Home Assignment in Australia

This lovely family is the Archers from Australia. They are friends of our from Tanzania, where they are still currently residing. They recently spent some time back in their home country on what their mission organization calls home assignment. (Some call this period "furlough" or "secondment return period.") I'm pretty sure if you're reading my blog, you have some idea of what home assignment is - lots of traveling around speaking at various churches and events, catching up with friends, family, and ministry partners, eating food you don't get to enjoy for another few years, and going to see doctors, dentists, and hair dressers so you look and feel decent for a little while, at least.

But just in case there are any readers out there who think home assignment equals lots of R&R, let me tell you what my friends the Archers recently tallied up: When they arrived back home in Tanzania, they had been away from their beds there for 221 nights. During those 221 nights, they had slept in 49 different beds! That's an average of 4.5 nights in one bed before changing to another for 7.5 months!

I'm not saying they didn't have a lot of fun and good times during those 222 days, but I know they were excited to get back home to their own beds in Tanzania, mosquito nets and all!

Little boy and his balls

Get thee behind me

I grew up reading the NIV, but for whatever reason, the phrase "Get thee behind me, Satan," from the King James Version stuck in my mind. Jesus had been talking about his death and resurrection, and Peter took him aside and told him to stop saying these things. The NIV's translation of Mark 8:33, says: "But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. 'Get behind me, Satan!' he said."

In one of the Swahili Bible translations (Habari Njema) and the Ikizu translation, however, the phrase is a little different: "Get out of in front of me." When I was checking this verse earlier today, I had to decide if it was accurate or not. What did Jesus mean when he said that to Peter? Did he actually want Satan to get behind him? No, of course not!

Jesus was telling Peter that his thoughts were from Satan. Peter was tempting Jesus to not follow God's plan, and Jesus was not going to have any of that! He used an idiom Peter would have understood to be quiet and rejoin the group. In Ikizu, the idiom that means that is "get out of in front of me." I deemed it to be a correct translation.

As an interesting side note in thinking about temptation, it seems that you can flee temptation, or you can tell temptation to flee you. Some modern English paraphrase probably has the phrase, "Get lost, Satan. Out of my face!"

Little Judas

Jude. It's a great name! It's been pretty popular lately, being in the top 200 for US boys for the past several years. It's delightfully short, easy to pronounce, easy to spell, and comes from the Bible. Judas was one of Jesus' brothers (biological son of Joseph and Mary - a "real" brother).

Wait - Judas?! Yes indeed, our dear friend Jude is actually Judas. Not Judas Iscariot, but Judas nonetheless. It was a popular name back then, too, thanks to the Hebrew forefather, Judah. In the Greek New Testament, there is no Jude or Judah, just Judas. In English, we like to have the good Judas distinguished from the bad Judas, so the former goes by his nickname.

Oh, if you're interested in the stats, Judas is ranked in about 5,000th place for popularity.

Happy boy

Jerod is now 14 months old, and he is one happy little boy. This fellow thinks every day is a great day! Here he is, having a good laugh just because, well, why not laugh?

Hakuna Matata

So, do you think the idea of learning another language is rather overwhelming? Are you impressed by the fact I know Swahili? Well, guess what, you probably know some Swahili too.

Do you recognize the above picture? Is the song "Hakuna Matata" playing in your head already? If you need a little refresher, here are some of the ever-so-catchy lyrics:

Hakuna Matata! What a wonderful phrase

Hakuna Matata! Ain't no passing craze

It means no worries for the rest of your days

It's our problem-free philosophy

Hakuna Matata!

Now that you're doomed to have that stuck in your head for the rest of the day (assuming you were born sometime in the 80s and watched the movie as a child, that is, for others it might be only somewhat familiar), let me show you what I just saw while checking 2 John:

This is a partial screenshot of a note I made in the wee epistle of 2 John and the Tanzanian translator's response to my question. Notice his words? Just when you thought Swahili was something you'd never even attempt to learn, here you are, discovering you already speak it!

And that's not all! How about these words: safari, simba, and kompyuta? They are honest-to-goodness the real deal Swahili, meaning trip, lion, and, you guessed it, computer. Cool, eh? You're practically bilingual, and you didn't even know it!

Now, how about this one? Wazungu wanapojaribu kujifunza lugha nyingine wanajionyesha kuwa ...

Okay, maybe you're not quite there just yet. :-)

I hereby grant you permission to speak by ...

Acts 24:10 starts off with a pretty basic phrase. It certainly did not appear to be difficult to translate. Take a look in a few different translations:

NLT: The governor then motioned for Paul to speak.
ESV: And when the governor had nodded to him to speak...
Swahili Union Version (my English translation of it): And when the governor waved his hand for him to speak...

In this little opening there are no theological words here, no out-of-chronological-order sentences to restructure, and nothing at all that should take more than a minute to translate into Zanaki, really. However, it took us a little while and quite a few questions to make this verse sound good in Zanaki, believe it or not.

The Zanaki translators had followed the Swahili translation that says the governor waved his hand to show Paul that he was to speak. I asked if when there is a roomful of Zanaki people, if the person in charge would wave his hand to someone as a "You there, your turn now to talk," gesture. The translators said that yes, if he did this, it would be understood. Our goal, however, is not just that it would be understood, but that it would be natural and clear. What would a Zanaki chief do to tell someone to speak up and say his piece? After some more pretend scenarios and discussion, finally one of them said that it would be his finger, not his whole hand. Whew!

So we ended up with this translation:
At that time the governor showed Paul with finger so that he should speak.

It might sound strange when translated literally into English, but it is great in Zanaki!