In church on Sunday we were privileged to hear a very good sermon on the Parable of the Talents as found in Matthew 25:14-30.  We learned that the talent was a unit of money in the ancient world. But in interpretting the parable, we can apply it to much more than financial stewardship. Read the rest of this entry »

Harvest season is winding down in Northern Ghana. We thought it would be fun to post pictures that give an overview of farming in Ghana from preparing the soil, to planting, to weeding, to harvesting, to grain transport, drying grain, winnowing and grain storage.  We hope you enjoy the photos. Click here Northern Ghana Farming Photos

We told the kids this morning that they were in for a special surprise. First we’d go to Sarah’s doctor appointment and then off to a surprise.  After the appointment (we are under a doctor’s care now!) Karissa asked, “Why are we going to the airport?”  We got there and Annaka said, “This is where we picked up Grammy and Poppa from the airport.”  After about 20 minutes, sure enough, there was Grammy (also known as Deb Esala) walking out of the airport pushing her cart.   The kids were surprised! Aili kept looking around for Poppa. We had to explain that he could not come this time. Now the question is can Grammy keep her sanity? See the airport surprise.

We have arrived in Accra after a pretty decent road trip. We left at 7 am Saturday morning from Nasuan – which seems like ages ago. At about 6 am, one of the elders from town showed up at our door and told the watchman that his son’s wife was in labor and needed to go to Nalerigu. Could I take her? He came in and told me, and I said that of course I had a journey. They should go up to the next town and arrange with the ambulance there to come. I could take one person in the car on my way to Nakpanduri to alert the ambulance to come, but if they needed it quickly they should go on a motorcycle.

In communication studies we talk about powerful message senders and powerful message receivers. At this point I have asserted my power and you will see the receivers assert their power. Read the rest of this entry »

Translation Workshop Oct 2008 I recently facilitated a translation workshop where we looked at translation from a more global perspective. We started with the type of literature we are translating, the genres embedded in the literature. We had several participants and it went very well. We looked at Luke 1-2 as the narrative section that we were translating. Looking at things more globally really helped us with the smaller level decisions. For instance… Read the rest of this entry »