Esalas in Mission

Praise God for an excellent three week visit from Sarah’s dad (grandpa Tom) and niece Katie Baker. We had a wonderful time connecting ‘face to face’ with this side of the family again.

Praise God for the many projects around the house that were finished during the months of March and April.  (This list is quite long and includes the unplanned but needed emptying of our septic tank.)

Pray for the LBT Ghana team meetings in early June–for safe travel, discernment and clarity of thought, creative solutions, and submission to God’s will.

Family water fights were popular as temperatures soared well above 100.

Most afternoons found a large group of kids playing soccer in our yard. Katie plays in the U.S. and was able to give Karissa some pointers.

As most of you know, Christina Riddle extended her original length of volunteer service to teach Karissa this entire school year. She continues to bless our family through her devoted care and has especially been a help this past year during school and work related travels. While Christina had enough support to get her started, she still needs $2,300 to meet her needs through the end of this school year in June. Please pray that God would provide for all of her needs.

The rains have begun to fall. Farming season is here. The Komba busily prepare their seed, plow the soil, and plant their crops—with the hope of a good harvest. They don’t have foreknowledge as to how the weather will be during the upcoming months or what will grow well this year, but they take what they know and apply themselves heartily to their labor. We feel like we’re somewhat in the same position. We feel called to this place at this time to aid the work of translating the Komba Scripture. We don’t know what the future holds but we take what we know (and are learning) and do this work. We are feeling like we’re moving forward—the work is “growing.”However, translating a book and having it reviewed is still not the harvest we ultimately desire. Pray with us that through better access and understanding of God’s Word that the church here would be prepared for works of service and attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

Finally, after nearly 6 years I find myself doing some of the work I envisioned myself doing when I joined Lutheran Bible Translators. Okay I am not actually a translator but I am part of the translation team and help exegete the original text and help in forming the style and ideological approach to the translation. What exactly am I doing now that is making write this article? And why has it taken so long? Read more »

President and Mrs. Obama have scheduled a trip to Ghana on July 10 of this year. We send the president kudos for choosing Ghana as the first African nation he will visit after being elected.  Quoting from the New York Times: “The president and Mrs. Obama look forward to strengthening the U.S. relationship with one of our most trusted partners in sub-Saharan Africa, and to highlighting the critical role that sound governance and civil society play in promoting lasting development,” the White House said in a written statement announcing the trip on Saturday. Read more »

A big explosion was happening inside my heart. I just had to do it. It was Easter after all. So I looked ahead to where my friend Yaa was standing. She often tried to drag me into this situation which I usually declined. Today I would grab her. I tapped her on the shoulder, smiled and beckoned her to follow. She joined with a laugh. My heart was pounding. We approached the front of the church. Yikes! Then we entered into the circle where a large group was dancing with great joy. Hankies were being waved in the air. Some were whooping. A few were in the center of the circle dancing and jumping with more exuberance. I was part of this expression of Easter, Komba style-song, drums, dance, clapping, shouts, radiant smiles. Christ has risen! He has risen indeed! Hallelujah!
I love Easter.

The newest addition to our friends at the Baptist Medical Center are the Dickens family.  They have a nice blog we’d like to offer to you.  Joel tells the story of delivering triplets – unexpectedly.  And they have a nice picture albumn of eating fufu!

The KOLIBITRAP (Komba Literacy and Bible Translation Project) team recently held a meeting for area pastors and church leaders. While they wanted to update these people on the progress of the project, they also hoped to challenge the church community to contribute financially. So we weren’t surprised when an announcement was made in our church regarding this.

There was animated discussion of how it should be collected, and finally the decision was made to take an offering the following Sunday. However, there was a twist. The men would give in one basket and the women in another. Yep, it was a competition. The following Sunday the offering was taken accordingly and immediately counted. However, it wasn’t until the very end of announcement time which is after the close of the service, that the winner was declared. They know how to build up suspense. I wish you could have seen the laughter and smiles by everyone during this time. They’d found a really fun way to give. Oh-and the winner was…Hmm. I think I’ll play their game too. Keep reading to find the answer tucked in the prayers and praise.

DEAR FAITHFUL FRIEND.
As I write this, we have been back in our home for two weeks after a 2 1/2 month stay in the capital city of Accra. Our time there was productive in many ways despite our strong desire to get back north to our home in Nasuan and introduce our friends to our new baby, Isaac Emmanuel. Nathan, along with every Ghanaian who knows we’ve been a family of little girls up to this point, is thrilled to have a “friend in the house,” as the people here express it.

In hindsight, we are grateful to God that the extra time allowed Nathan to more adequately assess and address various situations as LBT’s representative in Ghana. One of these blessings was working on the official agreement with the Bible Society of Ghana. Thank you for your prayers in this matter.

Unfortunately, there have been a couple stark reminders lately of spiritual warfare taking place in our lives and the lives of those with whom we work. Please pray with us as we stand on the words of 2 Corinthians 10:4-5 which says, “The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

So how is the translation going?

Ah, I’m glad you asked because we have Good News!

Good News, you say?

Well, have you heard of The Good News Bible?

Maybe it’s on your shelf. It’s published by the American Bible Society, and did you know that our little Komba Bible Project also needs a publisher?

The good news is that the Bible Society of Ghana is coming on board to be the publisher of the Komba Bible Project. The Bible Society of Ghana is part of the United Bible Societies which has affiliates in many countries of the world. Check out their website at: http://www.biblesociety.org/.
What’s so good about working together with the Bible Society? Let me highlight several things.

1. Professional Approach: The translation task is taken very seriously. They have international standards for quality, output, and translation training. They have a strong focus on research in translation issues like ethics, translation style, power dynamics, Biblical interpretation, and more.
2. Regular Output expectations: The Bible Societies have set up standards of progress for all aspects of the translation task. If a translator is drafting a book of the Bible, he is expected to draft a certain number of verses per day based on the difficulty level of the book he is translating. There are five levels of difficulty. The Gospel of Luke is rated a three, and a translator should draft 12 verses per day. All other stages have similar progress measurement standards. These goals help the work move forward more steadily.
3. National Recognition: The Bible Society of Ghana is seen as the primary organization that facilitates translation and sales of Bibles in Ghana, being well represented in the churches of Ghana. Even the wife of Ghana’s new president is a member of the Bible Society of Ghana and she once served as 1st Vice President of the BSG..
4. Relationship with the Consultant: Every translation has a primary Bible translation consultant who oversees and validates translation quality. When I attended linguistics training in Dallas, Dr. Fabian Dapila, a Ghanaian, sat next to me in class. At that time he was a consultant in East Africa but was sent to the US for extra training in linguistics. Who knew that seven years later we would be working together in Ghana with him overseeing the project I would be involved in?

Thank you to Rev. Kofi Owusu for his comments and his suggested edits have been made to this post.