November 2010 Update from Douglas and Jennings Boone

Dear friends,

Greetings from Nairobi, Kenya! We are here – together, in the same country, after three weeks apart – until our next house-sitting opportunity begins in Congo in early December. It has been good to catch up with friends here. We’ve also had some work meetings and lots of (routine) medical visits. Next week we’ll be on vacation at the coast! Thank you so much for your prayers for our travel and work over the past month. Here is an update:

Douglas’ trip to Asia: Thank you for praying for Bagamba Araali and me as we traveled to Penang, Malaysia for Language Assessment Community meetings. For the first week, I was one of six facilitators at a survey report writing workshop. The four people in my small group exchanged extracts from reports that they were writing. In the last two days, each participant got input from three colleagues (and me) concerning clarity, organization, and sound argumentation. Meanwhile, Bagamba was meeting with other consultants in sociolinguistics. During the main conference, he and I gave three presentations: "Handling Qualitative Data" (for the newer workers), "Depth and Scope of Research Planning" (for those with more experience) and "Cross-Cultural Sensitivity" in a session for everyone. We learned about developments elsewhere in the world, and enjoyed lots of interaction at break time and in the evenings with other sociolinguists and language researchers. One evening, we met with the other participants in the colloquium on language vitality in March 2011 for which we are preparing a paper. The next evening I was emcee for the "Do It Yourself" show; Bagamba's anecdotes about cultural misunderstandings in the Congo were a big hit! This time in Penang was valuable and fruitful; we'll be considering the things we learned for a long time to come.

We are thankful for safe travels and for the opportunity to see many old friends and to make new ones. Thank God for raising up language assessment workers among the citizens of countries in Asia and Africa! Bagamba and I have many opportunities to serve: please pray for wisdom to prioritize and to plan, and to apply what we learned.


Jennings’ translation-checking trips: Thank you for your prayers for my back-to-back trips – to Ibambi to check half of Matthew with the Budu team with our Translation Coordinator Dave Bradley, and to Goma to check Mark with the Tembo team. Both trips went very well. Thanks to the high quality of the translations, we were able to finish both checking sessions with time to spare! The Budu team will soon be able to publish trial copies of Matthew. It was very interesting to be in Ibambi, a large village deep in the Congolese forest… quite a change from urban Bunia! Then, I spent a weekend back in Bunia, staying with a friend, before leaving again for Goma. This was my third trip to work with the Tembo team, but the first one since their head translator Masumbuko Shabani left for graduate studies in Bible translation. The two remaining Tembo translators – Ndeshi Jimmy and Mwanjale Robert – are determined to keep the translation work going at a good pace. They have been using an adaptation program to produce first-draft translations based on a closely related language. The results are very encouraging – they have adapted most of the New Testament using this method! Adaptation is just the first step in a long, careful translation process, but it is still very exciting to see such progress.

Please thank God with us for the hard work of the Budu and Tembo translation teams and for the successful completion of these Gospel translations! Please pray that they will be encouraged in their work, in spite of financial and logistic challenges, and that the local communities will be blessed by the Scriptures in their language.

Something new…: There is so much to see and think about in Congo, and we wanted to be able to share it without making our updates excessively long, so… we have started a blog! It’s called “This Congolese Life” and the address is www.thiscongoleselife.blogspot.com . Our hope is that it will be a good way to share photos, stories and daily life in Congo, and to interact with you.

We appreciate your prayers and support so much! We would love to hear what you’re up to and how we can be praying for you.

Douglas and Jennings

Mailing address:
SIL
PO Box 750
Entebbe, UGANDA

For Wycliffe info or financial gifts:
Wycliffe Bible Translators
P.O. Box 628200
Orlando, FL 32862-8200