We feel a little like circus performers in a juggling act as we try to make the shift from Wycliffe PR mode to Steinborn departure mode while trying to still balance aspects of both over the next couple of weeks. On Monday, I taught a language-learning workshop for new missionaries with the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada (PAOC). This is the fourth time I’ve done this since coming home in 2005, and it’s been a learning experience for me as well as my students. I began by putting together what was initially a 4-5 hour course (a combination of straight teaching and interactive demonstration) based on an effective language-learning technique developed by a guy called Greg Thomson. Then the PAOC asked me to turn the teaching part into an on-line course, and do the practical demonstration part as a one and a half hour workshop. That’s what I did on Monday.
I begin the workshop with a short video about a new radar operator at a German coast guard station (it’s part of an advertisement for a Berlitz language learning program). Just as he sits down, he receives a distress signal: “Mayday, mayday! We are sinking, we are sinking!”
His response? “What are you sinking about?” (German does not have a ‘th’ sound, so German speakers tend to pronounce ‘thinking’ as ‘sinking’ :) Ah, yes, the challenges of learning a foreign language! The wrong sound or wrong tone in the wrong place and disaster awaits!
Because it’s an interactive workshop (I select one or more students who speak other languages to be language teachers, while the rest are language learners) and active (the techniques involve body movements, various actions, and object manipulation), the new missionaries usually have a lot of fun with it. It also tends to make them feel less intimidated by the thought of having to learn a completely new language, especially when they see how easy and do-able it is. I’ve even had veteran missionaries sitting in on the classes come to me afterwards and say, “Boy, I wish we’d known this stuff when we were trying to learn a new language. It would have been soooo much easier!”
Today we visited a lawyer to get our wills updated. Now that we’re empty-nesters, it was time. And it certainly didn’t take very long. One of the benefits of travelling light, I guess :) In fact, we spent more time talking with the lawyer about our work in Burkina and development work in Africa in general than about the details of our wills!
Just got an updated quote on airfare to Burkina. Prices are climbing. We could have had them for $1200 each a month ago with a flight directly out of Toronto to Paris and on to Ouaga. Now we’re looking at $1800 each and a more convoluted flight plan. However, we’ve sent some additional inquiries to see what else is out there. Your prayers would be much appreciated.
Our landlord is beginning to show our townhouse to potential new tenants just as we’re starting to pull stuff out of cupboards and off shelves to beginning sorting, organizing, and packing it. So the challenge will be to keep things to a relatively tidy mess. Speaking of which, I’d better go and help clean things up a bit before they arrive today!
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Have You Finished Paying For Your Wife Yet?
After two days of trying, I finally managed to connect with our Kusassi co-worker, Pastor Emmanuel, yesterday afternoon. For some reason, the 10-10 numbers that I usually use didn’t work this time. I ended up dialling Bell direct. Definitely more expensive, but at least I got through.
In the course of our conversation, Pastor Emmanuel told me a story about his younger brother who lives in one of the more remote Kusassi villages. Apparently he had just lost his wife. No, she didn’t die. Her family came and reclaimed her! And this despite the fact that the couple have already been married for two years and have a young child together! How can this be, you ask? Well, in Kusassi culture, men have to pay for their wives. The price is 4 cows, 3 pigs, 1 guinea fowl, and 1 chicken. To give you some idea of how much this is worth, I can tell you that one pig will cost a normal working man a month’s wages. You can just imagine the price of a cow!
In a society where most people just manage to scrape by, paying such a bride-price up front would mean that most young men would be middle-aged by the time they could afford to get married! So for those who are less than affluent, Kusassi society has developed a way around this requirement similar to that used in our own society for purchasing items we’d like to have now, but can’t afford to pay for up front: payment by instalments. Pay two cows, get the girl, and pay off the rest over the next few years. Most young men can’t even afford the two cows, but they can appeal to various older family members (father, older brothers, and uncles) for help with this.
Pastor Emmanuel’s younger brother must have been a sweet talker because he managed to get the girl without even paying the first two cows up front! However, over the past two years, he had not paid anything either, so the family finally got fed up and exercised their cultural rights. When I asked why he had not paid anything, Pastor Emmanuel said that it was because he had several other children to send to school and this was taking all the meagre income he was managing to make. It turns out that this is actually his second wife. For some reason, his first wife left him after giving him three sons, and despite the efforts of both extended families, refused to return and married another man instead.
“Well, since his first wife left him, can’t he ask for the bride-price back from her family and use that to pay for the second wife?” I asked. The purpose of a bride-price is not only to give value to the woman by compensating her family for the loss of her labour, but also to encourage her family to make every effort to help keep the marriage intact. Should the woman walk away, they will be obliged to return the bride-price, something they will go to great lengths to avoid since chances are high that they’ve already spent it for one reason or another.
“Well, no,” replied Pastor Emmanuel. She gave him three sons and each child is worth a cow.”
“But he paid four cows,” I rejoined. “So they at least owe him one back.”
“Yes, but she had several miscarriages. Those count too.”
Okay, so much for that argument. I’ll let you know how things turn out.
By the way, when the Kusassi ask me why we’ve been away so long, I’m thinking I’ll tell them that I had to visit my parents and finish paying for my wife! These are reasons no Kusassi can argue with!
In the course of our conversation, Pastor Emmanuel told me a story about his younger brother who lives in one of the more remote Kusassi villages. Apparently he had just lost his wife. No, she didn’t die. Her family came and reclaimed her! And this despite the fact that the couple have already been married for two years and have a young child together! How can this be, you ask? Well, in Kusassi culture, men have to pay for their wives. The price is 4 cows, 3 pigs, 1 guinea fowl, and 1 chicken. To give you some idea of how much this is worth, I can tell you that one pig will cost a normal working man a month’s wages. You can just imagine the price of a cow!
In a society where most people just manage to scrape by, paying such a bride-price up front would mean that most young men would be middle-aged by the time they could afford to get married! So for those who are less than affluent, Kusassi society has developed a way around this requirement similar to that used in our own society for purchasing items we’d like to have now, but can’t afford to pay for up front: payment by instalments. Pay two cows, get the girl, and pay off the rest over the next few years. Most young men can’t even afford the two cows, but they can appeal to various older family members (father, older brothers, and uncles) for help with this.
Pastor Emmanuel’s younger brother must have been a sweet talker because he managed to get the girl without even paying the first two cows up front! However, over the past two years, he had not paid anything either, so the family finally got fed up and exercised their cultural rights. When I asked why he had not paid anything, Pastor Emmanuel said that it was because he had several other children to send to school and this was taking all the meagre income he was managing to make. It turns out that this is actually his second wife. For some reason, his first wife left him after giving him three sons, and despite the efforts of both extended families, refused to return and married another man instead.
“Well, since his first wife left him, can’t he ask for the bride-price back from her family and use that to pay for the second wife?” I asked. The purpose of a bride-price is not only to give value to the woman by compensating her family for the loss of her labour, but also to encourage her family to make every effort to help keep the marriage intact. Should the woman walk away, they will be obliged to return the bride-price, something they will go to great lengths to avoid since chances are high that they’ve already spent it for one reason or another.
“Well, no,” replied Pastor Emmanuel. She gave him three sons and each child is worth a cow.”
“But he paid four cows,” I rejoined. “So they at least owe him one back.”
“Yes, but she had several miscarriages. Those count too.”
Okay, so much for that argument. I’ll let you know how things turn out.
By the way, when the Kusassi ask me why we’ve been away so long, I’m thinking I’ll tell them that I had to visit my parents and finish paying for my wife! These are reasons no Kusassi can argue with!
Friday, July 25, 2008
Catching Up & Looking Forward
Coming home from a trip always means spending a whole whack of time catching up on mail, correspondence (e-mail) and finances. Good thing I love this kind of stuff because I sure seem to have a lot of it to do even when we’re not away! While we had access to the Internet most days on this last voyage, we only tended to respond to e-mails that required immediate attention, leaving the rest for when we got back home. Amazing how this stuff piles up!
Because of the particular line of work we’re in, I tend to keep fairly detailed financial records, tracking income and expenses for both personal and ministry purposes. In addition, we have to complete detailed ministry expense reports every month for submission to Wycliffe.
Our passports were waiting for us at the postal outlet when we got home, so we can stroke that task off our prep list. Next we need to apply for visas to Burkina, book medical examinations and immunizations, and look into plane ticket prices again.
Those tickets are going to cost us almost $3000 total through SIAMA, a travel agency in Europe that caters to folks like us in full-time ministry. That’s a really good deal, by the way! SIAMA can bill our Wycliffe ministry expense account directly, but the funds will only be released once we have received permission to leave for the field. Wycliffe can’t give that permission until we have 100% of our support. It’s a bit of a vicious circle, so we’re looking forward to seeing how God is going to work this all out!
Because of the particular line of work we’re in, I tend to keep fairly detailed financial records, tracking income and expenses for both personal and ministry purposes. In addition, we have to complete detailed ministry expense reports every month for submission to Wycliffe.
Our passports were waiting for us at the postal outlet when we got home, so we can stroke that task off our prep list. Next we need to apply for visas to Burkina, book medical examinations and immunizations, and look into plane ticket prices again.
Those tickets are going to cost us almost $3000 total through SIAMA, a travel agency in Europe that caters to folks like us in full-time ministry. That’s a really good deal, by the way! SIAMA can bill our Wycliffe ministry expense account directly, but the funds will only be released once we have received permission to leave for the field. Wycliffe can’t give that permission until we have 100% of our support. It’s a bit of a vicious circle, so we’re looking forward to seeing how God is going to work this all out!
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Putting Your Feet in the Jordan
We arrived home in Barrie early this evening, having driven from Drummondville this morning. The high point of the day? Having my first Starbucks coffee in over a week in Belleville! The low point? Leaving the francophone area. I really enjoyed being so immersed in French again. I listened to French radio from Montreal as long as I could before we finally drove out of range. Interestingly, you can almost physically feel the change in culture when you cross the provincial boundary into Ontario.
When we were first asked to come and do some presentations in New Brunswick, we weren’t sure we could fit a trip like that into our schedule or budget, especially so close to starting preparations for our return to Burkina. However, it became increasingly clear that this was something God wanted us to do, so we went. And we’re glad we did. Not only did we have opportunities to share about the work of language development, Bible translation, and our ministry with the Kusassi with God’s people out there, but through His people, God also provided what we needed to carry all this out (or will by the time our credit card bill is due! :)
We’ve discovered that sometimes God wants you to stick your foot in the Jordan before He’ll divide the waters for you to move forward. Many Christians prefer to have God divide the waters first! Even many of those in "full-time" ministry like to wait until God has provided all the necessary means before even starting to do anything. Unfortunately, He doesn’t always work that way. In our experience, if the way forward is clear but the means are not yet there, He expects us to move forward and invariably provides the means as we go along. It sounds somewhat stressful, doesn’t it? Sometimes it is :) But it’s always exciting to see God at work!
Our next adventure in living by faith will be our upcoming departure for Burkina. Up until a few days ago, we believed that we were at virtually 100% of our required budget. However, a recent update indicates that we are actually at only 80%. Since the way ahead looks clear to us, we’re putting our feet in the Jordan and making preparations to leave in early September nevertheless. The next month and a half is going to be exciting indeed! Stay tuned!
When we were first asked to come and do some presentations in New Brunswick, we weren’t sure we could fit a trip like that into our schedule or budget, especially so close to starting preparations for our return to Burkina. However, it became increasingly clear that this was something God wanted us to do, so we went. And we’re glad we did. Not only did we have opportunities to share about the work of language development, Bible translation, and our ministry with the Kusassi with God’s people out there, but through His people, God also provided what we needed to carry all this out (or will by the time our credit card bill is due! :)
We’ve discovered that sometimes God wants you to stick your foot in the Jordan before He’ll divide the waters for you to move forward. Many Christians prefer to have God divide the waters first! Even many of those in "full-time" ministry like to wait until God has provided all the necessary means before even starting to do anything. Unfortunately, He doesn’t always work that way. In our experience, if the way forward is clear but the means are not yet there, He expects us to move forward and invariably provides the means as we go along. It sounds somewhat stressful, doesn’t it? Sometimes it is :) But it’s always exciting to see God at work!
Our next adventure in living by faith will be our upcoming departure for Burkina. Up until a few days ago, we believed that we were at virtually 100% of our required budget. However, a recent update indicates that we are actually at only 80%. Since the way ahead looks clear to us, we’re putting our feet in the Jordan and making preparations to leave in early September nevertheless. The next month and a half is going to be exciting indeed! Stay tuned!
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Homeward Bound
It was with some regret that we left our new friends, Allison & David, in New Brunswick on Monday. They were great hosts and we had a wonderful time getting to know them and members of the four francophone Baptist churches in that part of NB. I’m convinced we need to make every effort to recruit this young lady for ministry with Wycliffe! Allison has a real heart for missions, a gift for networking and building relationships, and good connections with the francophone Christian community. We really need people from that community in all levels of ministry in French-speaking West Africa, from prayer and financial support here in Canada to personal involvement overseas in all different kinds of work to help with the language development and Bible translation task. Something to think and pray about, Allison! :)
Our drive from Bathurst north through Campbellton and on to Rimouski was a scenic one, despite the pouring rain we first encountered. After Campbellton, the road followed the course of a winding river with high hills on either side before opening up into farmland as we approached the St. Lawrence River. Then there was so much fog coming in off the St. Lawrence that we felt like we were driving through pea soup in one town. A good reason to stop for a Tim Hortons! And further along the route, we had the best poutine in the entire world at a little roadside fast-food stand where we stopped for lunch. Lots of fries, lots of good gravy, and a whole pile of cheese curds on top! Boy, was it ever good!
We’d planned to try and catch the ferry at Rivière-du-Loup so that we could take the more scenic route along the north shore. But we missed it by half an hour and didn’t want to wait another three hours for the next one. Friends in Quebec City were expecting us for supper. André & Johanne have been good friends since we first met during our French studies in Quebec City in the mid-90s, and are always ready to open their home to us when we pass through their area.
This afternoon, we met someone from Burkina Faso! He and his Quebecois wife are friends of Allison & David, and she arranged for us to connect (see what I mean about her networking skills?). So we stopped in Trois Rivières where he is a church leader and spent a pleasant couple of hours with them. We had a lot to talk about and it was again hard for us to finally ask for the road. We could have talked for another few hours, but Kathy & I wanted to put a few more miles behind us before calling it a day. Otherwise it would be too long a trip to get home tomorrow.
We’d originally considered stopping again in Montreal, but after some consideration (higher motel prices, terrible roads, tons of construction, arrival at rush hour, and the need to spend at least half an hour getting to a place that is really only five minutes away were a few of the determining factors we took into account!) decided to try Drummondville on the south shore instead. We’re glad we did. We found a decent motel at a good price and took advantage of this last opportunity to eat at a Normandin restaurant for supper. They have good food and we can’t spend time in Quebec without eating at least one meal at a Normandin, a Quebecois restaurant chain. They must have liked us too. It took the waitress over 30 minutes to bring our bill and take our credit card to pay for the meal after we’d finished eating. I think she’d have liked us to stay even longer, but Kathy & I had finally run out of things to talk about and were ready to hit the road with or without her!
Our drive from Bathurst north through Campbellton and on to Rimouski was a scenic one, despite the pouring rain we first encountered. After Campbellton, the road followed the course of a winding river with high hills on either side before opening up into farmland as we approached the St. Lawrence River. Then there was so much fog coming in off the St. Lawrence that we felt like we were driving through pea soup in one town. A good reason to stop for a Tim Hortons! And further along the route, we had the best poutine in the entire world at a little roadside fast-food stand where we stopped for lunch. Lots of fries, lots of good gravy, and a whole pile of cheese curds on top! Boy, was it ever good!
We’d planned to try and catch the ferry at Rivière-du-Loup so that we could take the more scenic route along the north shore. But we missed it by half an hour and didn’t want to wait another three hours for the next one. Friends in Quebec City were expecting us for supper. André & Johanne have been good friends since we first met during our French studies in Quebec City in the mid-90s, and are always ready to open their home to us when we pass through their area.
This afternoon, we met someone from Burkina Faso! He and his Quebecois wife are friends of Allison & David, and she arranged for us to connect (see what I mean about her networking skills?). So we stopped in Trois Rivières where he is a church leader and spent a pleasant couple of hours with them. We had a lot to talk about and it was again hard for us to finally ask for the road. We could have talked for another few hours, but Kathy & I wanted to put a few more miles behind us before calling it a day. Otherwise it would be too long a trip to get home tomorrow.
We’d originally considered stopping again in Montreal, but after some consideration (higher motel prices, terrible roads, tons of construction, arrival at rush hour, and the need to spend at least half an hour getting to a place that is really only five minutes away were a few of the determining factors we took into account!) decided to try Drummondville on the south shore instead. We’re glad we did. We found a decent motel at a good price and took advantage of this last opportunity to eat at a Normandin restaurant for supper. They have good food and we can’t spend time in Quebec without eating at least one meal at a Normandin, a Quebecois restaurant chain. They must have liked us too. It took the waitress over 30 minutes to bring our bill and take our credit card to pay for the meal after we’d finished eating. I think she’d have liked us to stay even longer, but Kathy & I had finally run out of things to talk about and were ready to hit the road with or without her!
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Hopeless But Not Serious!
One of the first things I did in our French “Welcome to Ouagadougou!” presentation this evening was inform everyone that Africa was a package containing 53 countries! How did I manage to do that? By allowing English to affect my pronunciation of the word “continent”, and thus using the wrong vowel in the middle of the word!
Well, that was just one of a number of goof-ups we made in pronunciation and grammar tonight. Fortunately, our situation is hopeless but not serious. From the feedback we got from people afterwards, it sure seems that God was able to use us to speak to them in spite of our mistakes. This is really His specialty, isn’t it? If we are willing to do what He asks, despite our limitations, He somehow seems to be able to use it to accomplish His will.
All in all, though, we had a great time. We had excellent help in preparations and set up, and in the takedown and clean up afterwards. A number of volunteers played roles as the Passport Canada officer, the Police at the entry to Burkina checkpoint, and as snack & drink vendors. The two guys playing the Police took their roles very seriously, questioning people as to their reasons for entering the country, and even frisking one man for concealed weapons, while detaining another for looking suspicious! Haha, the other people in line loved it! We also some good volunteers to take part in our various skits.
You know, it’s funny that in one of our skits, the “Support Workers” one, we emphasize that language development and Bible translation is the work of a team, not just a couple of individual linguists and translators. I just realized how often this is true of our presentation work here in Canada too! Without all the help from these other people at all stages of the programme, we could never pull it off.
The best part of the presentation was being able to talk with people, young and old, afterwards. It was neat to see how God had piqued their interest, revealed something they had not known or realized before (like how many languages still don’t have the Bible available to them), and or touched their hearts with a desire to know more or find a way to get involved.
Some of the most complimentary comments we received were from the pastor of a francophone Baptist church in Moncton. Originally from Cameroon, he appreciated the way we did not focus on the negative things in Africa. We showed how the Kusassi live without making it sound like they were poor and helpless. We also talked about how we are getting the Kusassi involved in the work we do, and what they are able to do as a result. But his reaction to the vendor and market skits was the best compliment of all: “That’s exactly the way they do it back in Africa! Watching and listening to you, I felt like I was right back at home in Cameroon!”
Well, that was just one of a number of goof-ups we made in pronunciation and grammar tonight. Fortunately, our situation is hopeless but not serious. From the feedback we got from people afterwards, it sure seems that God was able to use us to speak to them in spite of our mistakes. This is really His specialty, isn’t it? If we are willing to do what He asks, despite our limitations, He somehow seems to be able to use it to accomplish His will.
All in all, though, we had a great time. We had excellent help in preparations and set up, and in the takedown and clean up afterwards. A number of volunteers played roles as the Passport Canada officer, the Police at the entry to Burkina checkpoint, and as snack & drink vendors. The two guys playing the Police took their roles very seriously, questioning people as to their reasons for entering the country, and even frisking one man for concealed weapons, while detaining another for looking suspicious! Haha, the other people in line loved it! We also some good volunteers to take part in our various skits.
You know, it’s funny that in one of our skits, the “Support Workers” one, we emphasize that language development and Bible translation is the work of a team, not just a couple of individual linguists and translators. I just realized how often this is true of our presentation work here in Canada too! Without all the help from these other people at all stages of the programme, we could never pull it off.
The best part of the presentation was being able to talk with people, young and old, afterwards. It was neat to see how God had piqued their interest, revealed something they had not known or realized before (like how many languages still don’t have the Bible available to them), and or touched their hearts with a desire to know more or find a way to get involved.
Some of the most complimentary comments we received were from the pastor of a francophone Baptist church in Moncton. Originally from Cameroon, he appreciated the way we did not focus on the negative things in Africa. We showed how the Kusassi live without making it sound like they were poor and helpless. We also talked about how we are getting the Kusassi involved in the work we do, and what they are able to do as a result. But his reaction to the vendor and market skits was the best compliment of all: “That’s exactly the way they do it back in Africa! Watching and listening to you, I felt like I was right back at home in Cameroon!”
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Our First French Presentation
We spent much of today going over the material for our French presentation with Allison (who is bilingual), making sure that the French grammar & vocabulary used, especially on the PowerPoint slides, were correct. You know how it is when a pastor is preaching and putting the various points of his message up on PowerPoint, and suddenly you see a spelling or grammatical error? Something like that can be enough to throw you right off track from what he’s saying. And sometimes it's downright painful! (Or maybe it only affects us like that cuz we’re linguists :) Anyway, we figured that our mistakes in spoken French would be distracting enough. No use making people suffer any more than absolutely necessary, right?
Then we practiced the “Preaching Through An Interpreter” skit, with me playing the visiting pastor this time, and Allison playing the interpreter. But rather than doing both parts in English like we do for anglophone audiences, this time only I spoke in English while Allison interpreted (or more often misinterpreted!) what I said into French.
We ended up rewriting some parts of the script completely because many of the funny parts in the English version are based on plays on words that just don’t work when you try to translate them into French. But Allison and some friends came up with other possibilities that worked well in that language. Of course, there’s always the possibility that some of those who hear the skit will not understand all of the English part, but they’ll at least know that something is very wrong with what the interpreter is translating in French! Allison was afraid that after the skit, no one would ever ask her to translate anything into French again! Haha, don’t worry, Allison, I’m sure everyone knows you better than that! And they realize that we probably coerced into doing it :)
All this week, I’ve been asking people to pray that God would give us the spiritual gift of tongues for a few days, and that they would specify French as the language of choice! Well, our French was far from perfect, but most of the fifteen or so people that came from Allison’s church at least laughed at all the funny parts, so I guess we were able to communicate sufficiently clearly for that. But they also laughed at a few parts that weren’t supposed to be funny… Hmmm…
However, they were a great group and we told them that we appreciated them coming out to help us practice our French for an hour or so :) There’s more truth to that than I’m sure they realized because on Saturday evening, we’re doing an entire “Welcome to Ouagadougou!” event in French for a much larger group of people. Another first for us. And it’ll be twice as long as what we did tonight. May God have mercy on those poor people and bless us with an extra measure of that spiritual gift! :P
Then we practiced the “Preaching Through An Interpreter” skit, with me playing the visiting pastor this time, and Allison playing the interpreter. But rather than doing both parts in English like we do for anglophone audiences, this time only I spoke in English while Allison interpreted (or more often misinterpreted!) what I said into French.
We ended up rewriting some parts of the script completely because many of the funny parts in the English version are based on plays on words that just don’t work when you try to translate them into French. But Allison and some friends came up with other possibilities that worked well in that language. Of course, there’s always the possibility that some of those who hear the skit will not understand all of the English part, but they’ll at least know that something is very wrong with what the interpreter is translating in French! Allison was afraid that after the skit, no one would ever ask her to translate anything into French again! Haha, don’t worry, Allison, I’m sure everyone knows you better than that! And they realize that we probably coerced into doing it :)
All this week, I’ve been asking people to pray that God would give us the spiritual gift of tongues for a few days, and that they would specify French as the language of choice! Well, our French was far from perfect, but most of the fifteen or so people that came from Allison’s church at least laughed at all the funny parts, so I guess we were able to communicate sufficiently clearly for that. But they also laughed at a few parts that weren’t supposed to be funny… Hmmm…
However, they were a great group and we told them that we appreciated them coming out to help us practice our French for an hour or so :) There’s more truth to that than I’m sure they realized because on Saturday evening, we’re doing an entire “Welcome to Ouagadougou!” event in French for a much larger group of people. Another first for us. And it’ll be twice as long as what we did tonight. May God have mercy on those poor people and bless us with an extra measure of that spiritual gift! :P
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