Discipling Teachers (update)

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some encouragement:

One of our co-workers is Ellen Ombati, a missionary with NMSI.  She and Ruth are collaborating on a new story-based children’s curriculum and have previously worked together with sunday school teacher’s training.  Ellen also works with some of the mamas at Nasha’s Creations.  Here’s an excerpt from an email Ellen sent us recently:

The mamas told me each of the three stories that were told in Sunday School the past three weeks.  These were taught by the Sunday School teachers there!  They told me what the kids did, the songs they learned and even that the kids were coming home preaching to their dad … .  There are still some who are not very sure how to teach, but have the right heart for God and for the kids.

Earlier, Ellen had told us that some of the men who teach have been practicing reading scripture aloud so they can read fluently instead of haltingly.  We spent a lot of time talking about the importance of that at the seminar at the Narok congregation on October 11.

It sounds like some of the seeds we’ve been sowing have been sprouting and are starting to bear fruit!

Christianity is NOT a “western religion”

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A highlight from teaching Church History to Turkana church leaders in Northwest Kenya:  at the end of the course two of the students told me, “now I can see that the Church is not a wazungu (foreign white people) religion.  It has been in Africa since its beginning and has deep roots in African soil.”  A third told me, “The Church is not an exotic plant here.  It is indigenous.”

Discipling Teachers

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The sunday school teacher’s training on October 1st went well.  Go to our photo albums page for the link to some pictures.

Yesterday I was able to lead a teachers’ training session for the teachers of the Narok Community Christian Church.  They want to implement the “Eating the Word of God” lessons.  The time went really well, after a typical Kenyan late start.  I have hopes that the lessons will be taught in this congregation, which will serve to strengthen that whole cluster of churches.  We should include more about both of these trainings in our next update (for those of you on our list).  For now, here’s a picture:

teachers' training: Eating the Word of God

Back row, L-R: John Saitet, Joshua, Isak, Jim Kipees, Moses. Front row, L-R: Veronica (with child), Josephine, Rael, Purity, Walter

lost in translation?

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Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message,
and the message is heard through the word of Christ.
(Romans 10.17, NIV)

If then I do not know the meaning of the language,
I will be to the one who speaks a barbarian,
and the one who speaks will be a barbarian to me.
(1 Corinthians 14.11, NASB)

… we hear them speaking in our own languages
about the great deeds God has done!
(Acts 2:11, NET)

I have copies of the Bible in a number of languages.  French & Tok Pisin (I’ve forgotten what I knew of them), Syriac & Khasi (which I only began to learn and don’t know a bit of now), Hebrew OT & Greek NT (which I can study, but not read at speaking speed), and of course Maa.  But when I really need to be fed, I pick up an English translation.

Did you know that the famous “1611” edition of the King James Version, begun in 1604 and based on the earlier 1525 edition of Tyndale’s translation, was actually not completed until 1769?  Since William Tyndale began his work in 1522, that means the KJV English translation was the fruit of 244 years of translation efforts.  And English speaking believers continue to produce newer translations so they can say “we read in our own language about the great deeds God has done!”

The Maa version of the Bible is much younger; it wasn’t complete until 1991.  And while it is a wonderful accomplishment, it is a translation from the English Revised Standard Version (RSV), with occasional reference made to the Living Bible paraphrase.  During our language learning year (2007), I would sometimes come across a passage in the Maa version that I couldn’t understand at all.  So I’d ask one of the Maasai believers, “what’s this mean?”  Even if I knew the basic vocabulary, I figured that the grammar was too deep for me or that it was some sort of idiom.  So after reading over the verse and thinking about it for a while, my Maasai brother would answer, “I don’t know what it means, either!”  Sometimes this was due to a simple translation error; sometimes it was a literal word-for-word translation of the RSV that completely lost the meaning in translation.

So a missionary colleague of mine (Paul Highfield) and I started keeping notes of verses with errors (sometimes just typos, sometimes just wrong) together with proposed corrections.

Some friends of ours, missionaries with Wycliffe Bible Translators, have begun translating the NT (from Greek) into Samburu.  The Samburu language is related to Maa about the same as Spanish and Italian are related.  When they were field testing the gospel of Luke, some Maasai were together with the group of Samburu.  The Maasai listeners said that this new Samburu translation was easier to understand than the bible in their own language!

Earlier this year, I contacted the Bible Society of Kenya to ask about having the corrections that Paul and I are collecting considered for inclusion in the next reprint of the Maa bible.  I was delighted to learn that a revision was planned!  So now we are sharing what we find with the Bible Society’s committee for this project.  Neither of us has time to do this full time, but it is an honor to have even a small part in helping make the scriptures available in an understandable language.

May the hearing of the Word in the heart languages of people everywhere
bring forth faith in our Lord Jesus Christ in the hearts of those who hear the Word!

..

Note (for the curious): Tok Pisin is one of the national languages of Papua New Guinea; Khasi is a language of India; Syriac is related to Hebrew and Aramaic and was as important in the history of the Church as were Greek and Latin.

contact info update

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We’ve updated our contact page.  Sometimes packages sent to us to the CMF-Kenya address (PO Box 59322 / 00200 City Square / Nairobi, KENYA) have … disappeared after arriving in Kenya.  So we’ve gotten our own PO Box that we can check ourselves.  So if anyone wants to send us some snail mail, use this new address:

Joshua & Ruth Barron
PO Box 1197
00502  Karen
Nairobi, KENYA
East Africa

August update

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Maasai Women's MinistryA new house, curriculum development, training sunday school teachers for the Maasai churches, a special visitor from America …

click here to view a PDF of our latest newsletter.

We’ve  posted some new pictures of the Maasai Women’s Ministry on our photo album page.

Have you ever wondered just where we live?  Take a bird’s eye view of the places we’ve lived in Kenya, together with our major ministry sites.

 

East Africa Drought & Famine

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“The worst drought in East Africa in 60 years …”

Back in 1979, Jan Voshaar observed that due to the forced redistribution of land in the early 1900s “in some dry areas there is no longer question of any grazing system.  If the weather is good, there is grazing, if not, there is drought and cattle die” (Tracing God’s Walking Stick in Maa, pp 47-48).  The pressures of increasing populations and deforestation over the past 32 years have only made this worse.  When the rains come, the land can be green.  When the rains fail … well, just watch the news.

In Kenya, the northwest and the northeast have been particularly hard hit.  The northeast is home to the Rendille people, among whom some of our congregations are hoping to plant new churches.  (A Rendille man has come to Christ in one of the CCC congregations in Nairobi.  He loves his people and wants to share Jesus with them).

Of course northwest Kenya is mostly Turkana Land, where there are many CCC churches and a faithful CMF presence.

Our CMF teammates note the devastating effects of the famine in Turkana

Drought affecting the Nairobi slums

CMF’s Famine Relief efforts in Turkana

Give to help CMF’s famine relief efforts in Turkana

For other possible updates on how the drought is affecting CMF’s work, go to cmfi.org and enter “famine” in the search bar.

A one-horse town

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"a one shop town"This is my favorite road sign in Kenya (so far).  Duka Moja is a small village in the Rift Valley half way between nowhere and lost.  (Okay, it’s actually on the REALLY, REALLY NICE new highway between Maai Mahui and Narok.)  But I think it’s funny because “duka moja” is Swahili for “one shop”.  So whenever I drive past this sign (fairly often the past year), I think of the segment on the old Hee Haw show:  “Goosepimple Junction, we salute you!”  And I laugh.

(Goosepimple Junction is a real place — “village” and “hamlet” are too large — in Southwest Virginia not far from where I grew up.)