Metropolitan Missionaries

Vanderkooi Update

Mark and Diane Vanderkooi — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 18:47:59 +0000

Dear friends and family,

We came out to civilization a week ago with the intention (among others) of writing a newsletter. Alas, a week is a short period of time when you’ve been 3 months in the African bush. Tomorrow we fly back to Chageen. So in lieu of a newsletter, a brief update via email.

Our main translator Laurent has left Chageen to pursue further schooling at Ba’illi, 40 miles north of us. While we applaud his pursuit of knowledge, the timing, and worse, his attitude in leaving left much to be desired. That being the case it is just as well he is gone. We are trusting the Lord to do something with the remaining two gentlemen on the translation committee which might never have been possible were Laurent still around.

We had a glimpse of such a possibility when Mark managed to translate 4 verses of Colossians with one of those gentlemen, Joseph. It took more than 3 hours of Mark making him plumb the depths of the language in ways quite foreign to his somewhat challenged mind. Nevertheless, we remember that it was Joseph who came up with an elegant Kwong word for “glory” after 3 years of using unwieldy circumlocutions, and it was he who finally came up with an acceptable word for “priest” only a few months ago.

The other member of our translation committee, Luke, has been on strike, back to work, on strike yet again, and finally back to work a week ago. The complaint? He doesn’t want to farm - even though he is very good at it. He wants to work full-time on translation and earn an exorbitant salary to match. Given that it takes Mark two days to prepare a day’s worth of translation, his dream is a scheduling impossibility - quite apart from the fact that Luke is even more challenged than Joseph in matters of translation. The story has a happy ending: the Lord worked in his heart and we heard from his mouth the most unqualified, forthright confession and repentance we have ever heard from a Chadian.

We have recognized for several years now that the Achilles heel of the Kwong church is the transmission of the gospel (or lack thereof) to the next generation. While our standard (and not really truthful) line is that “we don’t do kids,” too much is at stake in Kwongland. A few weeks ago we took the plunge with the little buggers. The basic idea is this: we teach a Bible story (e.g. Daniel in the Lion’s den) to a fine old Kwong gentleman by the name of Jonas who can spin a really good yarn. Then on Sunday morning, he entertains the kids with a somewhat embellished rendering of the story - which we duly record for a children’s radio program. Considering that many of the pastors and elders of the church don’t know these stories, we anticipate that they will profit more than just children.

For most of this week in civilization, Mark has been making arrangements to have two wells drilled in Kwongland - one for the Evangelical Clinic, and one for Mark and Diane. It has been a stressful experience, but we feel quite confident that we found an honest contractor and got a decent price. We anticipate that the drilling equipment will arrive in mid to late November. Many thanks to everyone who has helped make this project a reality. So far as we can tell, all the money needed for the project has come in.

Update from the Vanderkoois

Mark and Diane Vanderkooi — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 18:43:30 +0000

Dear family and friends,

Tomorrow the MAF Cessna is supposed to resupply us and bring mail and a CD with emails - the first we have received in over a month. That being the case, it is auspicious occasion to send a brief update of our doings.

The rainy season is almost over - something as momentous for us as, say, the end of winter in the northern states and Canada. During the last three months our yard has been overflowing with flowers and vegetables and greenery. From here on out we can anticipate 8 months of increasing degrees of brownness and deadness. You may well guess at our disappointment.
Diane and her lady co-workers have been having a positive impact on Kwong women via their weekly radio program. It is an extremely difficult undertaking as her co-workers are mostly illiterate, but the effort is paying off. A couple days ago word came from a lady in distant village which we could never visit at this time of year saying “please keep on doing this.”
Mark and his men finished translating 1 Peter in August, and as of half way through September, Colossians is half done. Their many years of working on the Kingdom of God theology is paying rich dividends in the speed, accuracy, and efficiency with which they are able to translate the New Testament now.
We are awaiting Laurent’s decision as to whether he will remain with the translation committee or go back to school. If he goes back to school, the translation effort will be dead in the water — just as it is getting going again in a serious way. The next two weeks are critical. PRAY that he stays with us. (The other “translators” are incapable of doing good translation - they mostly just sit and watch Laurent.)

We continue to be stunned by the effectiveness of the radio station and by the excellent men we have to operate it in a most professional way with only minimal effort on our part. Most recently, we discovered that, of all people, the chief’s hench men (who really aren’t that sinister, but they are pretty scruffy) listen to our morning broadcast - which is little more than a Bible study and couple hymns. And we were wondering whether anyone listened to the morning broadcast.

Mark seems to have vanquished the pigs which wreak havoc on our airstrip each rainy season in their quest for the juicy foot-long earthworms Chageen is so famous for (at least in pig lore). After years of pleading with the chief (who owns most of the pigs) and in some years spearing up to 40 of the critters (a very messy affair), we have hit on nose rings - basically a giant copper staple which goes through the plenum of their ugly snouts and makes it painful to root. Many thanks to Adolph Miller of Dekalb who hit upon the solution and bought the nose rings.

The Kwong, for whom kicking a kitten across a room, breaking a goat’s leg, and otherwise abusing animals in the most horrible ways is normal, have surprised us again. This time, Diane watched in amazement as the women gently shepherded a pregnant SCORPION to safety at the edge of the field they were cultivating. The ironies of this place never cease. (How, in any case, do you tell a pregnant scorpion from a non-pregnant one?)

That’s the news from Chageen. We hope to get more email on the 25th of September. If you care to respond before then, we would love to hear from you.

Mark and Diane Vanderkooi

War in Chad

Mark and Diane Vanderkooi — Mon, 17 Apr 2006 04:16:48 +0000

Dear friends,
As you may have heard if you listen to international news with any regularity, there was a significant battle fought between rebel and government forces outside of N’djamena (the capital of Chad) on Thursday morning. As providence would have it, we had flown up to N’djamena from Chageen on Tuesday for some much needed rest and relaxation. On Thursday morning at 6:30 AM, a contingent of rebels, who had crossed 500 miles of Chad from Sudan essentially unopposed, attacked the capital. They were slaughtered. The fighting was at the opposite end of town from where we are lodged at the TEAM mission guesthouse, but we could hear the cannon and artillery fire all morning long. We were never in any danger. It was a different story for our Lutheran and Baptist colleagues who live at that end of town. One of our colleagues said the rebels, who seem to originate from and are supported by Sudan, had never been to N’Djamena before and were asking directions to the center of town. The home next to our Baptist colleagues home was completely destroyed by tank fire. Apparently their house-sentinel, who stayed at his post throughout the affair, persuaded the tank commander not to shoot up their home. All this is an overflow of the Darfour conflict, which began when rebels backed by Chad began to fight against Sudan beginning several years ago. In the finest tit for tat tradition of Africa, the Sudanese started, or at least have aided, the current rebel offensive against Chad.

The other big piece of news is that our co-worker Theodore, who we recruited to run the radio station, has left Chad for good. He found the isolation of Chageen simply unbearable, and decided for his own good to leave. We are grateful for the four months he was with us - we could have never gotten the radio station going without him. Nevertheless, his departure is a tremendous loss for us. We depended upon Theodore’s taking charge of the radio station to free us up to return to the translation and teaching which we still consider to be our primary ministry. Now that the entire burden of running the station has fallen to us, we are pessimistic about returning to translation work any time soon. The silver lining is that two fine Kwong gentlemen who Theodore was training have really blossomed in his absence to the point that we were able to leave the station in their hands during our present trip to N’Djamena. Their names are Sabir and David. Pray for them.

We were told not to anticipate seeing results from the radio work for months or years to come, but God in His sovereign mercy allows us glimpses of hope to assure us that this is HIS radio station and He is using it to His glory. Here are three of those glimpses of hope: 1) We’ve sold more Kwong discipleship materials in the past month than ever before. 2) A Muslim Arab who listens to our station regularly loaned us his well worn Arabic cassette of stories of Jesus healing the sick and raising the dead so that we could broadcast the stories for others to hear. 3) Seven Fulfulbe nomads who listen to the weekly broadcast in their language came to the studio to meet David who speaks to them on the radio in their language each week.

That’s the news from Chad. We are planning to fly back to Chageen on Wednesday morning, April 19 to resume our ministry there. Thank you so much for your prayers.