How to Give to the Shepherd's Bag

We have a separate fund set aside for The Shepherd’s Bag book ministry. This ministry has helped dozens of pastors and Bible school students to acquire books for their ministries and studies. If you would like to help, you can mail your check marked for Chad Shepherd’s Bag to Baptist Mid-Missions, PO Box 308011, Cleveland, OH 44130-8011.

If you would prefer to give online, you can follow this link: https://www.bmm.org/give/give-to-an-unlisted-missionary. In the box marked “missionary or project designation”, write “Chad Shepherd’s Bag”. Fill out the rest of the information as desired and click “give now”.

Can You Donate a Used Computer to a Seminary Student?

The students in our new masters’ degree program will need computers in order to write their research papers and send them via email to their professors. Of the nine master’s degree students, six do not own computers. Would you be willing to donate a used (but functioning) computer to a seminary or Bible college student?

Obviously, a computer cannot be mailed to Chad, but we have guests who visit us several times a year, and they are usually able to bring important items with them. If you have a computer you would be willing to donate, please let me know and we will find out who would be the next person from the US available to bring it with them.

November 2023 Prayer Letter

November 2023

Dear Prayer Supporters,

In my last prayer letter, I wrote from Australia where I was enjoying a short furlough. I'm now back in Chad, and I'm as busy as ever! Thank you for praying and for your support and encouragement!

Furlough in Australia

I successfully completed my short furlough in Australia at the end of August. God blessed my furlough abundantly. I originally planned to visit four supporting churches. I ended up visiting seven churches and speaking at three ladies' meetings. In each place, I was overwhelmed by the generosity of God's people and encouraged by the warm welcome I received. I returned from my short furlough feeling refreshed and encouraged – which was good, since as soon as I got back to my home in the village of Balimba, I hit the ground running!

Bible Translation

As I write, two Bible translation projects (the Sara Madjingay and Sara Kaba Dem) have reached a crucial stage. Both teams are in the process finishing the last of their quality checks – the series of rigorous tests which each Bible project undergoes near the end of the translation process. We are cleaning up some final issues and doing our best to find any mistakes we might still have missed. Once everyone is satisfied, the teams must read through the entire Bible from cover to cover, which is a huge task, as you might imagine! After that, the text will be formatted in preparation for printing. Please pray for me and for these two translation teams as we finish these crucial tasks.

As these two teams draw near to printing, there will be a need for funds to print these Bibles. The need is especially great for the Sara Kaba Dem Bible. $86,000 is still needed to be able to print this Bible. If you are able to contribute to this need, you may go to our website, www.biblesint.org, and click the “GIVE” button to designate your gifts. Choose “BI Languages” (under "Fund") and then scroll to the “Sara Kaba Dem Project" (under "Sub Fund").

In early November, we had a special guest: the manager of Bibles International's new Scripture Engagement Department. This department's goal is to help people to use God's Word as He intends us to. We don't only want people to have the Bible in their language; we also want them to use it effectively! We are really excited about what God will do through the Scripture Engagement ministry! Praise the Lord for an encouraging start and pray for God's continued blessing on this ministry.

Support Update

On advice from Baptist Mid-Missions' financial department, I have recently updated the estimate of my monthly support needs, in order to keep up with inflation. The new estimate indicates I am in need of about $437 per month additional support in order to cover all my regular financial needs. Thank you for praying about this need.

Thank you for your faithful prayers and support.

In Christ's Service,
Anna Beth Wivell

August 2023 Prayer Letter

August 2023

Dear Prayer Supporters,

G’day from Australia! I’m about half-way through my two-month furlough to the country of my birth. The last couple months have been busy as ever, with plenty going on in two different continents: Australia and Africa!

June Guests

In June, I welcomed three American guests into my home – three single ladies who are serving the Lord. One has been the director of Bibles International’s linguistics department for some years. Another is a new B.I. coworker who has recently begun raising support to become a full-time translation consultant with B.I. The third is a student at Bob Jones University who had the opportunity to do her internship in Chad. Between the three of them, they helped analyze linguistic data for the Sara Kaba Naa and Ngamh languages, and assisted in translation workshops for the Sara Kaba Dem and Ngamh Bibles.

Why is it important to analyze linguistic data? Some of the information gleaned in these linguistic workshops is crucial in helping the nationals to write their own language consistently and correctly. For example, would you write the following compound words or phrases as one word, two words separated by a space, or two words separated by a hyphen? Healthcare, health care, or health-care? Jetlag, jet lag, or jet-lag? Levelheaded, level headed, or level-headed? Nonprofit, non profit, or non-profit? Even in English, we could probably argue about which of these is correct! But what do you do when you are writing a compound word or phrase for the first time ever in a language, and you have to decide where to put the spaces and hyphens? Without some objective, straightforward rules, you can end up with three or more different ways to write each compound word! This was exactly the case with the Sara Kaba Naa language: their language contains many compound words and phrases, and they didn’t always agree about where to put the spaces. With the help of our guests, they now have some specific rules that will help them to be more consistent in writing their own language.

Bread of Life Christian Bookstore

By God’s grace, the bookstore building was completed and had its opening day shortly before I left Chad for my short furlough. I was glad to turn over some aspects of the book ministry to my Chadian partners, especially the book sales. I will continue to help with finances, ordering books, and with the Shepherd’s Bag ministry which assists pastors and Bible college students to buy the books they need for their ministries. Pray for this ministry as it continues to grow.

July Travels

As the month of June drew to a close, I flew from Chad to Melbourne, Australia, for a two-month furlough. In the past four weeks, I have taken time off for sightseeing, visited three supporting churches, and studied for the Greek and Hebrew classes that I will be teaching in Chad this next school year. In the month of August, I will visit three more supporting churches, speak at two ladies’ meetings, continue my class preparation, and finally return to Chad at the end of August. It’s been a great visit so far, but I will be glad to get back to the ministry in Chad. Thank you for praying for me during this short furlough!

Thank you for your faithful prayers and support.

In Christ's Service,
Anna Beth Wivell

June 2023 prayer letter

Dear Prayer Supporters,

“Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof.” (Eccl. 7:8) These past few months have seen several important ministry projects drawing near a conclusion! Two Bible translation projects are approaching the final stages, the bookstore project is nearly finished, and five men have just finished their studies and graduated from the theological school. We continue to look forward to what God will do through these ministries.

Bible Translation

Two of the Bible translation projects I work with, the Sara Kaba Dem and Sara Madjingay, are getting close enough to the end of the translation process that we are seeing the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. Among our remaining tasks are finishing a topical index and a glossary for each project, finishing spelling checks, and some general “clean-up” tasks. After these tasks are finished, the language committees will read through the entire Bible to check that they are satisfied with everything. The next step after that will be to send it to the page formatter to prepare it for printing! Please keep praying for us, as these final stages are critical, and although it is exciting to be nearing the end of these projects at last, the translation teams are all tired after so many years of hard work. Pray that they will not become discouraged.

Bread of Life Christian Bookstore

We are also getting close to finishing this project! The bookstore building itself is finished, but we are still building proper housing for the bookstore manager. This should be finished by July, so it shouldn’t be long before the bookstore can be opened for business! The book ministry has definitely outgrown my house (I have boxes of books in nearly every room of my house!), so I’m looking forward to seeing the ministry be able to grow and reach more people. Thank you for your continued prayers for this ministry.

Bible School

On May 20, we completed another school year with the graduation of five students from the theological school of Balimba. We will miss them here in Balimba, but we look forward to seeing God use them in ministry in the years to come. Please pray for these young men as they begin their ministries.

New Guests

As I write, I am hosting three American guests: one is an experienced linguistics consultant from Bibles International, one is a new translation consultant who is still in training, and the third is an intern. Please pray for their ministries while they are here in Chad, and for God’s leading in the future ministries of the new consultant and the intern.

Thank you for your faithful prayers and support.

In Christ's Service,
Anna Beth Wivell

A Scorpion at School

​It started at around 6:30am, when I was getting my stuff together to head off for a busy work day. I planned to teach Hebrew to nine theological school students from 7am to 9am, then go straight to the translation center to work on parallel passages checks with the translators of the Sara Kaba Dem Bible until 5pm. This schedule always made for a long work day, but it was work I enjoyed and wanted to do, so I was looking forward to it. 

As I gathered my things, I suddenly remembered that the previous class session, I had misplaced one of my class notebooks at home. I looked around and located the missing notebook, and shoved it into my school backpack with the others. Unknown to me, there was a stowaway in that bag: a scorpion had somehow found his way inside, at some point when my backpack was sitting around not properly zipped up. When I shoved the notebook into the backpack, I disturbed him and he crawled up higher and hung out near the zipper. It was a disaster waiting to happen. 

About ten minutes later, I arrived at school. Good: none of the students had arrived yet. I always liked to be early when I could, even though most Chadian professors typically arrive at the last minute, after the students are already there. But I’ve always been an early bird, and anyway I like a little extra time to get my class material together and look over my notes, so I tend to come early. 

I unzipped my backpack and reached for my class notebooks. I didn’t even get my hand in far enough to pull out the notebooks when I felt something like a pinprick at the tip of my right ring finger. Yeouch! What was that? I couldn’t see anything there. Was there a pin stuck near the zipper that poked me? But that didn’t make sense. Why would there be a pin in my backpack? I had never even put so much as a safety pin in that backpack. 

And now I could feel a burning, tingling sensation in my finger. It must have been some kind of insect… an ant? There are large stinging ants in Chad, rather like the Bulldog Ants we had in Australia; I’ve been stung by these Chadian ants before. But their stings hurt for a few minutes and then subside quickly. This pain was getting worse by the minute - it was already far worse than any ant sting I’d experienced. My finger was already starting to swell and turn red. I began to think it must have been a scorpion: nothing else I could think of in Chad would be this painful, except maybe a large centipede or snake, which are big enough that I would surely have noticed them. 

By now I was pacing the room, shaking my hand up and down as though to shake off the pain. I pulled out my small water bottle, fresh from the freezer (cold but not frozen), and stuck my finger in it to try to reduce the burning sensation. Not the most hygienic thing to do maybe, but I was starting to feel desperate from the pain. This cooled my finger a little, but didn’t really help much. 

Now the first of the nine Hebrew students showed up: Sody. A little fellow just over five feet tall and about 110 pounds, unusually small for a man in a country where most men are over six feet tall. He’s a feisty little guy but good-hearted and a good friend. He greeted me cheerfully but then immediately saw something was wrong. 

“What’s wrong?” He asked. 

“Something stung me in my backpack. A scorpion maybe. It really hurts.” 

Sody looked very concerned, and quickly went to my backpack and began to search it - very carefully. A couple more students showed up and helped him. They shook out the backpack vigorously, and finally shook out the culprit: the scorpion stowaway! They quickly squashed it, which was a little comfort. At least now the scorpion was worse off than I was! And I wouldn’t have to worry about that particular stowaway again. 

But by now, I was in agonizing pain. My finger burned like a thousand fires and tingled like pins and needles, and yet was also going numb. It seems strange to say that it burned and felt numb at the same time, but that’s how it felt. The burning sensation was creeping up my hand toward the wrist. I sat on a chair near the door and was soon awash in tears of pain. I began to sweat profusely. 

More students arrived and were soon informed that Sister Anna had been stung by a scorpion. They all felt very worried. Nassars (foreigners of European or Asian ancestry) have such weak constitutions, they reasoned. When a nassar gets malaria or typhoid, he often gets it bad, much worse than for most Chadians, and he is more likely to suffer complications. Perhaps Sister Anna would suffer more from a scorpion sting than most Chadians do. The students began to feel panicky. Raymond, an older student who walked with a limp, dashed off in spite of his limp to look for a razorblade, with the idea of carrying out a home remedy which involved making an incision near the site of the sting. The other students hovered around anxiously. Someone went to summon Jacob, the student body president, who wasn’t in the class but his house is next door to the theological school. It’s his job to take charge in such situations, which he always does with gentle, humble leadership. 

Meanwhile, I was still sitting sweating and in tears of agony on the chair by the door, only half aware of all the bustle around me. I wasn’t losing consciousness at all, but the pain was so excruciating that it kind of took over and I just wasn’t paying attention to anything else. I was starting to feel a bit short of breath and slightly nauseous, which at the time I just attributed to a result of the pain, but later an internet search on scorpion stings showed these as among the more severe symptoms of a scorpion sting. The burning sensation had now crept past my wrist and was slowly making its way up my forearm. 

I was in such pain that I wasn’t even thinking about what to do, or really anything but the pain. Seeing this, Jacob along with Gédeon (a former high school principal and a real go-getter), took charge of the situation to decide what to do. One of the students - I don’t remember now if it was Sody or Jacob - came to me where I was still sitting in agony by the door. I was so overwhelmed with pain that his voice seemed far away. 

“We’re taking you to the health center,” he said, meaning the small village medical dispensary (like a clinic) near the school. I realized then that I should have thought of that myself but I was in such pain that I wasn’t thinking straight. The village medical clinic isn’t fantastic, but for common African health problems like malaria and typhoid and scorpion stings, they are able to do the basic necessary care. 

“Okay,” I agreed. 

So we all trooped over to the dispensary. The students offered to help me walk but although I was a little dizzy, I was able to walk okay. There wasn’t really a need for all ten or so students to go with me, but this is what you do in Chad. When a friend is sick, you go with her and make sure she has what she needs and doesn’t feel alone. 

The dispensary nurses quickly tied a latex glove around my arm as a makeshift tourniquet and proceeded to inject a couple of different medicines. Along with the regular nurse, they had a new intern there who didn’t know me, but he tried to be gentle. 

“This is a necessary pain,” he said apologetically as he prepared the needle. In spite of his efforts to be gentle, he struggled with his inexperience and it took him three or four tries to get the first injection into my finger near the site of the sting, which was no fun, but I was in too much pain to make any protest except to wince. He then injected another medicine into my other arm, and with that he was done. 

I wondered if I was supposed to just go home now and wait it out until the pain subsided, but they clearly didn’t want to release me that quickly. I was no longer in tears, but I was still sweating profusely, so they fanned me with woven grass fans as I sat on a dispensary bench. Then they brought me into the inside room where there were a couple beds for urgent cases and urged me to lie down and rest while they kept up the fanning, taking turns. They found an ice pack, which helped to cool the burning sensation in my hand. I could feel that the scorpion venom had now crept as far as my shoulder, but the pain didn’t get any worse and actually subsided a lot, so I didn’t complain. 

After about half or three-quarters of an hour, Gédeon, Jacob, and Sody took charge again. They decided to take me to a better-quality clinic in Sarh to see if they could offer any additional treatment. One of them called my driver, Tara, and he soon arrived with my truck. But the clinic in town had nothing else to suggest except what the village dispensary had already done, so we headed home. During this trip back and forth to town, the burning pain in my hand started up again, though not quite as bad or widespread as it had been at first. 

In the meantime, my missionary coworkers from Sarh arrived in Balimba with additional medication for the pain if it continued to persist. Armed with these, I went home, made myself a drink, settled myself on the futon-couch in the living room, and tried to distract myself with my iPad. 

The severe pain continued until after 10am. At that point, I fell asleep, and when I woke, the swelling and burning was very much less. After that, it continued to decrease by the hour, until by the evening the pain was mostly gone. As I write now, the only noticeable effects are some muscle aches in my hand and arm up to my shoulder. Also a pretty bad case of insomnia, which is why I’m writing this now! 

From time to time throughout the day, students from the theological school and coworkers from the Bible translation work and other friends stopped by or called to see how I was doing. Because in Chad, you not only go with a friend to the clinic to make sure she’s okay, you also visit afterwards to see how she’s doing and to pray with her. Chadians make you feel very loved and cared for when you are sick! 

The effects of scorpion stings are quite variable, from all that I’ve heard from my friends here. For some people, it’s little worse than a bee sting, while others are in agony for 2-3 days. I fell somewhere in between the two: four hours of severe pain, and about six hours of moderate to mild pain, and after that only mild discomfort which I’m sure will wear off as well. 

So I’m thankful that it wasn’t any worse, and I’m thankful for my friends who watch out for me, and for the unexpected day of rest, which I hadn’t planned on but God apparently knew I needed! And I’m thankful for all of you who read my posts and pray for me.

The Trouble with Air Travel in Africa

Traveling by plane in Africa is difficult compared to most of the rest of the world. There are far fewer flights and they are more expensive than in other regions.  

Fewer Flights

 Compare these maps from a flight radar app showing the positions of airplanes flying over different regions of the world.

Southeast Asia

Europe

Eastern USA

Africa

In southeast Asia, Europe, and the eastern US, you can see a mass of planes heading in different directions, though mostly avoiding Russia and Ukraine (for obvious reasons). But Africa seems comparatively empty of airplanes, except for some clusters near a few major hubs, such as Addis Ababa and Douala. 

If you search for flights between major African cities, it is often difficult or impossible to find direct flights.  For example, I'd love to be able to fly directly between N'Djamena in Chad and Yaounde in Cameroon. There's a seminary in Yaounde where some of my Chadian friends are working on getting their masters' degrees. If I wanted to fly into Yaounde to attend their graduation ceremonies, I'd have to change planes in Douala, or even fly far out of my way to Addis Ababa. The same scenario can be repeated between many large African cities. 

Smaller cities in Africa often have no commercial flights anywhere nearby. It's a 14-hour drive from Sarh, where I live, to the nearest international airport in N'Djamena to catch a commercial flight (Bangui in neighboring CAR is technically about the same distance from here as the crow flies, but closed borders, terrible roads, and dangerous war zones make that route impassible). You'd be hard pressed to find a city of any size in America or western Europe that would require such a long drive to get to an international airport!

Expensive Flights

It seems counter-intuitive that air travel in the poorest continent on earth would be more expensive, yet it is! 

Flight cost from Paris to New York

Flight cost from N'Djamena to Bamako

As you can see, it costs twice as much to fly from Chad to Mali, just a couple countries away, than it does to fly from Paris to New York, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean!

So you get the picture. Air travel in Africa is inconvenient and expensive. Why is this the case?  Basically, it boils down to two things: politics and poverty. But let me explain:

• High fees. Airlines can't fly over other countries without asking permission, and they can't land in airports without signing agreements. These agreements and permissions usually involve fees and taxes, and African governments impose some of the highest in the world. The airlines have to either raise the plane ticket costs to cover the expense, or they simply don't fly to that country. Some countries may not give permission at all, in which case airplanes must route around their air spaces.
  
• Fewer passengers. Because there is so much poverty in Africa, there are fewer business travelers than in Europe or North America, and not many Africans in very poor nations like Chad can afford to fly for pleasure even at the economy class level. Even those that do travel between African countries for business are likely to travel on an economy class ticket, even though they are flying for business purposes. Airlines don't make much money on economy class tickets: they make most of their money on business and first class. If they don't have enough business class travelers to make a profit, they raise the cost of economy class to make up for it.
  
• Poor infrastructure. Air travel requires a tremendous amount of complex infrastructure in order to work well. Airplanes, roads, runways, airports, security, staff training, fuel, etc - all of these things require a significant investment to build and maintain, which are just not the highest priority in many African governments' limited budgets.
  

Cheaper and more convenient air travel would make many things easier in Africa, and would likely help the countries to develop their economies better. But it doesn't look like it will improve very much anytime soon. 

But I would love to be proven wrong.

References: 

https://www.ibtimes.com/african-air-travel-why-are-airlines-africa-so-expensive-unsafe-impossible-navigate-1234609

https://www.africanexponent.com/post/18102-5-reasons-why-flying-within-africa-is-so-expensive