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.