He choked up, started to cry, and we all joined in!

They had been working on the New Testament translation for many years. They were consultant checking the final book – Revelation. The consultant said, “That’s it!”

What happens next? Anti-climax, exhaustion, relief, celebration..?

One of the national translators was asked to pray.

That was it: he choked up, started to cry, and we all joined in! There were prayers, but I’m sure the Lord listened to our overflowing thankful hearts more than our words.

Revelation 3:7 says that no door God opens can be shut; it may start to creak as it closes but it is only for a while and it never fully closes before he fully opens it.

And so we rejoice with this translation team; we give thanks to God; we pray for the typesetting and printing; we look forward to the day when this language group will dedicate and celebrate God’s Word in their heart language… and we continue to remember 1,967 languages that are still waiting for the translation to start.

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Kouya Goes Kindle

On Wednesday 21 March 2012, hundreds of tee shirts proclaimed in the Kouya language that the Word of God is living and powerful. Kouya Christians and their neighbours gathered for the dedication of the Kouya New Testament which had been delayed during a decade of civil unrest and violence in the Ivory Coast.

Philip Saunders presented a copy of the Kouya New Testament to the chief of Dema village. That photo now adorns the front cover of the new edition of No Ordinary Book, the story of the Kouya New Testament.

No Ordinary Book, revised and updated to include the dedication, has just become available on Kindle

It was a privilege to live alongside the Kouya Project for 8 years in Ivory Coast.

It was a privilege to become friends with Kouya Christians including the translators.

It was a privilege to be asked to write the foreword for No Ordinary Book.

It was a privilege to have been at the dedication of the Kouya New Testament in March 2012.

It is a privilege now to recommend that you upload this great story to your Kindle!

If you want to see a few of the many photos that I took at the dedication, you can see them in my Facebook photo album

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When commitments clash…

Tonight I am attending a concert in Greenwell Street Presbyterian Church, Newtownards…

… I am very happy to be there and I’m doing a brief presentation about the Oku Bible translation and literacy project in the NW of Cameroon to encourage a generous offering which will go to this Wycliffe Bible Translators supported project.

This is my first slide – the map hangs in our Belfast office and daily reminds us to pray that the Lord of the harvest will provide the workers for his harvest field.

But what, I will ask, is the harvest filed of Bible translation..?

The answer!

Yes, I’ll be glad to be there… but I’m going to miss this! Ulster’s semi final against Llanelli Scarlets

Then again, I am delighted that the Oku people, whom I have twice visited, will be dedicating their New Testament in October this year – and the proceeds from the concert offering will finance the completion of the project!

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On stepping down

Recently I read this quote from British politician Vince Cable in his memoir Free Radical written before he achieved a Cabinet position in the Conservative / Liberal Coalition government. He was reflecting on his period as acting leader of the Liberal Democrats in opposition during a tricky time of party leadership transition.

I have always moved effortlessly from the spotlight to the shadows and there is a particular pleasure to be had from enjoying prominence and (in my case, modest) power without feeling the need for them.

Free Radical: A Memoir Vince Cable

I thought… thanks, Vince, that’s encouraging.

You see, I was contemplating a transition myself.

My big change came just after Easter as  I handed over my role as Wycliffe Bible Translators UK’s N. Ireland Coordinator to my colleague John Young. John is now UK assigned after six years in the Philippines where he ended up as Acting Philippines Director. So I’m happily handing over to a capable and experienced successor.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not comparing my role in Wycliffe Bible Translators UK with Cable’s role in British politics. Politicians often talk about serving, but to be successful it seems that they must ambitiously seek power and influence. I see my various roles in my 25 years with Wycliffe as a privilege that God allows me to be part of His Mission to His World. All the power and all prominence belongs to God.

I have never in my various roles with Wycliffe seen myself as enjoying prominence or power, modest or otherwise. But I was struck by the idea that a politician could contemplate a step down in position and accept it honestly and graciously. It was an encouragement to read Cable’s words as I know only too well that leadership transitions, whether in politics or in the church and mission, are not always smooth and can sometimes be rather messy.

So I have stepped down from the Wycliffe NI Coordinator role. I am not however retiring. John, my successor, wants me to stay on as part of the N. Ireland Church Engagement Team.

I am looking forward to my new role. I am fairly confident that I can step down and work within the team under John’s leadership.

I look forward in God’s strength to this new role with the same aim and passion that God’s Word will become available to everyone in their heart language.

For those of you who have ever visited the WBTUK office in Belfast, we’ll see about posting a few photos of how we have re-arranged it recently…

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100 years is a long time

Mary Steele MBE at Buckingham Palace

In a recent blog about the impact of the translated Bible on the Bimoba people group in Ghana, I referred to Mary Steele who was involved in the translation of the Bible into the Bimoba language.

Mary is planning to spend her summer back home in N. Ireland but is currently consultant checking the Book of Acts in the Avatime language. A few days ago she sent me a request for prayer for this work imbedded in a touching story about the Avatime people’s wait for the Scriptures in their heart language…

They have been Christians for a hundred years but still have no Bible in their language. The Avatime people live in the Volta region of Ghana, in the southeast of the country. The majority of them profess to be Christians, but as yet they do not have a Bible or even a New Testament in their language. The Gospels have been translated and we are now checking the book of Acts.

There is a feeling of spiritual opposition to the work of Scripture translation in this language, and it seems to go with difficulty. Please pray for spiritual victory, and that the Word will be a blessing to the team, Divine, Jacob and Gershon, and myself, as we work just now on checking the book of Acts in the Avatime language (pronounced Avateemee – but the Lord will know who you mean no matter how you pronounce it.)

Also please pray that the work of translating and publishing the New Testament, and eventually the whole Bible, in this language, will go ahead smoothly and quickly. A hundred years is a long time to wait.

Thank you for helping to bring the Bible to the Avatime people, by your prayers.
Mary Steele

If you Google Avatime, you can read things like this on Wikipedia…

Avatime is a tonal language with three tones, has vowel harmony, and has been claimed to have doubly articulated fricatives.

Avatime has nine vowels, /i ɪ e ɛ a ɔ o ʊ u/. It is not clear if the difference between /i e o u/ and /ɪ ɛ ɔ ʊ/ is one of advanced and retracted tongue root (laryngeal contraction), as in so many languages of Ghana, or of vowel height: different phonetic parameters support different analyses.

Avatime has vowel harmony. A root may not mix vowels of the relaxed /i e o u/ and contracted /ɪ ɛ a ɔ ʊ/ sets, and prefixes change vowels to harmonize with the vowels of the root. For example, the human singular gender prefix is /ɔ ~ o/, and the human plural is /a ~ e/: /o-ze/ “thief”, /ɔ-ka/ “father”; /be-ze/ “thieves”, /ba-ka/ “fathers”; also /o-bu/ “bee” but /ɔ-bʊ/ “god”.

… all of which gives some insight into the work of a linguist translator like Mary!

If linguistics turns you on – read more. Whether it does or not, please pray for the Avatime team in their work right now.

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Our April Newsletter… excerpts

John’s last few months as N. Ireland Coordinator for Wycliffe UK have been rewarding and encouraging. He loves being able to enthuse people about how God uses many different gifts and abilities in bringing His Word to life in every language. Two events in February were very successful. Twenty people came to First Steps and two people at CheckITOut offered to use their IT skills from home for Bible Translation projects overseas.

Recruitment has been another part of the coordinator role that gets John excited! Our latest N. Irish member, Lydia, was accepted in April – another reminder of the privilege of seeing God at work in individual lives. Ruth enjoyed interviewing two recent applicants and hopes to continue being involved in this way.

Many people have prayed faithfully for the N. Ireland Office and specifically for the staff needed there. It has been more than John could have hoped for to see the way the new team has taken shape. He has really enjoyed the relaxed way the handover has been managed, giving time for the “new John” to watch what goes on in the office before getting to grips with how he plans to lead it forward.

On Monday 8 April the big day happened quietly. John Young officially took over as N. Ireland Coordinator and his wife Jennifer became the Personnel Coordinator. Some changes have been made to the layout of the office so that a new look has accompanied the new team. John Hamilton is now delighted to find himself with a new desk, in a new room, with a new role in the new look team! Please feel free to drop in to see the changes and greet the team.

You may be wondering what John is actually going to do? Well the focus so far has been on “Old” John helping “Young” John to familiarise himself with all things Wycliffe in N Ireland. The plan is for John Hamilton to take a short break in May to allow John Young to go solo. Then they will sit down together to map out John’s new role. It would be great if you could pray for both Johns – Young as he takes charge and Hamilton as he fits into the new shape team. He is already enjoying the prospect of having more time to focus on doing fewer things and to having a boss in the office. Having reached the milestone of official retirement age, John also plans to reduce his time in the office to 3 days a week. He is glad this will allow him more time to support his mum and dad … and who knows what else he might find God leading him into? Any prayer and suggestions about this will be welcome!!

Ecclesiastes 3 has lots of “times” – “a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to embrace and a time to refrain, a time to be silent and a time to speak.” New times in the Belfast office might include these and more…

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You’ve translated the Bible: so what?

Well, first of all, for a very few Bible translators, it leads to an invitation to Buckingham Palace!

Mary Steele, the first Irish member of Wycliffe Bible Translators UK, received the MBE for services to linguistics, literacy and Bible translation in Ghana. And I got the chance to go with her for the investiture. Mary was also interviewed on Ulster Television about her many years with Wycliffe.

Mary Steele MBE at Buckingham Palace with some colourful friends 10 May 2006

However what sparked my reminiscing about Mary today was finding a story posted by Wycliffe colleague Ed Lauber about one of the two Ghanaian Bibles that Mary was involved in translating – the Bible for the Bimoba people of Northern Ghana.

I have written before about Solomon Sule-Saa, a Ghanaian who has done extensive research on the impact of translating the Bible into the Konkomba and Bimoba languages of northern Ghana. In a summary of his research presented to a conference in September, he said of the Konkomba and Bimoba peoples:

“The Bible now provides the key to understand the world”

During an ethnic conflict which was so serious the Ghana army had to intervene, the Bimoba lost confidence in the neutrality and good will of the Ghana government. They saw no way forward but to continue fight for their rights. In a war council, several leaders quoted from the translated Bible, arguing that that Jesus way is the way of reconciliation. So, abandoning their own wisdom they agreed to engage in peace talks moderated by the government they no longer trusted. It worked. They got what they were seeking through negotiation. Now that is faith – following the teachings of the Bible when your life and your livelihoods are at stake. This story shows that the Bible in these languages is doing more than influencing the decisions of individuals. It is also affecting the decisions made by the chiefs for the whole group. Now that is being transformed.

Wycliffe UK’s tag line used to be Translated Scripture Transforms Lives – it still does.

Mary Steele in conversation with Marlene Ferguson at Wycliffe:Live 2009 when we marked her 50 years with Wycliffe

Doing your sums? Mary will be 54 years with Wycliffe sometime this year and continues to work as a translation consultant in Ghana.

Find out how you could be part of your generation translating Scriptures to transform lives.

Or try a taster at Two Week Stint this summer in France!

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What I discovered at Wycliffe CheckITOut in Belfast

The role of IT in mission: guest blog by Neil McKnight

One Sunday after church, I had a wee chat with John Hamilton. I asked, “What’s all this about computers and Wycliffe Bible Translators?” John suggested that I go to Wycliffe’s CheckITOut evening…

Over recent years missionaries around the world have been forced to embrace new technologies and use more and more new tools for many different tasks when carrying out their work both in the field and in many different support roles.

I went to the CheckITOut event as suggested and they took some time to explain the role of IT, but more importantly, the need for experienced IT personnel throughout the world.

The vision of Wycliffe Bible Translators is to start a Bible translation project in 1,967 different languages by the year 2025, and it is estimated that these projects will have the potential to reach over 200 million people.

To meet this goal they are currently utilising around 5,500 staff in 97 countries, which in itself is a staggering amount of people. Yet they have approximately 2,500 positions vacant in roles around the globe.

Over the years they have had different manual systems and ways of gathering information, keeping track of people, recording translations, working with the local people, but as new technologies have evolved, so have the people and the systems.

One of the big areas is people management. If there are people posted around the world carrying out their roles, or possibly even on holiday or at a conference, it is important that the organisation knows exactly where they are during their travelling and time away. If there happens to be some sort of a natural disaster or a civil war breaks out, basically anything that could put individual in danger, Wycliffe may need to know all sorts of important information that could be relevant in those different situations. Heights and weights could be important in the event of an evacuation; blood types in the event of an emergency; copies of passports and important documents; any sort of information that may normally be taken for granted could be important in difficult situations. This needs to be stored centrally and in a way that can be easily managed. A Wycliffe member from N. Ireland currently manages this project from his home near Ballyclare.

For people working in areas where there may be no power, there is little point in giving them a case full of equipment that all depends on electricity to operate, or possibly an internet connection to be useful. Nowadays, along with that case of essential equipment, Wycliffe may also issue two other cases: one with a solar panel and one with a small satellite dish which has the ability to connect remote workers to the internet.

“God’s Word is powerful” Catalan Sign Language

Another fantastic use of technology is in using video capture to record sign language, and using software to over lay the person with a female face, or an ethnic face, or an adult or child, enabling the sign language translation to be distributed in many different ways, but actually all created from the one initial motion capture. This technique is used commonly now in the film industry to bring to life animated or CGI characters, but to think to use it in this way is just astounding.

One of the inherent problems with all this use of technology is that it brings with it its own problems. Computers generally break down or fail to function correctly, printers need fixed, cables break, all sorts of things that a lot of the time we take for granted. However when you don’t have a tech savvy family friend or a local computer shop to walk into, it can be a bit of a problem. So backup and support staff with specific IT skills play a big role in keeping equipment going, training people in new systems and fixing everything from the network to the microwave in the office – just because it’s perceived they can.

There are many different ways that experienced IT workers and enthusiastic computer hobbyists can help out both at home and abroad, and for a more comprehensive list please visit either the Wycliffe Bible Translators UK or Saintfield Road Presbyterian Church websites for more information.

Neil McKnight

Neil is a friend and fellow member of Saintfield Road Presbyterian Church in Belfast, N. Ireland. Having attended Wycliffe’s CheckITOut event, he wrote this piece for the church quarterly newsletter.

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Wycliffe UK Centre has been sold

Wycliffe Bible Translators on Mission

Press Release from Wycliffe Bible Translators UK 11 March 2013

Wycliffe Bible Translators in the UK will start 2014 with a refreshed vision and a new home. The charity, which next year will also be celebrating its 50^th anniversary in the UK, has announced the sale of the Wycliffe Centre in Buckinghamshire where they have been based for over forty years with a plan to move to nearby office space.

“The need to make the Bible available in the language that people understand the best is one of the most urgent missionary tasks of our generation,” says Eddie Arthur, Executive Director of Wycliffe in the UK. “We need to concentrate our efforts and resources on working with the Church in the UK and worldwide to bring the Bible to all people.”

“The Wycliffe Centre has been a wonderful home for our mission, providing us with office space, a training centre and allowing us to host church groups and conferences. However, changing patterns in missionary training worldwide mean that we no longer need such a large facility for our own needs. Running and maintaining a conference centre is a worthwhile job, but it isn’t what God has called Wycliffe to do.”

That focus has been key in Wycliffe’s decision to move. They have already taken steps towards ensuring the UK Church can play a big part in the future of Bible translation and global mission. The training courses that were once available to those joining Wycliffe will, from August 2013, be available to a wider audience through Redcliffe College in Gloucester. In addition, without a large home base, Wycliffe will be taking its awareness raising events out to where people live.

“This isn’t about Wycliffe scaling down work in the UK, far from it”, says Arthur, “this is about us asking God what the future of mission looks like and organising ourselves for that.”

There’s still a lot of work to do. Earlier this year Wycliffe announced that, for the first time in history, there were fewer than 2,000 languages in need of Bible translation work to begin. That still marks a need for significant investment, both financially, through human resource and in prayer.

Wycliffe Bible Translators clearly believe that the Church in the UK has a part to play in that future and they are preparing for it.

Wycliffe Bible Translators is the UK’s biggest Bible translation organisation, works with partners worldwide to ensure that every community around the world has access to a Bible in a language that they can fully understand. In more than 70 years of history they have been involved in the translation of 830 New Testaments and 35 complete Bibles, potentially impacting around 214 million people. Wycliffe staff are currently involved in over 1,537 active language programmes, with additional work being undertaken by other organisations in a further 538 languages. However there remains a massive need, as statistics show that there are around 209 million people from 1,967 languages still waiting for translation to begin.

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-Lagɔwɛlɩ -ga ‘yliyɔ, ɩn we kaa ‘tɩtɛ ‘wʋ… RE-VISITED

Today is the first anniversary of the Kouya New Testament dedication on 21 March 2012. Well worth re-posting this 29 March 2012 blog!

Hebrews 4:12 proclaims that the Word of God is living and powerful!

Last Wednesday morning hundreds of tee shirts proclaimed the same message in the Kouya language as people gathered for the dedication of the Kouya New Testament which has been delayed during a decade of civil unrest and violence in the Ivory Coast.

The Kouya dedication tee shirt

It was a privilege, a pleasure and very humbling to be there and share with Wycliffe colleagues and Kouya friends that we had not see for nearly 15 years.

I’m still working through my reactions to the event, but it was a truly Kouya event! White faces were a very small minority. The programme had been prepared and was led by Kouya Christian pastors and leaders. A crowd of around 500 sat for hours under shelters erected in a square behind Dema village church, praised God in song and dance and speech and the reading and hearing of -Lagɔwɛlɩ in the Kouya language.

When my thoughts are more focussed, I will write some more, but below are a few of the many photos that I took. You can see more in my Facebook photo album

One of the church singing groups

Dema chief welcomes everyone

Pastor Bai Emile speaking

The Kouya New Testaments arrive

Marguerite, Sue Arthur and Philip Saunders

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