Tag Archives: Africa

Some of our Ancient Personal History

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In the early 1980s, Sue and I felt that God was calling us into mission work in a French speaking country. For us, this naturally meant something, somewhere in Europe; Bible translation in Africa was the last thing on our minds. Over a period of many months we sought advice from the leaders of our church and other people we respected. We wrote to a number of different missionary organisations who worked in Europe and had a couple of interviews; but nothing seemed to work. It was all rather frustrating. Around this time, some friends suggested that we should visit Wycliffe Bible translators to see what they could offer us. To be honest, I thought this was a crazy idea, but Sue, who is a linguist by training, was quite attracted by the thought – so we went along. Over the space of one weekend, God turned our lives around completely. It turned out that my background as a research scientist was just as useful for a Bible translator as Sue’s linguistic ability. Not only that, but Wycliffe had urgent need for people to work in French speaking Africa. All of the pieces fell into place; our calling to a French speaking country and our academic background suddenly made perfect sense. Thankfully, our Church leadership thought the same thing.

A little over four years after our first contact with Wycliffe, equipped with some of the best practical linguistics training in the world, we moved into a Kouya village in Ivory Coast, West Africa. The Kouya are a hardy, strongly independent people who live in twelve villages on the edge of a dense rain forest. At the time we settled into the village of Gouabafla, there was a handful of Christians in each of the Kouya villages, though the vast majority of them had been believers for less than five years. We became part of a first generation church; it was like living in the book of Acts!

The Kouya area is home to a number of different people groups, but non-Kouyas seem to find it almost impossible to learn to speak Kouya. Because of this, most Kouyas speak at least three or four other African languages fluently in addition to French, which they learn at school. It is hardly surprising that when we turned up in the village and said that we were going to learn to speak Kouya, that people were extremely sceptical. If Africans who had grown up in the area didn’t manage to learn it, how could a couple of white, outsiders expect to.

A rather younger Sue and Eddie: Ivory Coast December 1992

I’ve never done anything as difficult in my life. Intellectually, getting my head around a whole new way of thinking and a completly new vocabulary was a huge challenge, but it was the least of my problems. The really difficult thing was going out every day to talk to people knowing that I was making a complete and utter fool of myself. It really isn’t easy being laughed at every day. What’s worse, I found myself thinking some rather unpleasant things. “How dare they laugh at me? I’ve left my nice comfortable home in England to come and help them – they should be grateful.” “Do they realise who they are laughing at? I’ve got a university degree and tons of other qualifications, they are just cocoa farmers.” I’d come to share Jesus with the Kouya, but there were times when my attitudes and thoughts were miles from where Jesus would have wanted them to be. But this is the heart of The Story; God loves men and women so much that he wants them to communicate on his behalf, despite the fact that people are far from perfect. Like all of God’s people, I have a whole series of weaknesses and failings; which makes it all the more bizarre that I would look down on anyone!

It took two years of hard work before we became at all comfortable speaking Kouya, and even then it remained a huge struggle to say things in a way that people would understand what we were going on about. But there is nothing in the world to compare to the thrill of being accepted into a community that is completely different to your own. We used to love the expression on people’s faces when they would realise that we were speaking Kouya rather than French. Complete strangers would stop in market and say “aya, the world has changed, the toubabs (white people) are speaking Kouya”. We became something of a tourist attraction in our village. When family members or friends came from elsewhere in the region, they would be brought to our house to meet the tame Europeans who could speak Kouya. It was hilarious! Mind you, not every one was pleased to see us. There were some people who were very suspicious of our motives. Some thought we were spies and more than one person asked where we kept our radio that we used to report back to our government in Washington: it was hard not to laugh at that one. Others thought that we had come to write a book about the Kouya language that we could sell for a fortune back in our home country. At first we were very defensive about these sorts of accusations, but as we learned more about the Kouya and about the colonial history of the country, we realised that the Kouya had good reason to be suspicious of the motives of Europeans. History wasn’t really on our side. Despite the suspicions that some people harboured, most people were delighted to see us in their village. . The Kouya loved it that people from outside were making the effort to speak their language. They were used to outsiders not even bothering to master the basics, but here was a couple who had come all the way from Europe and who were chatting away in the language. Our being there gave them a sense of value and self-worth. Kouya people would tell us that their language was not a real language  like French; it couldn’t be written down and it didn’t have a grammar. Over time, we were able to help the Kouya to write their language down and we could show them that it didn’t just have a grammar but it had a very complex and elegant grammar that was often far richer than the French they learned at school. They loved that!

It took a further twelve years and input from a team of Kouya and Europeans before the Kouya New Testament was finally ready to be published. During that time, we saw the small church grow in numbers and maturity. I’m not sure how much impact we had personally in the process and I’m absolutely convinced that we learned more from our Kouya brothers and sisters than they learned from us. But there is one thing that was clearly communicated to the Kouya through our presence in their village: God cares for them. They may be a small ethnic group, more or less ignored or unknown by the larger groups around them: but God sent his servants to live amongst them and God speaks their language. I loved it when an elderly Kouya said to me that the Kouya were just as important as the Americans, French or Germans, because God spoke their language, just the same as he did for those others.

Jos

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Yesterday was a long day. I flew out overnight from Heathrow to Abuja and then we drove up to Jos where I'll be based, more or less, for the next few days.

The overnight flight to Abuja was exactly the wrong length – just over six hours. It meant getting on the plane really late and then getting off and going through immigration when I'd far rather have been asleep. This tends to be the way with flights to and from West Africa.

We were out of the airport and ready to head north before seven. On the way up we called in to visit a couple of translation projects. It does me a lot of good to hear people talk about the value and impact of the Bible in their own language. We English speakers take so much for granted.

We eventually arrived in Jos in the early afternoon and I went straight into a meeting. I told you it was a long day.

Today, I'll be meeting with a couple of organisations who are involved in training and supporting Bible translation before heading off to the retreat where I will be the speaker.

Books I have Read: Adventures in Music and Culture

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I have to start with a disclaimer. Not only was I given a free copy of this book to read and review, it was also signed by the author and I even get a mention on the acknowledgements page. I’ve known the author, Rob Baker, since he was a short term missionary in Ivory Coast, twenty years ago.

However, this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t take my review seriously, because this is genuinely a good book. Adventures in Music and Culture is written with a vivacity and an eye for detail which bring scenes to life in technicolour. Anyone who knows West Africa will immediately find themselves transported back to familiar situations and those who don’t know that part of the world will be enchanted anyway.

If you want to know what it’s like driving through the West African bush, staying in bush hotels or getting groups together to write and record songs, this book is for you. If you’d really just like an interesting and amusing travelogue – it fits the bill too. Rob’s irrepressable good humour shines throughout, bringing lots of smiles and one or two laugh out loud moments.

The only thing I would complain about is the quality of the publication. In my copy the inner margin was so close to the book binding that it was difficult to open it far enough to see the last couple of letters on each line. This didn’t stop me enjoying the book, but it was a little frustrating. It would also be good to see this published for the Kindle. It’s an ideal book for holiday reading on the beach – but who carries paperbacks to the beach these days!

Women and Leadership in the Church

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The question of the role of women in Church leadership is one which gets a lot of airing both in Christian circles and in the wider press. However, it’s one that we rarely touch on here at Kouyanet. This is mainly because it isn’t an issue which impinges directly onto our areas of interest. However, when I came across this piece by Onesimus, I decided that I had to post a link to it. There are a couple of points of interest: it is written by an Orthodox scholar based in Kenya (though with an evangelical background), but most importantly it takes a slant on the question that I’ve never seen before.

A few thoughts on Church ‘leadership’ as we find it in the New Testament.  First we must understand that ‘leadership’ is not a New Testament word; it’s a modern word.  Leadership implies authority, initiative, direction, management and control.  In many ways, leadership is a power word, and assumes a perspective on the world around us and takes on a certain posture and demands a certain course of action.  Leadership is a man’s word and its context describes a man’s context.  Today churches of all kinds have seminars on ‘leadership’. We give our shepherds three easy steps on being a more effective leader.  So many of our churches are so large that we need our ‘leaders’ to become more effective managers.  All of this is intended to enable our churches to function as effective institutions.  But none of this is found in our New Testament.  In fact, the emphasis throughout, indeed the direct teaching of Jesus himself and the apostles takes us in the exact opposite direction.

Jesus’ followers were to be different.  They were not to be like certain Gentiles, who lived to lord it over people.  Nor were they to be like certain Jews who were keen to maintain the perks of position and power.  Instead, Jesus’ followers were to be different, known for putting the needs of others before their own, known for being like slaves in their readiness to do whatever for whoever was needy, known for being like Jesus himself.  ‘If I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.  For I have set you an example that you also should do as I have done to you.’ (John 13:14-15)  In this Jesus leads by example.  He takes on the posture of a slave, and for those homes too humble for a slave, the posture of a woman.
Immediately after Jesus offers the disciples the bread of his body and the cup of his blood, a quarrel breaks out as to which one of them should be the one in charge over the rest of them. ‘Jesus said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who exercise authority over them call themselves Benefactors.  But you are not to be like that.  Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves.  For who is greater, the one is at the table or the one who serves?  Is it not the one who is at the table?  But I am among you as one who serves.’ (Luke 22:25-27)  This is only one of several examples that I could point to where the disciples import their cultural understanding of leadership into what Jesus is calling them to do and be, only to have Jesus present them with an alternative vision of what it means to be his people that is so radical and unexpected that his disciples simply cannot fathom it.
I wish to suggest that it isn’t just the disciples who had trouble fathoming Jesus’ vision for discipleship and for the community of disciples that would be known by his name.  Every generation of Christian church has struggled with the profound temptation to import the surrounding culture’s understanding of leadership and authority into the church.  I want to suggest that when one looks at the historical record, one finds that the Church has repeatedly taken the easier road and abandoned Jesus’ blueprint in favor of the way it’s always been done.  The evidence for this can be seen everywhere throughout the history of the Church to the present day.  At almost every point, the church and her ministers look nothing like what Jesus was talking about and calling his followers to be and do.  The discrepancy is simply shocking.

If you wan’t to know how this is applied to the question of women’s ministry, read the whole article.

Languages In Nigeria

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Next month, I’m travelling out to Nigeria, where I will be speaking at a retreat for my colleagues out there. It was a nice encouragement to read this peace in the Nigeria Guardian which is very complimentary about Wycliffe’s work there:

FEBRUARY 21, the International Mother Language Day, provided an opportunity to take a critical look at our languages as Nigerians. Because of the second fiddle nature Nigerian languages have assumed in our own society, it is pertinent to ask: Who is Killing Nigerian languages — foreigners or the language owners?

Incidentally, Nigerian languages have enjoyed a wide range of support from the Occident, the U.S in particular. One such support is from Wycliffe, a US-based organisation — established since 1942 to translate the Bible into every language spoken in the world. Giant strides have been made by the organisation as it has completed 700 translations. Currently, it supports languages spoken in 90 countries, including Nigeria. In keeping with its vision, Wycliffe has deployed human, financial, special-designed software and other resources to build orthographies for hitherto non-written languages, educate native speakers to read and write their languages, build glossaries in these languages while preserving the histories and cultures of language owners, etc. Unknown minority languages spoken by 10,000 and 1,000,000 speakers now have written documents, thus preventing the languages from extinction.

Pertaining to Nigeria, some ongoing and finished bible translations, which are due to the effort of the Wycliffe teams and native speakers of the languages include: Ezaa, Ikwo and Izii languages of the Abakaliki cluster (spoken in Ebonyi State: Abakaliki, Ezza, Ohaozara, and Ishielu LGAs); Benue State: Okpokwu LGA), Alago (a first language spoken in Nassarawa State: Awe and Lafia LGAs), Dadiya (a first language spoken in Gombe State: Balanga LGA; Taraba State: Karim Lamido LGA and Adamawa state: Numan LGA, Huba (a first language spoken in Adamawa state: Hong, Maiha, Gombi, and Mubi LGAs), Hyam (a first language spoken in Kaduna: Kachia and Jema’s LGAs), Ichen or Etkywan (a first language spoken in Taraba State: Takum, Sardauna, Bali, and part of Wukari LGAs).

Speaking of Nigeria, it’s nice to have the excuse to show this excellent photo of Sue doing some translation consultancy work there, a few years ago.

Sue consulting Nigeria

Bloggers in Africa

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A group of Christian bloggers have just set off on a visit to Uganda from where they will be reporting on their adventures. I’m sure they will have a wonderful and informative time and no doubt they will generate a lot of publicity for the organisation who are fronting the trip.

However, can I respectfully suggest that if you really want to understand what is happening in Africa, you might do better to follow blogs written by Africans or by others who have a long term commitment to living and working on the continent.

Here are a few suggestions of blogs from across Africa. The list is not exhaustive and shows a bias towards people I know or countries I’ve lived and worked in and to Bible and Mission stuff. However, I’d like to have other blogs to follow, so if you have some suggestions, please include them in the comments.

Bridges from Bamako: written by an anthropologist, this outstanding blog gives a superb insight into life in Mali’s biggest city, with the odd foray out into the country as a whole.

Djobouti Jones: a fascinating blog about life as an expat in the horn of Africa.

Drogba’s Country: Journalist John James is not actually based in Ivory Coast at the moment, but his blog is still a great place to get insights from that country.

Every Tongue: Mark Woodward works in language development in Tanzania. His blog gives a great insight into living and working across cultures, while trying to explore the Bible’s message.

Fasokan: I’ve been following Boukary Konate on Twitter for ages, but I’ve only just (thanks to a comment, below) discovered his excellent (award winning) blog. It is in French and Bambara.

Global Voices: this is an excellent place for news from across the world. Locally based writers give insightful comments on what is happening in their particular situation. You can sign up for a news feed from just about any country on the planet.

Heart Language Observations: a language and Bible orientated blog written from Ghana. Lots of good insights.

Mausts on Toast: the Maust family have recently arrived in Cameroon and are blogging their experiences.

Onesimus Redivivus: this is a blog by a former Presbyterian  now Orthodox Christian who teaches theology in Nairobi.

Phil in the Blank: Phil Paoletta describes himself as a slow traveller. That just about sums it up, he’s been in Francophone Africa for years now and his blog gives fascinating insights into the area – along with lessons on how to draw camels.

That’s Our Life: Tim and Ali Robinson blog from Nigeria. Much of what they write covers the struggle of bringing up a young family in a situation which is far from stable.

The Task: this is an organisational blog (and none the worse for that) which covers Bible translation and literacy in Uganda and Tanzania.

Until Our Independence: this young Ivorian blogger covers politics and technology from his home country and across the continent.

White African: Eric Hersmann is the guy to read if you are interested in technological innovation in Africa.

The following blogs contain some good stuff, but either they are not updated regularly, or their authors have relocated to the West.

There are undoubtedly lots and lots of good blogs that I’ve not mentioned here. This is either because I’ve lost their links or I never knew about them in the first place. As I mentioned above, please put links to other blogs in the comments. I’d be especially keen to see other (more accurate?) lists of African/Africa-based bloggers.

Edit: these are blogs that have been suggested to me on Twitter. I’ve not had time to follow them all up, so I can’t comment on the content. But exploring new stuff is what it’s all about, isn’t it?

Someone, somewhere must have produced an up to date, geographically organised list of African bloggers!

First World Problems

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This short video (just over two minutes) has a very powerful message…

but…

I have to admit that I’m rather uneasy with the way this important message is got across.

Firstly, I don’t like the terms first world and third world; I know that they are easily understood, but they seem to imply a value judgement that I don’t like.  Perhaps I’m just being picky.

More importantly, the video gives a somewhat distorted picture of life in Africa. Surprisingly enough, there are many people in rural Africa who have mobile phones and who share all of the same frustrations about network coverage and keeping the phone charged that we do in the West.

However, the key thing is that this video presents the relationship between the ‘first’ and ’third’ worlds as being one dimensional. We don’t have real problems, they do. I’m not implying for one moment that there is no terrible grinding poverty in Africa – there is. But, if I can permit myself a generalisation, most Africans live lives which are richer in human relationships and connectedness than most Westerners. The loneliness, isolation and depression that are endemic in European cities – especially for the elderly – are relatively unknown in Africa.

Yes, we can help provide water (try sponsoring me in the London Marathon), but we also have a lot to learn from the developing world. The world is more complex than a short video can express.

 

Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles

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At the moment, the BBC is showing the remarkable David Attenborough series “Africa”; all beautiful scenes and amazing animals. However, as is often the case, the Africa of the nature documentary seems more or less devoid of people.

If you would like to know more about the human side of the continent, you could do far worse than start with Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles by Richard Dowden.

Africa is huge and incredibly diverse and no book (even one of 550 pages) can hope to cover every aspect of African life. However, over 18 chapters, most of which are inspired by events in a particular country, this book gives a pretty good introduction to the current situation across sub-Saharan Africa.

Though it doesn’t shy away from war, corruption and poverty, this is predominantly optimistic book. It points to beacons of hope and development which are rarely mentioned in the west because they don’t fit the agenda of the media and aid agencies). For that reason alone, I’d love to see more people reading this book.

The book is told through a mixture of the author’s own traveller’s tales and reflections on national and international politics. Individual stories and global geopolitics are interspersed seamlessly to give a fascinating picture, which is never dull to read.

It would be easy to complain about things which are not in the book (there is not enough about Côte d’Ivoire and Mali for my liking), but this is unfair. The book never claims to be comprehensive.

Sections on the growth of the African middle classes and the use of technology (especially the mobile phone) and the growth of Chinese influence across the continent seem to indicate that Africa will be a very different place through the 21st century than it was in the 20th. Though the fact that the American response to Chinese commercial activity in the area has been to put a regional military force in place is rather worrying.

Africa is far bigger and more diverse than Europe, with a fascinating and complex history. If your idea of Africa is limited to elephants, giraffes and grass huts, you should probably read buy Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles!

Mission, Money and Power

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The New York Times has a fascinating and rather disturbing video linking US missionaries and funding to the persecution of gay men in Uganda. They won’t allow me to embed the video here, so you will have to go over to their page to watch it; it lasts about 8 minutes.

I realise that gay-rights is a controversial issue at the moment, and that’s not an issue I want to get drawn into, too much. It seems to me that whatever your view on the subject, the idea of homosexuality being punishable by the death penalty, or preacher asking who is willing and ready to kill gay men is abhorrent.

The reason why I’ve brought the issue up on this blog is that I believe it raises some important questions for Christian missionary and development agencies.

  • To what extent is it appropriate for Western Christians to use their money and influence to shape policy in Churches and governments in other parts of the world?
  • Do we really understand the impact of the way we work in other countries?
  • Why are their so many missionaries preaching to crowds in a country which claims a higher percentage of Christians than the USA?
  • Why is there so much focus on sexuality and so little focus on corruption and justice?

As you can see, I find a good deal to be concerned about in this video; not least because I’m worried that more responsible Christian agencies will be condemned by association.

Voices United for Mali

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When you get artists from across a country as culturally diverse as Mali producing a song, you end up with a wonderful mixture of languages and cultural styles. In this superb video there is singing and rapping in Bambara, Sonniké, Songhai, Tamasheq and even a little French.

This is the Mali I love; colourful, welcoming and amazingly musical.

Bruce does a great job of unpacking the lyrics to this song – it isn’t quite as straightforward as it seems at first.

Bible and Mission Links 25

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It’s been a while since I did my last round up of interesting Bibley and missiony things that I’ve discovered on the web.

Resources

Tim pointed me to a new online journal, which will be of interest to those who are involved in Scripture Engagement.

Orality Journal is the journal of the International Orality Network.  It is published online semi-annually and aims to provide a platform for scholarly discourse on the issues of orality, discoveries of innovations in orality, and praxis of e!ectiveness across multiple domains in society.  This online journal is international and interdisciplinary, serving the interests of the orality movement through research articles, documentation, book reviews, and academic news.  Occasionally, print editions will be created. Submission of items that could contribute to the furtherance of the orality movement are welcomed.

Tim has also shared some links to books on missional hermeneutics. I wish I had an excuse to get hold of these.

Ed Stetzer has contributed a chapter to a new book, edited by John Piper and David Mathis, called Finishing the Mission. Ed’s chapter is by far the best thing in what is an indifferent book and he has been blogging his way through it.

I read the book last weekend and intend to get round to writing a review in the not too distant future. Let me just say that if you are tempted to get hold of it, you would do better to get the free pdf download than make the mistake I did and pay for it.

Bible Translation

Bill Mounce and eminent scholar who served on the translation committees for both the NIV and ESV has a great story about the Bible translator he admires the most. It isn’t an American academic living in an ivory tower, as you might expect, but a Nepali pastor. It’s a wonderful tale, make sure you read it.

Having a Bible translator in your church Bible study group can be a real advantage. Philip Hewer shares his experiences of looking at a familiar passage with a small group.

On Saturday we had an excellent 3-hour session at church on “Reading the Bible in a way that grips your heart”. As part of this we were exploring  in a small group the passage Mark 4:35-41, Jesus calms the storm. While this account was familiar to us, by entering into the dramatic situation and exploring some of the details we all gained new insights.

One little phrase which  we puzzled over was “just as he was” in verse 36:

Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. (New International Version) …

Simon Cozens’ thoughts are always worth reading and his comprehensive post on the need for a new Bible translation in Japanese are excellent. He manages to cover issues related to Japanese writing, translation theory and sociology and in the process demonstrates the complexity of Bible translation work. This post should be required reading for all trainee Bible translators, wherever they are working.

Reading about the translation of Jn 3:16 in the Japanese Sign Language Bible reminded me of something that’s been sitting on my ever-expanding “wild ideas” list for quite some time now: we need a new translation of the Bible into Japanese. Or possibly two.

I’ve been thinking about this because of the way we tend to use the Bible in the work that we’re doing. Japan is a highly literate society—something like a 99% literacy rate—and the Bible is, well, a book. It’s a written thing. But we’re using it in the context of interactive Bible reading, storytelling and so on, so we’re using it in a very oral way. And if you think about it, it’s not just the crazy house church people, but all liturgical use of the Bible is oral. Yet current Japanese Bible translations are reader-friendly and not particularly listener-friendly.

Unexpected Mission Thoughts

Ed Lauber, an American who works in Ghana, has some interesting observations on the growth of a mission movement in Russia. While Mark, an Anglican clergyman who works in London has posted an aural soundscape of life in Uganda; go on, give your ears a treat.

In a short, but thought provoking post, Ross Hastings points out the need to re-evangelise the West.

The truth is that 70% of the world’s Christians live not in the West, but in the East and South. In the majority of the countries of Europe and in Canada, which has secularized at a rate similar to Holland, as well as in many regions of the U.S., the church is not growing and the influence of the church in the public square has diminished rapidly.

Picking up on that theme, Jamie the VWM tells a beautiful, but sad, story about the aching empty void in the lives of so many in our rich part of the world.

I always think it’s interesting when people pat us on the back for being missionaries to Costa Rica. Perhaps they think we were doing something difficult because they don’t know that in Costa Rica there’s a bleeding-Jesus-in-a-crown-of-thorns bumper sticker on every bus, taxi, and pizza delivery scooter. You can easily engage nearly every person you cross paths with in a conversation about God or Jesus or Faith or whatever. It’s really not hard. Every town has grown up around a church, faith is taught in public school, and there’s pretty much a missionary on every corner. In Costa Rica, “Jesus” is generally a familiar and comfortable word – not an instant conversation killer.

We’ve been back in the NorCal suburbs for a whole three months now, and all I can say is that ministry is way harder here than it ever was in Costa Rica. Being an agent for Love and Grace in a place where people truly don’t recognize their own need is really tough. Watching a married woman angle for an affair with a younger, hotter man while her daughter looks on is gut-wrenching. …And sorta hilarious…. But seriously? Gut-wrenching.
I believe Jesus has competition in the American suburbs like no place else on Earth. Everyone here is surrounded by so much shiny new stuff, it’s hard to see the Light. Here, depravity is hidden behind tall double doors, and the things that separate us from God often come gleaming, right out of the box. The contrast between Dark and Light has been cleverly obscured by the polish of materialism and vanity.]#

Lastly, I can’t resist referring to this post by Tim in which he reflects on the move of Wycliffe’s training programme to Redcliffe college.

Along with Bible Society, Wycliffe have been instrumental partners in the development and delivery of the MA in Bible and Mission here at Redcliffe and the wider initiative that is the Centre for the Study of Bible and Mission. For this and many other reasons the joining together of Redcliffe and Wycliffe’s training makes such a lot of joyful sense. Partnership works when it is driven by a shared commitment to the Kingdom; mutual trust and humility; an imagination for what could be; and a sense of what needs to happen to get there. The more I have worked with friends at Wycliffe the more humbled and inspired I am by the ministry and the people engaged in it. As I have learnt more about Bible Translation, Scripture Engagement, Orality, and the many other aspects of Wycliffe’s work I have found myself deeply challenged in my own engagement with the Bible and the complexities and joys of sharing it with others. I believe the experience has enriched my view of God, of his Word, of his Church and of his mission, and I hope this comes across in my teaching as well.