Category: Bible Translation
[Videos] Can We Come to VBS 2016?
Like last year, we made some videos for VBS. We made them for a specific church, but I am putting them here on the blog with the hopes that several churches will introduce our ministry to their kids this VBS. There are five videos, one for each day of the week. Check them out!Video #1: Our Friends Video #2: What We Do for Fun Video #3: Church Video #4: School Video #5: Our Work Thanks for including us in your VBS program. This time next year, we will be back in the States for our first home assignment!
Dialect Survey Recap
We did surveys in 24 villages in two weeks and all-in-all we are very pleased with how things went. It is also safe to say that we have a much better understanding of the dialect situation among the Bakoum. Here are a couple highlights: Reasons Why I Love my Job Dave and I had a great time working together. We would call the chief of the village ahead of time and ask him to designate someone whose mother and father were Bakoum (and who had all their teeth) that we could meet with upon our arrival. Generally this person…
Confessions of a Former Grammar Nazi
by Dave “Thank you for calling Merchant Services, my name is Dave, WITH WHOM do I have the pleasure of speaking?” I could, and probably do, chant this introduction in my sleep. For 2+ years I answered hundreds and thousands of tech support calls in the windowless Louisville call center for Bank of America Merchant Services. In my final six months I spent little time taking calls and a LOT of time listening to calls, as I became a part of the Quality Assurance Team. I awarded and deducted points from my co-workers’ scores based on their tone, technical prowess…
Would You Buy a Microwave Bible?
I try to read about translation methodology and principles as I am able. So, when I saw an article called “Microwave Bible?” I could not resist the draw. This particular article was about new methods being used to speed up Bible translation, a goal that I (theoretically) love. Here is a basic summary of the article: Wycliffe Associates (a sister organization to Wycliffe Bible Translators) has a program for rapid Bible translation called MAST (Mobilized Assistance Supporting Translation). They seek out very small people groups that are unlikely to be targeted for a Bible translation project by any other organization. They…
God Uses “Bad Legs”
Can God use you? It is a good question. Some people told Elinor Young that her polio crippled body would prevent her from her dream of becoming a missionary. But she believed that whom the Lord calls, he uses. And that he equips those whom he calls. Watch this amazing woman’s journey to becoming a Bible translator that ultimately ended in the Kimyal Bible Translation.
Can We Come to VBS?
by DaveWe had a request from one of our churches (Grace Church Frisco) to have four short videos for VBS this summer. They are extremely simple and mostly just introduce our kids and our ministry. If you are doing VBS this summer, please feel free to use these videos as a way of introducing missions into your material. *Disclaimer* I did not have a ton of time to work on these, so they are extremely simple. Hopefully they can still be helpful. Video #1: Introduction to the Family Video #2: The Need for Bible Translation Video #3: The First Steps…
A Translator’s Angst
By Stacey With over a hundred languages without a Bible translation here in Cameroon, you can imagine that choosing ONE people group was a hard decision. But the decision has been made, we are going to, by God’s grace, translate for the Bakoum people. And in the meantime, we are living among a neighboring tribe called the Baka….who also happen to be without a translation of the Bible. It is hard to step out my front door in the morning and not be faced with the reality that these people need the Word. Let me share with you two simple…
Is This Really Happening?
by Dave It has been an intense couple of weeks here in Cameroon. We have visited a total of 19 villages and talked to innumerable chiefs and villagers. This has been an…interesting window into the culture as we struggle to not make fools of ourselves and also to understand what is going on around us. Here is a taste of some of the more wild adventures: 1. Drunk Man with a Megaphone In one village I spoke with the chief and several notable members of the community. Several of the men there were drunk and one of them had a…
Contextualization for Creating Barriers
by Dave I am still a bit new to missionary life and methodology, but if there is one thing that I have heard over and over again, it is that contextualization is vital. What is contextualization? Well, I am told that one of the weaknesses of my predecessors in the missionary field was that they confused biblical Christianity with their own culture. So, they brought with them their own customs and traditions and taught them as necessary alongside the Bible. Here in Cameroon, for many years the majority of church services have been conducted in French. The songs, the sermons,…
Does Theology Affect Translation?
by Dave I mentioned before that from time to time I would like to engage in this blog with translation theory. Today I am going to engage with an article titled: “The Theology and Ethics of Bible Translation” by Leland Ryken. This article is the seventh chapter in his book The Word of God in English, which can be downloaded for free in it entirety HERE. Positive ElementsRyken very helpfully makes the point that theology matters. There is no such thing as a Bible translator who approaches the text in neutrality. Our theology shapes the words that we choose and…
