Praise the Lord

Dear friends

“Praise the Lord with the vuvuzela”
Interpretation by the AFM Atteridgeville of Ps. 150

Ethiopia:

Addis Ababa was not altogether unknown as I did my leprosy-training there in 1992. Since then the city boasts a new airport and new roads. In spite of the development, I was met each morning with “Did you have electricity last night?”, rather than comments about the weather, which was usually wonderfully cool. One feels a bit odd if one doesn’t speak Amharic, the national language, but WW (the Word for the World) in Ethiopia looked after me really well. I stayed in a Finnish guest house, with a real Finnish sauna and all.

Just before I left South Africa my computer began giving trouble and this time I was advised to get a new one. Someone offered to buy me one the same day, so that I could continue with my work, but there just wasn’t time enough to make a judicious decision. After a few parts were replaced or cleaned and a home remedy applied, amazingly enough the computer has not given any more trouble.

The work:

WW has 13 translation projects in Ethiopia, two of which have already published New Testaments. WW Ethiopia was founded by Kobus and Janet van Aswegen and the work was initiated by them. They are unbelievable pioneers who moved to India recently, where they have already begun with training translators. They want to facilitate a hundred language projects. This is all after they brought the work in Ethiopia to the point where they could hand it over to the Ethiopians.

With the Lord’s grace and thanks to everyone who has made my long study possible, it was an easy and natural step to fall in with the translators and to begin with consultations. This entails editing the work exegetically, in other words to compare the provisional translation on a meaning level, with the original. Obvious differences are discussed and the team makes adjustments where necessary. It is  a very satisfying experience because a whole nation will receive the light through this.

The plan was to do the Gospels of Matthew and John with the first group which is about 100% Moslem, and thereafter the Acts with the second group. As I have to be available for Angola, I could only give six weeks this time. I thought this would be more than enough time, but miscalculated. We made very slow progress as it was the first time for me and I wanted to make very sure that we understood each other correctly. This because I don’t know the target language which is also written in a foreign alphabet. We work with an inter-linear feedback translation, and communication is in English, which isn’t the mother-tongue of any one of us. By the end of Matthew everyone was tired and I realised we would not finish. I suggested then that we leave John and give the other team the last week so that each team could complete one book.

Mohammed and friends, however, did not want that: “When will we get the opportunity to work with a consultant again?” The last time they had a chance was two years ago, because this is one of the worst bottlenecks in Bible translating. Publication stands still because there aren’t enough consultants to check the work. The outcome of this was that the translators decided (in the face of protest from their families!) not to go home for the Easter weekend. This gave us two extra days to work and we snapped up two days from the other team. In this way we completed both gospels which can now be published.

Then it was Shinasha’s turn. By that time I had enough self-confidence to adjust my methods to speed things up a bit. As there were no members of the team who understood English, we had to work through an interpreter. This worked very well as the interpreters were experienced Bible translators themselves who understood what both parties wanted. Said the Shinashas: "She catches us like a anti-virus!" The team is so gifted and experienced that we made very rapid progress. We didn’t only work through an earlier consultant’s comments on Matthew and John that he emailed to us, but they could also return home with a signed off book of Acts. The Lord helped us.

One day, long ago, when I met a Bible translator for the first time, I asked her so many questions that she eventually said, “You don’t trust me”. Now I have to ask myself the same questions. It is an art to be able on the one hand, to translate the Bible so flexibly that it sounds natural in the target language and on the other hand, to convey the meaning honestly and accurately. Fortunately the translators have the necessary combination of respect and creativity to overcome this tension. It is refreshing to read the Bible through their eyes. Interesting idioms arise and they are touchingly glad about their redemption. Photos that I took in Israel in 2007 helped to illustrate places and objects. It is also amazing to see what photos and information one can find on the internet. So often the reaction was, “This is amazing!” Here and there words or names simply had to be changed. For example, Bethesda which means, in Amharic, “a kick on the head” ?. This was replaced with the Hebrew (as quoted in Greek) “Beethzatha”, which completely satisfied the translators. Some difficult concepts for translation were “grapes”, “altar”, and “silver” which are unknown to this specific group. But time and again a solution was found. Ebenhaeser.

Angola:

There are once again complications in the land of complications. A few days ago I received a little news about the Mbangala project which the WW directors and our church leaders must sort out before I can comment on it. I realise again that we don’t see the whole picture and am not sure what the Lord has in mind. In the meantime, the plan is to go to Ethiopia again, quite soon and this time for a longer period. As one of my bosses says, “There is more work in Ethiopia than you will be able to do in a lifetime.” In November I have to attend a consultant course. We will hopefully know by December whether and how I will have to divide my time between Ethiopia and Angola.

Prayer requests:

Ethiopia:
• That the Lord will call people to do consultations. I don’t understand the extreme shortage of consultants. There are, after all, people in the world who have a good knowledge of Greek and/or Hebrew who could help.

Angola:
• We have a problem finding Portuguese translators for the Bible translation course material.
• There are difficult decisions to be made concerning the Mbangala project. Please pray for guidance.

At home:

My car doesn’t have enough mirrors for the Dutch, South African, Brazilian, and Portuguese soccer flags :).  I was in a church on Sunday where the vuvuzela was used in their orchestra!

Blessings,

Antoinette van der Meulen