Biblical Swahili

This morning at church I (Misha) was asked to read the Old Testament reading. Half of a chapter of Zephaniah in tricky biblical Swahili in front of an audience?  Gulp!  I agreed to do it, but quickly opened my Swahili Bible to read through the passage on my own first.

I didn't recognize one of the words, so asked the man sitting next to me what it meant.  He was a recently-retired economist, and I had already determined while talking with him before the service that he, without a doubt, was one of the most educated Tanzanians I've met.  He studied the word and the verse, but in the end shrugged and said he didn't know.  He told me, "The Swahili of the Bible is very difficult," in an effort to reassure me it was okay that I didn't know it and to explain why he didn't, either.  While I was slightly comforted that my Swahili wasn't too bad, I was also saddened.  If this well-educated man had no idea what a word in Zephaniah meant, what hope did all the other people attempting to read the Swahili Bible have?  I was once again reminded of the great need for Bible translation.

I managed to get through the whole thing without a major stumble.  When I finished, I was so relieved that practically bolted back to my seat.  The next person to stand up at the front then said, "This is the Word of the Lord," and everyone responded, "Thanks be to God."  Oops.  I guess I forgot that little closing line from the liturgy...  In my defense, the only time in my life when I regularly attended a church which used liturgy of any sort was when I was at Hope College and went to Hope Church, which is in the Reformed Church in America denomination.  Since they used English at Hope Church, not Swahili, my liturgical experience for four years doesn't always come in very handy here for remembering what I'm supposed to say!

Church Plant

The Anglican church is one of the larger denominations in Musoma and they recently (like, three weeks ago) launched a small church plant in our area of town.  I (Misha) am quite supportive of their efforts, since I think there is a definite need for another church here.  They are meeting under a little group of trees at a crossroads near the market, so people are constantly passing by and can't help but hear a bit of the service.  Most listen for a minute and then move on, but some the kids hang out for a while longer to see if there is anything interesting happening.

I once heard a statistic that said something like half the population of Tanzania is under age 16.  There are kids everywhere!  This morning the Compassion Children's Choir came and sang at our service, so that was about 20 kids.  (Yes, that is Compassion as in Compassion International - all the kids in the choir live in particularly difficult circumstances and are sponsored by people overseas.)  The people attending the service brought their kids with them, so that added about 6.  Several groups of neighborhood kids congregated nearby to listen to the children's choir, which made about 10 more.  One group of siblings was bold enough to come sit under the trees during the service, which added 5 more.  So for the 9 adults at the service today, there were about 41 kids!  There was no Sunday School, no chairs for the kids, no memory verse game, no Bible story pictures to color, no children's message, just a straightforward Anglican church service aimed at adults.

I am not personally interested in starting up a major children's evangelism project, but it seems like the perfect opportunity to reach out to the kids in that area of town.  A few kids stayed to watch and listen, but most kept on walking.  If there were some sort of fun kid's program that welcomed all and any to join, there could be over a hundred kids there each week, I have no doubt.  I hope the Tanzanians in the church plant see this opportunity and do something about it!  Or perhaps one of you reading this might be interested...

Food!

I once heard a missionary who had lived in East Africa for years say, "When you get to the point where over 80% of your conversations are about food, it is time for a trip to your home country."  Well, Andrew and I are nearing the point of going back for a few months (we'll be in the States from July 2012 to January 2013), and I think we're also very close to that 80% mark!  Because we're starting to find it difficult to think about much else, this blog post is dedicated to the foods we miss the most and just cannot wait to eat when we get back to North America!

Pad Thai

 We both LOVE Thai food.  Want me to say that again?  We LOVE LOVE LOVE Thai food!

Steak

 Andrew in particular is really craving some good steak.  We both miss quality meats, but Misha might be more inclined to miss things like plump boneless skinless chicken breasts.  We can get beef here, but it's not exactly the quality of the cut in the picture above!

Salmon

Good seafood comes next on the list. Salmon, halibut, and all sorts of great fish that aren't available here are another thing we miss and can't wait to get our teeth into.  We can get great tilapia here, but we're lacking in the ocean-going sorts of fish and seafood.

Spinach salad

 Fresh vegetables of a greater variety are high on our list, too.  Baby spinach in a salad... yummy!  It's not like we don't have vegetables here, but the variety is minimal and most of them do better cooked than raw.

Strawberries!

And last but very, very far from least, BERRIES!  Blackberries, marionberries (especially in cobbler...), strawberries, raspberries, blueberries...  We love other kinds of fruits we can't get here, too, like peaches and big Washington apples.

I think I need to stop now before I start thinking about yogurt, cereal, ice cream...  It's too late!  I don't think I can stop!

Good stories

After completing the initial draft of the book of Ruth, Mussa, one of the Ikoma translators, went out to a village to read it aloud to see what the community thought it.  He had called ahead and asked a man he knew who lived in that village to prepare a group of ten people to be ready to listen and provide feedback on the translation.  But when he arrived, a significantly larger group, comprised of some Christians and some non-Christians, was waiting, curious and eager to take part!

After reading two chapters of Ruth, several of the non-Christians in the group spoke up.  They said, "This is such a good story!  We didn't know the Bible had good stories in it!"

Mussa answered that the Bible had many excellent stories in it, and that someday many of the stories will be translated into the Ikoma language, so they can read them all they like in their mother tongue.  He had not planned on doing evangelism when he went out to the village to test the Ruth translation, but perhaps a few small seeds of interest were planted that day.

Music in Tanzania

Music is a huge part of everyday life in Tanzania.  But, it might sound a bit different than what you would expect if you've seen movies of Africa with traditional African music in them.  It has definitely evolved over the years, as Western influence and availability of electricity have changed things.

Music is also becoming more and more a part of our work, as we look at ways to promote mother tongue literacy and creative, meaningul use of Scripture.  In an effort to share some glimpses of what music is like around Musoma, we've put three different video clips on YouTube.  Click on the links below to check them out!

http://youtu.be/OzbqiLB3JwQ

This is from a public event we went to on a Sunday afternoon in 2010.  Approximately ten different choirs, some of which had traveled from out of town, performed different songs with energetic dance steps.

 http://youtu.be/9cQzxJh3XyY

 We had a series of literacy workshops at the office in 2011, working with eight different language groups.  During one series, some of groups wrote songs based from Luke and performed them on the last day of the week-long workshop.  This is the Jita group performing a song based on Luke 24.

 http://youtu.be/gxsW3IcGvQQ

This choir performed several songs at the Zanaki Luke dedication in early December.  They were a huge hit with their creative songs, many of which were in Zanaki.  Since the dedication, they have been traveling to different churches to perform and are also hoping to make a recording soon.

 

This is the song book which is used in many Tanzanian churches.  All of the songs are in Swahili, and you might notice that most of the songs are translated from Western hymns.  Some have retained the original melody, and others are quite different.  You rarely see one of these books in good condition because they're used a lot!  Just in the last few weeks we've taken some initial steps to hopefully develop some similar songbooks in the Ikoma language.

First copy sold

Praying for the books at the dedication

The pastor whom the story below is about

This is a story I (Misha) wrote following the December 2 dedication of Luke in the Zanaki language:

On a day that was alternately hot and sunny and pouring rain, a dedication event for the gospel of Luke in the Zanaki language took place.  The dedication was held in the village of Butiama, which is the hometown of the first president of Tanzania, Julius Nyerere.  Perhaps in part because of Nyerere and the fact he was a Zanaki and a national hero, Zanaki people are proud of their language and culture.

The special guest speaker at the dedication was in the family line of the area chief and the top person in his denomination for all of East Africa, so was a very important local figure.  He was the one honored with task of cutting the ribbon and opening the box of Luke books.  After he opened the box and another pastor prayed a blessing over them, the next part of the ceremony was one of the translators reading a passage from Luke aloud.  When it was announced which passage would be the one read aloud, he grabbed a copy of Luke from the top of the box he had just opened and turned to the passage.  While the translator was reading aloud, he followed along with his finger on the page, listening carefully and reading it himself.  He was fluent in Swahili and could read it, but had never been taught how to read in his mother tongue.  But with the help of hearing it read aloud while looking at the words, he was able to understand the writing system used and figure it out.

Soon after this, the sales table opened and people eagerly came up to purchase copies.  The box which had been blessed and dedicated needed to be moved from the table at which the special guest was sitting to the sales table.  When someone came up to collect the box, he refused to return the copy he had taken to read, instead placing money to purchase his copy in the box, becoming the first person to ever purchase a copy of Luke in the Zanaki language.

Flowers

The work that God accomplishes in our yard is much more impressive than what we accomplish on our own!