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Greetings from Jos!
We had a great Staff Conference last week, a really good time where the whole of Nigeria Group gets together. We prayed, we sang, we listened to reports from our partner organisations, we talked about our strategy and reminded ourselves of why we are doing what we are doing!
One of the people who shared was a student at a local theological college – the Theological College of Northern Nigeria. There is a Linguistics and Translation Department in the college and a number of our staff are involved with teaching there. This might seem a bit removed from the coalface as it were, but the student’s testimony really brought it home to me how vital it is. It is hugely inefficient for an expatriate to come to Nigeria, learn a Nigerian language from scratch and then start to translate the Bible into that language. Far more efficient and sustainable to train a speaker of that language in Bible translation techniques and support them to do the translation. This is also more likely to produce a natural sounding translation that the speakers of the language will relate well to. It was encouraging to hear first-hand from someone who is learning complex linguistic concepts and applying them to help improve the quality of the translation of scripture in his language, ultimately increasing the understanding of God’s Word amongst his people!
Tim did a great job with the logistics and helped the meetings to run smoothly with good sound. My presentation went well and I got a few more people enthused about sharing and protecting their valuable work.
Dan has been a bit variable recently. He has struggled with a couple of occasions at school when he has been blamed by other students for things he did not do. He finds this very hard to deal with calmly and tends to get very upset. He also has days when he finds it very hard to concentrate on his homework and everything he has to do feels like an impossible task. On the other hand, most days he is cheerful and gets his homework done (fairly) quickly and without complaint. We really need wisdom to know how best to help him and encourage him when he is having a bad day.
STOP PRESS: Between writing and going to press, Tim has engaged with an opportunity to visit a few projects and attend a dedication this weekend. The details are still being worked on, but Tim and our colleague Jono plan to leave on Thursday and return on Monday. There will be a lot of driving between them so please pray for good preparations, and safety as they travel.
Praise
Encouraging Staff Conference
God is raising up gifted Nigerian Bible Translators
Prayer
More students to sign up for the Bible Translation degree program
That Daniel would look to the Lord for his strength
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