kingdom every person has value and is to be treated with love and respect. Whereas it can be tempting for us to measure the value of something based merely on what it can do or produce, or its financial worth, the way of Jesus is to leave everything in order to search for the the lost son, the lost sheep and the lost coin. In a world that preaches survival of the fittest, the life and death of Jesus shows a different way, where everything is given up in order to enable the thriving of the weakest.

In this light I believe a Christian response is to come alongside communities whose languages are threatened by extinction and offer our help in preserving and developing these languages, thereby allowing often struggling communities to thrive, affirming their identity, self-worth and their place in God’s world. This may not always be seen to be cost-effective or an efficient use of resources, but I think it is a practical outworking of God’s kingdom in an increasingly globalised world that is happy to see minority languages fall by the wayside. The alternative, to accept uniformity as necessary for the sake of convenience and “progress”, is merely to repeat the mistake of the builders at Babel, who sought to stay together and try to achieve something significant apart from God, rather than fulfilling God’s mandate to go, fill and steward his diverse creation.

On a recent trip to the Pimbwe language area we were reminded of God’s creativity expressed both biologically and linguistically. Our prayer is that just as the national park we drove through on the way causes us to rejoice in God’s creation by preserving and celebrating some of these incredible animals, so our work alongside communities like the Pimbwe may allow them and others to praise God in and through their unique languages.

With Pimbwe speakers in Usevya village

Matthew and the Genealogies: Who is this Jesus?

Mark — Sat, 05 May 2012 19:48:41 +0000

On Thursday, at the request of the guards at the office, we had the first of hopefully many Swahili Bible studies. I had no idea how the session would go but thought we would start to read through the gospel of Matthew.

The first week we read Matthew 1, and mainly discussed the genealogies, which led to some fascinating questions and discussions. Was David the same guy who killed Goliath? Was he the same one who was king? Where did Solomon’s name come from, and is he the same Solomon that Muslims talk about? Where did Abraham come from? Did he originate from the land of the Arabs? Why were Abraham and his descendents chosen, and not other people? Was the exile the Matthew talks about when the people left Egypt? Why does Matthew keep talking about 14 generations?

I thought these were great questions, which really helped me to read the first few verses of Matthew again through fresh eyes.

As western Christians we often find genealogies to be tedious, and tend to skip over them quickly. But on Thursday I realised how crucial the historical context is to everything else that Matthew presents. Can we really understand Jesus if we don’t know who Abraham was, why the people of Israel were called by God, how they were led out of Egypt, why they were exiled from the promised land, or the subsequent Old Testament prophecies of hope for the future?

In my experience evangelism in my home culture can sometimes seek to reduce the gospel to a list of things to know and believe, or bullet points to be understood and followed, in order to be saved. In many ways that is a reflection of western culture as a whole, and the desire to present information in efficient, bite-sized chunks, communicating only what the person needs to know in order to accept what is on offer in the quickest and easiest way. We could even say that this type of gospel presentation is an appropriately contextualised approach for in individualised consumer culture, although it certainly has its limitations too.

But Tanzanian culture is very different to that of “the west” in general. Important discussions and decisions take time, and always happen in the context of relationships. Without knowing someone’s background and history it is impossible to trust them or to invest in them or in what they may be offering. The important thing is not what you know, or what advantageous deal you are offered in the short-term, but who you know and how much you can trust them to treat you well in the long-term.

In this culture, simply encouraging people to profess belief in “Jesus” to save them, without understanding his context and who he is, can lead to difficulties. For sure, people may take up the offer (particularly if there is nothing to lose in doing so), the same as they might take up a similar offer from a witch doctor or any other religious system that promises to make things turn out ok. But this presentation of the gospel as a simplified objective contract with an abstract “Jesus”, divorced from any knowledge or experience of who Jesus really was and is, is likely to be received as something that (like the witch doctor) may offer benefits in the short-term but is ultimately not to be fully trusted and is best kept at arms length. Without being drawn into the whole narrative of the Bible, and of Jesus in his full context, a person is unlikely to feel able to trust and follow the Jesus of the gospels or to become part of the rich and glorious kingdom of God which is inaugurated in those gospels.

As we continue through the book of Matthew in the coming weeks I am praying that I will be able to read the gospel through fresh eyes with our Tanzanian colleagues, seeing and learning things that I may never have noticed before and ultimately being able to put my trust more fully in this Jesus of Nazareth.

Reading the Bible with the Tanzanian Church: Grace and Works

Mark — Thu, 03 May 2012 13:51:26 +0000

I had a fascinating conversation with a Tanzanian friend the other day about God’s grace (giving us good things that are not earned by our good deeds), and our working hard to follow him and live a good life. The conversation started as we discussed a western missionary who believes that many Tanzanians have not understood the fullness and extent of God’s grace, and so who preaches about God’s completely unearned gift of salvation at every opportunity.

While my friend believes that God’s grace is completely free and unearned, he was concerned that the missionary has not completely grasped the cultural paradigm in which he is working. Many uneducated people go to church in order to hear the pastor tell them exactly what they must do to please God. Emphasising too strongly that God’s grace is not linked to our good deeds will result in people feeling they can do whatever they like, ultimately going against the major thrust of Scripture which is to live good lives that honour and obey God.

I could definitely see my friend’s point, and am very much in favour of understanding the culture of people you are engaging with and then presenting the good news about Jesus in appropriate ways. And I think I half agree with him.

But I wonder if part of the problem in this debate is that we are starting with the wrong question. If we start with ourselves, our questions are “how can I get to heaven?”, or as the rich man asked “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” This is fine as a starting point, but if we stay here we end up either emphasising that God saves us purely by his grace, or that we must live good lives in order to please him and get to heaven (with plenty of isolated Bible verses available to apparently support both positions).

But when Jesus spoke of how his coming related to the law that God had given his people, his perspective was that he had come not to replace the law but to fulfil it (Matthew 5:17-20). And he talked of this in the context of God’s people being a light to the world, and the salt of the earth (Matthew 5:13-16). The law was given to Moses with the aim of making God known, first to the people of Israel, and through them to the whole world. In effect the law acted as a pointer towards Jesus, who fulfilled it as the ultimate revelation of God and light for the world. As a result Jesus’ followers are called to act justly and live good lives, not to earn eternal life, but to make Jesus Christ, and the revelation of who God is, known to all nations.

Maybe if we moved on from the question “How can I have eternal life?”, we might take a step back and ask instead “How is God making himself known in the world, and how am I part of that?” With this perspective, maybe our answer would then be that God’s grace and our good deeds are not two opposing answers to the question of how we are saved, but two perfectly complementary and vital parts of they way God is reaching out to and saving his world.

Is this too complex for an uneducated person in a village, who has come to church expecting to be told what to do, to grasp? I don’t think so, but the challenge, as with any missional engagement, is to find ways to creatively communicate the message of the Bible in ways that are appropriate and profound within the culture of the hearers.

How might the church begin to communicate, symbolically and creatively, the narrative of God reaching out to his world and the role of his people in that mission, to people in a rural Tanzanian context?

Why translate the Bible into Kibende?

Mark — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 11:40:35 +0000

Last month we were excited to be able to host six speakers of the Kibende language, as they took the very first step towards writing their language and later starting to translate the Bible into Kibende. During the week that they spent with us here in Mpanda they managed to collect over a thousand words in their language, which will later be analysed linguistically in order to come up with a writing system that is intuitive and easy for Kibende speakers to read and write.

For us it was encouraging to see this first step in the translation project, and to look ahead in faith to the coming months and years as the Bende hopefully become more and more involved in the work, and start to produce the first portions of Scripture.

Collecting words in Kibende

At the end of the workshop I asked the participants what benefit they personally would envisage from having the Bible available in their language. Here’s what they said…

The benefits would be many, not just one. Because there are some things that are written in Swahili that the Bende are unable to read. Some words, for example “king”, when they say that Jesus is king, they don’t know that Jesus is their king, they often say that they don’t understand. Because of this, people say “it is better for us to return to our traditional practices, because we don’t understand these things.” But if we were to have the Bible written in Kibende we would be very happy, and we would read it and understand it, even the old people. So our request, from our point of view, would be that this ministry would reach out to us Bende people, in order that it help us in our lives.

They ended with a short message for our supporters and churches, saying

Finally, we thank you very much, we are thankful to be with our friends here, and to work together to arrive at the stage we are at today. (See video below for full conversation)

Please continue to pray for these Wabende participants, and for all Kibende speakers, that they would be encouraged and enthusiastic to begin the process of translating the Bible into their language!

Easter Weekend

Laura — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 18:20:29 +0000

This year Easter is different for us. For one, it may be the first Easter I’ve cooked (by myself). We decided to have our main Easter meal on Saturday because we knew we’d be busy on Sunday. In this part of Tanzania the main meats are cow, goat and chicken – and I opted for beef seeing as I’ve not yet had the chance to prepare goat, and I don’t have a chicken handy to slaughter… Because the meat here is often tough, I have been marinating cubes of beef in apple cider vinegar or lemon juice. After doing that for a few hours I brown the meat and add it to a covered casserol with peeled potatoes, carrots and a couple quartered onions. Spiced with rosemary and salt, after a couple hours in the oven, it was ready to eat. Still getting used to our oven here, and next time I will be sure to add a little more liquid as it was a tiny bit dry. It was good overall, and we had leftovers for Easter, which is just what I wanted!

Our Easter meal of roasted beef, potatoes, carrots and and onion seasoned with rosemary and salt.

This morning I made popovers, or Yorkshire Puddings – whichever you like to call them, and the cats were so excited about the smell they hovered by the stove the whole time it was baking. Duma (the black and white boy) fell asleep on the stove keeping warm and enjoying the sweet air wafting his way. Yes, he was trying to keep warm as the weather has turned a bit cooler since the rains are almost over. I heat my socks by the stove no for those evenings that I get chilled by the bucket shower.

Duma and Nyalu anticipating the popovers and creeping as close as they can to the wonderful smell coming from the oven.

A yummy breakfast of jam filled popovers.

Mark was asked to preach at the church we attended a couple weeks ago for the Sunday service. He was asked to preach for an hour and he just went over at one hour and ten minutes. All in Swahili! People at church prepared food and were very glad to be hospitable. We didn’t need tea for quite some time afterward. I was able to make Challah bread and pineapple and banana sorbet in the afternoon which were just right as a light meal.

Braiding the Challah dough before the last rise.

(Inspiration and recipes for the popovers and the challah bread came from a blog I’ve recently discovered and am enjoying, Wayward Spark.)

We’ve had a very good Easter weekend, filled with good food, chats with family and remembering Jesus who came, lived among us and ultimately reconciled us to God.

Happy Easter!

Nyalu waiting patiently for her share.

Arrival in Mpanda

Mark — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 15:23:53 +0000

After many years of thinking and praying about moving to Mpanda, trying to imagine every last detail of what life might be like in our new home, last week we finally made the 3-day journey from the language school in Iringa to Katavi Region, where we are now living. Apart from being very long and very bumpy, we were grateful that the trip itself was largely uneventful, and thankful for the many people who were praying for our safe arrival.

Last Tuesday we arrived and were extremely happy to see our good friends again. Mark’s friend Richard has gotten married since we last saw him, so it was exciting to finally meet his new wife, Karin. We were also very pleased to be reunited with our friends Tim, Jeana and Micaiah who we met in the UK and visited in Canada last year.

For now we are happy to be living in the house of our colleagues who are back in the US, as it is nice to be able to start out in a place that is already set up and not have to start from scratch. Our first impressions of Mpanda have been very positive – the people have been very friendly and welcoming, and the area is also extremely beautiful and green at this time of year (the end of the rainy season).

Driving down towards Katavi National Park. Sorry the photo is taken through the windscreen, but Laura didn't want me opening the window in a tsetse-fly infested area...

Although we are still mostly just settling in to our new home, Mark was able to go on a trip to the village of Mwese last Thursday with some of our colleagues, to carry out a trial one-day workshop. The purpose of this time was to collect a few words in the Bende language, and in the process to identify a handful of Bende speakers whom we wished to invite to the full week-long workshop which will take place next week. The journey was long again, taking over 3 hours each way on quite bumpy roads, but we were glad that it hadn’t rained for a few days so we weren’t in any danger of getting stuck. It was great to meet some of the church leaders in Mwese, and to work alongside Bende speakers who clearly love their language and are excited about the possibility of translating Scriptures into Kibende.

The Lutheran church in Mwese

Sitting with one of the workshop participants

Richard giving the workshop participants instructions

Our other news from the last couple of weeks is that we have two new feline additions to our family. Duma and Nyalu Woodward are originally from the Hehe area around Iringa, so their names are Kihehe names, meaning leopard (Duma) and lion (Nyalupala, or Nyalu for short). They have been a lot of fun so far and did extremely well on the journey… now we just have to make sure they grow up to hunt mice and snakes…

Duma (left) and Nyalu (right)

Sharing in the Blessing of Community

Mark — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 09:58:32 +0000

On Friday I was invited by two of our friends, Goodluck and Eliki, who work here at the language school to visit their village and families. I was excited to have the opportunity, and grateful to be able to share in a part of their lives for a few hours.

To begin with we visited Goodluck’s home, a couple of miles up the road from where we are staying. Here I met his Grandfather and Grandmother (Babu and Bibi in Swahili), who are from the Kinga tribe. The Kinga mainly live in the south-west of Iringa Region, but Babu and Bibi had to move to this area near Iringa town during the time of Ujamaa, soon after Tanzania gained its independence in the 1960s, and have lived here ever since.

Goodluck with his Bibi and Babu

Next we went a few miles up the road to a white monument. This is actually a war memorial, dedicated to the German colonial soldiers who died fighting with the Hehe people in 1898. Apparently the Hehe with their spears and bows and arrows used to hide on the side of the hill and in a large hole in the valley, trying to take the Germans by surprise as they marched over the hill with their guns.

The hill that the Germans marched over, as the Hehe hid in the valley to the left

It is sobering to think that just over a hundred years ago Europeans were sending armies to occupy large parts of Africa, forcibly taking much of the best land from groups who had been farming it for generations. Sadly, this war memorial only commemorates the German soldiers who died – the Hehe have no visible graves.

Goodluck and Eliki at the German war memorial

Next we turned down a small road for several miles, eventually arriving at the secondary school that both Goodluck and Eliki had recently graduated from. Here I was able to meet some of the teachers, and even to greet a class of students as they sang songs. While education is becoming more available generally in Tanzania, it is still a huge struggle for many to have the opportunity and the money to attend secondary school. Goodluck and Eliki have finished Form 4 and hope to continue to Forms 5 and 6 once they have enough money for the school fees.

Some of the students at Lundamatwe Secondary School

As we traveled around together I enjoyed sharing in part of Goodluck and Eliki’s lives for a short time. At one point I asked them a question that I am keen to know the answer to – if they could give us, as a Brit and an American, one piece of advice for living in Tanzania, what would it be? After encouraging them not to be afraid but to answer honestly, they both agreed that their biggest frustration with expatriates in general is our failure to take time to listen to people, investing our time and energy (and even money) in coming alongside local communities, listening to and learning from the people we interact with. As I heard their answers I was left to reflect on how easy it is for us to apparently devote our lives to a particular cause, leaving behind friends and family, throwing ourselves into projects and ministries, but never actually taking the time to connect with people, learning from them and seeking to become part of their community.

The one thing I have learned about Tanzanians over the past few years is that they tend to be very community-oriented, and extremely friendly. Our challenge is not to become so focused on “our work”, or the projects that we have come to Tanzania to be involved with, that we fail to receive the blessing of this friendship and community that is being extended to us each day.

Language Matters

Mark — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 12:02:59 +0000

Our time at Swahili language school in Iringa is continuing well, and we are starting to look ahead to our next move west in a week or so! We had originally planned to stay in Iringa for four weeks, but have extended that by one more week so as to give Laura as much time to continue with classroom learning as possible.

Laura is really enjoying the classes and is making excellent progress, having covered the majority of Swahili grammar and learned a lot of vocabulary too. She is able to converse more and more each day, and is encouraged by how much progress she has made in just three weeks here. You can even see her speaking Swahili for yourself…

During the time that Laura is in Swahili class I have been working on things like our US tax returns, preparing our move to Mpanda, and finishing the final essay for my MA in Bible and Mission. I have also been trying to improve my Swahili skills by talking with people at the campsite, in town and in the surrounding villages, and even learning a few words from the local language – Kihehe.

I love learning languages, and am aware of how language is so much more than just a vehicle for transfer of information. For Tanzanians in particular, spoken language is a tool for building relationships, and plays a key role in the identity and life of both individuals and communities.

Kamwene, umunogage? Ndimunofu hela! Just a few words in the language of someone’s home can say a huge amount. The language that you choose to greet someone can communicate that you respect them, that you value their culture, and that you are interested in their home, their family and their community. Since just a few words can say so much, we firmly believe that for communities to have the Bible in their heart language will not only mean that it is understood more readily, but our prayer is that the very act of translating can communicate something of the way Jesus loves and values each and every person.

We would appreciate your prayers over the next week or so, as Laura continues to learn Swahili, and as we prepare to drive west to the town of Mpanda where we will be living and working. At present we are hoping to leave here on Saturday March 10th, and arrive in Mpanda on the evening of Tuesday 13th, assuming everything goes well with the journey, the car and the roads.

Please also pray for a language survey that our colleagues are undertaking over the next two weeks, visiting the Lwila (or Rwila) and Konongo peoples in Katavi Region. Please pray that they would build good relationships with people, and come away with some valuable insights into the language situation among these communities, and in particular what role if any we might play in helping them to have access to the Bible. Thanks!

Laura studying

A small visitor to our house...

The importance of listening before doing

Mark — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 09:55:32 +0000

There is a huge amount of thought, energy and money that goes into development work in Africa and other places around the world, but every now and then one comes across efforts for which the best that can be said is that they were born from good intentions. This morning on twitter I came across a post of the 7 worst international aid ideas.

These bad ideas range from sending a million t-shirts, or thousands of pairs of shoes, to Africa (thus putting local traders out of business), to restricting the use of aid to achieve certain apparently unrelated business or political goals, to even taking up arms to rescue abducted children. (You can read more about these 7 ideas, and why each is so bad, in the original post).

Some of these examples of bad aid are simply a veneer of “helping” when the real motivation is selfish gain. But the majority are people who have very good intentions, but just get things majorly and seriously wrong.

Why does this happen?

I also read an apparently unrelated post this morning from Skye Jethani about how Jesus teaches that Christians should be discerning, but not judge people. He concludes that

Judgment causes us to see the other not as a person, but as a thing – as less human and therefore less valuable. And once we do that to a person, or a group of people, it opens the door to all kinds of terrible evil – segregation, injustice, abuse, even genocide. Jesus is warning us about excluding anyone, or seeing ourselves or our group as inherently better than any other. We may disagree and discern another person or group to be wrong – but when that discernment causes us to value another person or group less, then we’ve crossed the line into judgment, condemnation, and exclusion.

I wonder if that is what is happening in these examples of bad aid. Are we judging others, deciding that they are helpless and needy, and concluding that therefore we should just do whatever we can? Are we judging that they have no relevant opinions, or worse, that their opinions are not worth listening to? Do we judge ourselves to be better than others – because we are wealthy, have a certain type of education, or live in a certain political system – and then conclude that we have the answers to their problems? The irony is that many of our “solutions” are things that we would never dream of allowing in our own country (providing free meals for impoverished British school-children only if someone “likes” a Facebook page? Importing hundreds of thousands of free foreign-made cars for all the poor Americans who can’t afford ones made in America?) but apparently it’s ok for “those poor people”.

As Laura and I work with minority language communities we need to be very careful that we are not judging people. We need to bear in mind cultural distinctives and generalities, but also be very aware that each person and each community has unique and valid views of the world, and that they are inevitably much more knowledgeable about their own unique situation than we are!

We have come to Tanzania with certain skills, and with an organisation that has certain areas of expertise. While we are convinced of the value of certain things like mother-tongue education, and of churches having the Bible available in local languages, we cannot assume that we therefore know the best way to achieve these things in a particular situation, or even that these things are a priority for a community at this particular moment in time. We need to listen to communities, to their desires, to their ideas, contributing out perspectives and working out together whether our skills and expertise will be able to benefit them in any way. If so, then we need to work closely with them to determine what might be the best way forward. If not, we need to respect their desires and move on.

I think that it’s very easy for us to judge other people, and to sub-consciously regard them as inferior to ourselves. And I think this is particularly easy when we have good intentions of helping others. My challenge for today is to see myself and others as we really are, and to humbly listen to those who are very different to myself.