April Prayer Letter

Dear Prayer Supporters,

Greetings from Indiana in the USA! Thank you to everyone who prayed for me as I traveled here from Africa to begin my first furlough. I have been in the States for just over a month now, and I’ve been thankful for the time I’ve had to rest and readjust to life in America. In a couple more weeks it will be time to hit the road to report to my supporting churches. I have a nearly full schedule from May to October, so I appreciate your prayers for travel safety as well as for good times of fellowship with my supporters.

Translation Progress Update

In late February and early March, just before I left the field, I met again with the Sara Kaba Deme translators to check more portions of their Old Testament. We made good progress, finishing the remaining portion of Isaiah as well as the books of Hosea, Joel, and Obadiah. The translation work is not fast and requires much patience from everyone, but the translator seems to be making steady progress in preparing the first draft of the book of Ezekiel. Following that, he only has three books left to translate: Ecclesiastes, Daniel and Job. All of these books are quite difficult to translate, so pray that the Lord will give him wisdom. Due to my furlough and other factors, for the rest of this year the translation teams will not have as many checking sessions with the consultants as they usually do. Pray that they will not become discouraged or distracted, but that they will continue working faithfully until we can (Lord willing) resume a more normal workshop schedule in 2017.

Changes for Dr Joy Hart

My missionary coworker, Dr Joy Hart, has served faithfully in Chad as a missionary doctor for 14 years. In the past several months, after very much prayer and seeking of the Lord’s will, she has determined that the door to effective medical ministry in Chad is closing for the time being. She has left Chad and will be seeking a new ministry wherever the Lord should lead her. Please pray for her during this time of transition in her life.

Furlough Travels

My furlough travels will begin in the second week of May. Here is a rough outline of my travel plans from May through October:

• May to early June: Visiting churches in the New England states
• June: Visiting churches and relatives in New York State and Pennsylvania
• July 4-8: Baptist Mid-Missions Annual Conference in Cleveland, Ohio
• Late July to early August: Visiting churches in Ohio and Indiana
• August 9-19: Bibles International consultant seminar and staff retreat in Grand Rapids, Michigan
• Late August through September: Visiting churches in Illinois
• October: Visiting churches in Iowa

Thank you for your faithful prayers and support.

In Christ's Service,
Anna Beth Wivell

Workshop Notes: Isaiah in Sara Kaba Deme

Today I am looking through my notes from a translation checking workshop back in January, when we checked the first 43 chapters of Isaiah in the Sara Kaba Deme language.  For those of you who are interested in the details of translation work, here are some extracts of several problems we encountered as we edited this portion of the Deme translation.

MISUNDERSTANDING: Isaiah 1:8 "besieged city"

The word "besieged" is often confusing for the Chadian translators.  The word for "besiege" in French is assiéger which some translators confuse with siéger which means "to be headquartered".  As a result, the word often gets translated as though the army had already conquered and invaded the city, not sitting outside the gates attacking it.  Whenever I see this word, I have to be careful to check it to make sure the translators have understood and translated it correctly.

WRONG IMPLICATION: Isaiah 1:11 "I am full of the burnt offerings"

When translating the word "full" in the first draft of the Deme translation, they had used a word which has a positive implication, like when a person is comfortable and happy after a good meal.  But in the context of the passage, when the Lord says "I am full", it is in a negative sense: He has had enough of their hypocritical offerings and can't stand to have any more.  Therefore the translators changed to a word that has a less positive implication, like when a husband doesn't like the meal his wife cooked and doesn't want to eat any more of it.

UNNATURAL OR UNCLEAR WORDING: Isaiah 13:18 "the fruit of the womb"

The Hebrew idiom "fruit of the womb" was difficult to translate in Deme.  First they tried a very literal translation:

kana ngi ka tei 'j keme deɓee
fruit which goes out of the bellies of people

This was both unnatural and unclear in Deme.  They do not refer to offspring as fruit in this metaphorical way, so it wouldn't make very good sense to the readers.  However, they can use the word harvest as a metaphor.  Since a harvest is collecting fruit, it seemed like a good solution.

However, when we made the necessary change, we encountered another problem.  The expression for harvest in Deme is literally "gathering harvest people", and the word for "womb" was translated "belly of a person" so that the translation then looked like this:

 kam kōho deɓee ngi k tei 'j keme m deɓee
gathering harvest people which comes out of the bellies of people

To repeat the word "deɓee" (people) twice sounded awkward and unnatural in Deme.  So instead they translated womb as "belly of a woman".  This worked well and sounded smooth and natural in Deme.  So the corrected translation after our work looked like this:

kam kōho deɓee ngi k tei 'j keme m mandaá
gathering harvest people which comes out of the bellies of women

 It may not be good English, but it is good, clear Sara Kaba Deme!

 AMBIGUOUS PRONOUN: Isaiah 14:25: "then shall his yoke depart from off them"

In the context, it is pretty clear that "them" is referring to Israel, but in Deme this wasn't clear until they replaced the pronoun with the antecedent: "then shall his yoke depart from off Israel".  We often make this kind of clarification for pronouns (as long as antecedent is indeed clear in the context).  It is not removing or adding anything to the biblical text; simply translating it in a way that will be just as clear to the Deme readers as it was to the original Hebrew readers.

UNFAMILIAR OBJECT: Isaiah 38:8 "sundial of Ahaz"

There are several ways to handle translating unfamiliar words.  In Deme, the method we use the most often is to use a compound word or short descriptive phrase.  But it is sometimes difficult to find a phrase that is really clear.  The word "sundial" was hard, but finally the translators decided to say "thing to measure time".

Back in America

Thank you for praying for my travel to the US to begin my first furlough.  I arrived safely at my parents' home in Indiana on March 19 after an uneventful trip.  The Lord has provided a car and I hope to get a phone soon too. 

I do not start reporting to supporting churches until May, so I have a while to rest, spend time with my parents, and most importantly, to spend time with the Lord, hopefully with fewer distractions than in Chad.  Please pray that these next few weeks, and the entire furlough time, will be profitable.

Translating Seasons

I have found that translating words for seasons of the year can be quite confusing in Chad.  Chadian seasons don’t line up the same as Middle Eastern seasons at all.  So for example, in Israel, July is in the summer, which is the dryest season.  January is in the winter, which is the rainy season.  Even though Chad has two seasons and not four, Chadians would also think of July as being in the “summer” and January in the “winter”.  So far, so good.  But then comes a catch.  In Chad, July/summer is in the rainy season, but January/winter is the middle of the dry season!  The times of the year for planting and harvesting are also different in Chad than in Israel.

This makes it quite confusing to translate when the Bible starts talking about harvest and planting and rain and heat and cold.  If we aren’t careful, the translation can actually end up unintentionally saying the exact opposite of what the Hebrew text says.  It gets so confusing at times that as we check the translation, we often have to refer to a chart that shows how the seasons and planting/harvest times in the Middle East line up with the months of the year.  We often have to discuss it quite a bit before we can decide how to translate the biblical term in a way that accurately reflects what the text is saying.  I will give a couple of examples.

Summer

We have to be very careful when translating the word "summer".  You might think that it would be enough to say something like “hot season” but this doesn’t always work in the context of the passage.  

In Israel, summer includes three events that happen during the same time of year: the hot season, the harvest, and the dry season.  But in Chad, these things don’t happen at the same time of the year: the harvest is at the end of the rainy season, and the hot season is in the latter half of the long dry season. So there are words for hot season, harvest, and dry season, but nothing that means all three.  This means we have to be careful what we are saying when we translate the word “summer”.

For example, when it says in the book of Proverbs that "he who gathers in summer is a wise son" there it means summer as the harvest time.  In Chadian languages, if we said “he who gathers in the hot season” this would mean the very hot, very dry season in Chad, when the fields are producing nothing.  It would completely omit the point of the verse, which is saying that a person should work diligently to gather his food during harvest time, while the fields are producing abundant food.  So instead the Chadian languages have to say “he who gathers in the harvest time”.

So we can’t always translate “summer” in the same way.  We actually have to use three different expressions, depending on the context: hot season, or dry season, or harvest time. Each time we see the word "summer", we have to decide which of our three terms we need to use ... otherwise the translation will say quite the wrong thing!

Latter Rain

Recently I have been preparing to check the translation of the book of Hosea for one Chadian language.  Hosea 6:3 mentions the “latter rain” which is translated in the most popular French version as “spring rain” - a perfectly accurate translation in French, since the Hebrew word is referring to the last rain of the Middle Eastern spring in March-May.  The translators, seeing “spring rain” in the French, quite logically connected it with the light April-May rain we usually get in Chad.  The only problem is that in Chad this is the FIRST rain of the year, not the last rain.  So “latter rain” was translated “first rain”.  Hmm, it’s a good thing I have that chart of the seasons of the year in Israel: It looks like we are going to need it yet again!

February Prayer Letter

Dear Prayer Supporters,

“For thus saith the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel; In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength…” (Isaiah 30:15) God spoke these words to the people of Judah, who were trusting in political alliances and military strength for protection against their enemies. Sometimes in the weakness of our flesh, it is easy to forget that our real security comes in depending on the Lord. Whether in trial and turmoil, or in peace and comfort, He alone is our hope and our strength!

Translation Work

In December and January I met with the Sara Kaba Naa and Sara Kaba Deme teams, both times to check portions of the book of Isaiah. We made good progress, and the translation teams expect to be ready to check some of the other prophetic books soon.

Some of you have asked about the Scripture portions that went missing from the Sara Kaba Deme Old Testament due to a computer virus. So far, there has been no sign of them, and we here in Chad have done all we know to retrieve them. The translator has begun re-translating some of the missing chapters, when he has time amidst his other work. This may seem a bit discouraging. However, the office computers had suffered from the virus for quite a long time before the problem was finally corrected, so we are thankful that no more work was lost.

Churches of Chad

In my last letter, I asked you to pray about the spiritual condition of the Chadian churches. In January, the Baptist church association met for its annual conference. We were glad to see that the church leadership spoke out against the doctrinal errors that have infiltrated some of our churches, and invited special guest speakers to give biblical teaching on the subject. However, so far there still seems to be little concrete action to correct the issues. Please keep praying, as these false teachings have shown themselves to be very damaging to the spiritual lives and testimonies of the believers within the churches. Pray that those who attended the conference will take to heart the good teaching that was given, and that they will take a strong stand for the truth.

Transitions

Since my last letter, several key administrative positions at the BMM Home Office and the BI headquarters have changed, including the mission president, the mission administrator for the Africa/Europe region, and the BI director. All of these individuals had served in their positions for many years, so these changes mean significant transitions for everyone involved. So far, operations seem to be running smoothly, but please pray for all of us at BMM and BI as we adjust to these changes.

Furlough Preparation

It’s hard to believe, it will soon be time to head back to the States for my first furlough! I will fly out of Chad on March 18, and will be on furlough for nine months. Please pray for me as I continue to make preparations for my departure. I look forward to seeing many of you during my time in the US!

In Christ's Service,
Anna Beth Wivell

November Prayer Letter

Note: The letter below was actually written at the end of November, but never got posted to this blog.  Sorry about the lateness of this post!  But here it is now, anyway.

Dear Prayer Supporters,

“The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.” (Isa. 40:8) It is the early dry season in Chad, and the green grass of the rainy season is fast withering to a dusty yellow. What a comfort it is to know that God’s Word never withers, that it is always true and unchanging even in an uncertain and ever-changing world!

Update on Mali Trip

When I last wrote, I was preparing to travel to Mali to conduct a workshop for the Songhay New Testament. My paperwork for that trip finally came through at the last minute, and though I had a little trouble getting through customs, everything was eventually sorted out, and the rest of the trip went pretty smoothly. I enjoyed working with the translators and missionaries, and we were able to make decent progress in checking the list of key Greek words. Please pray for the Songhay team as they continue making preparations to print their New Testament.

Other Work

In October, I met with the Sara Kaba Deme to check more portions of their Old Testament translation. We finished checking the book of Proverbs, and also checked portions of Psalms and Isaiah. We are thankful for the progress that is being made. However, over 50 chapters of the already translated portions of the Deme Old Testament have gone missing from the office computers (perhaps a result of computer viruses), and the hard copies have been destroyed by vermin. Please pray that these portions would be found somehow, or if not, that the Lord will give the Deme translators and committee grace to re-translate them.

In November, we had the joy of celebrating with the Rito people in the dedication of their New Testament, finally printed and ready for distribution, after many years of hard work. Praise the Lord with us for this blessing, and please pray that the Rito people will read and value the Scriptures in their language.

Pray for the Chadian Churches

Although the Bible translation work is moving along reasonably well overall, the churches that sustain them are facing a spiritual battle. Spiritual weakness among some of the church leadership has allowed false doctrine and unbiblical practices to infiltrate some of the Chadian Baptist churches. The Baptist association leadership has taken some measures toward correcting the problems, but not yet enough to resolve them. Clearly, Satan does not want the ministry here to move forward, and is doing everything in his power to hinder it. Please pray that the Chadian believers and church leaders will have the courage and faith to take a firm stand for the truth of God’s Word, and that they will desire God’s glory above all else. Pray that the Lord will work in people’s hearts so that they will be receptive to Him. Please pray also for me, that I will trust in the Lord to work as He chooses.

In Christ's Service,
Anna Beth Wivell

Update on August Prayer Letter

In my prayer letter, I asked prayer for the paperwork for my trip to Mali.  I'm glad to report that I received a message late yesterday afternoon that the paperwork had indeed come in.  Tomorrow (Wednesday) I leave Balimba for the capital of Chad, N'Djamena.  I am scheduled to fly to Bamako, the capital of Mali, on Saturday.

Thanks for praying!

Now it's time to pack!