Kamgegi Community Check

The following account was written in Swahili by Willy Futakamba, and I translated and edited it. It was in one of our newsletters quite some time ago, and I came across it again recently when looking for something else in my computer. I was reminded of what a great story it was, and thought I'd feature it here.

This picture of me, Pastor Futakamba, and Shem was taken right around the time this story took place in 2010

My co-translator, Shem Koren, and I (Pastor Willy Futakamba) were at Kamgegi village to do a community check. A group of 16 people were there to listen and give feedback on some chapters of Luke we had translated. When we were reading Luke chapters 13 and 17, everyone listened really quietly. In fact, they were so quiet that we asked them if something was wrong! They said that nothing was wrong; they were simply enjoying listening to the sweet words of our translation.

There was one woman there who had been sitting and listening the whole time as we read and asked questions about the translation.  She hadn’t said a word through it all. After we had read several chapters, we asked her to share her thoughts. She said, “When you read Luke 13:1-5 and Luke 17:1-4, I saw that Jesus is able to forgive even if you have sinned exceedingly much. I myself have many problems and sins, but I had not ever heard that Jesus is able to forgive so much!”

She left the meeting at that point, but returned at the end of the day. She had been crying, and we asked her why. 

In return, she asked us, “What denomination are you?’

To answer this, we asked her another question, “Why do you want to know our denomination?”

She said, “I want to know your denomination so that I might go to that church and once again hear these good words which I heard today in my own language, Zanaki.”

We didn’t tell her about our church background or denominations, but instead urged her to talk with the one local Christian pastor in that village, saying that denomination didn’t matter, all are Christians. We then went with her to this pastor’s house and spoke with him, asking him to help this woman with spiritual matters, so that she might know Jesus and be healed. The pastor knew the woman, who was one of his neighbors, and knew her to be a drunk. We explained to him what she had told us, and then we all prayed together. As we left, the pastor asked if he might keep a copy of the translated Zanaki chapters from Luke, so that he could use them when talking more with the woman about Jesus.

(Me again) And that, my friends, is why I love being part of Bible translation! It's not about producing books; it's about lives being changed when they hear the words inside of the books! Would you pray for this woman, whose name I don't even know? Pray that now, several years after this experience, she would continue to seek Jesus and know his love and forgiveness in her life.