A Scripture in the Hands (Botswana)
Kalanga Set Alight by God’s Word (Botswana)
New Bible Coincides with New Political Beginnings (Guinea-Bissau)
In the Nick of Time (DR Congo)
Reaching Those Beyond Reach (DR Congo)
Bible Portion for People Affected by AIDS is Launched in Soweto (South Africa)
On the Road with the Word of God (Ghana)
Scripture Cassettes Draw East Africans (Kenya)

Finally, the Bakalanga could read the Word of God in their own language. Here, for the first time, was the Good News of Jesus Christ – the New Testament in Kalanga.

The dedication ceremony was held on Saturday, November 13 in Francistown. It was a significant event for all the Bakalanga. The Kalanga New Testament is the first major part of the Bible to be translated in the Kalanga Bible Translation Project.

The translation work began in 1984 and was finished some time ago. After the text was drafted, the New Testament had to follow a careful checking process before it could be printed. Finally, the published volumes were received at the Bible Society of Botswana and made available to the people at and after a launching ceremony.

“The Word of God has come home amongst Bakalanga,” Dean Pfitzinger said. “We stand before God with prayer and thanksgiving. Therefore we dedicate this translation of the New Testament to the Kalanga people of Botswana and Zimbabwe. May God bless the reading of His Word and the listening to His Word.”

Chief Modie then spoke. He thanked the translation team for the mammoth task of translating the New Testament into Kalanga. Klaus Pahlen of the Lutheran Bible Translators was the Exegete and coordinated the efforts of local translators, B Hobona and M Holomga. Chief Modie also thanked all those who helped in any way with the project.

Sinikiwe Makwela of the Bible Society of Botswana presented translators and key supporters with their own copy of the Kalanga New Testament. The first supporter’s copy was set aside for His Excellency Festus Mogae, the President of Botswana. The President could not personally attend this function.

People were overjoyed to actually hold the book that every Christian Bakalanga had been awaiting for what seemed such a long time. The young people of the Salvation Army Choir of Francistown delighted everyone with their singing. Keynote speaker, Dr Edward Hope of the UBS, wondered if people realised how big an occasion this was.

He explained that when you read the Bible in a foreign language it is a little like trying to see through a dirty window, or hearing somebody calling out words at a distance when the wind is blowing. You can understand some things, but when spoken in one’s mother tongue the words and their meaning are immediately clearer.

The celebration ended with a buffet to satisfy people’s physical hunger. But the real food was spiritual: now the Bakalanga people could eat the true food of God’s Word to their heart’s content. Those attending the launch were able to obtain copies of the new common-language Kalanga New Testament. Many more copies will be made available in the Bakalanga homelands by the Bible Society.

There are some 160,000 speakers of this language in central and eastern Botswana, and about the same amount in western Zimbabwe. (WR 348/5 - 02.00) [PHOTOS]

FRANCISTOWN, Botswana — The Kalanga people’s receipt of the New Testament in their own language in November was probably one of the most significant events of their history.

The occasion, at which I had the privilege of  giving the keynote address, put me in mind of the words of Prof Lamin Sanneh after he had undertaken research into church growth in Africa. “Christ becomes incarnate in a community when that community receives the Scriptures in their own language,” he said.

The new book has a logo on its title page depicting a log fire and this image featured strongly at the dedication celebration. One of the translators, the Rev Philip Mothetho, pointed out the symbolic importance of fire in the Kalanga culture. It is around the fire that children are taught, it is there that the family gathers every evening, and it is at this fire that elders hold their discussions before taking important decisions. Fire, he said, means food, warmth and fellowship.

Fire also stands for cooperation in Kalanga culture. People say, “Many sticks make a large fire,” and “You cannot make a fire with a single stick.” And this New Testament is the result of cooperation between the Bible Society of Botswana, the United Bible Societies, Lutheran Bible Translators and the German Lutheran Mission.

A particularly moving moment at the dedication service came when the Acting General Secretary of the Bible Society of Botswana, Sinikiwe Makwela, presented Mr Mothetho with his copy of the New Testament. He looked for a moment at this book for which he had been waiting so eagerly, and then he walked over to his teenage daughter, gave her a hug and presented it to her.

“This is for you and your generation,” he said. He had been one of my students in 1998 at the Centre for Intercultural Communication Studies in Cape Town, studying Bible Translation and Hebrew as preparation for work on the Old Testament and I was proud of him at that moment. (WR 348/6 - 02.00)

Kiryol (Portuguese Creole) also referred to as Kriyol, Kriulo and Crioulo, is spoken by two-thirds of the population of Guinea-Bissau and by 300,000 people in the Cape Verde Islands. This modern-language Bible translation was begun in 1988 and drafted by 1996, sponsored by the Bible Societies and World Evangelical Crusade (WEC) International.

The venue, the main Evangelical church in the city, was decorated with a beautiful banner on the wall behind the pulpit. It showed a man walking into the darkness holding a lantern. He was superimposed on a huge open Bible, and alongside the picture were the words – in Kiryol – of Psalm 119:105 “Your word is a lamp to my path, a light to my feet.”

In addition to the Prime Minister, the dedication, crowning 25 years of work, brought together pastors and lay people from all the churches in Guinea-Bissau as well as many distinguished guests.

Publication of the new Bible came at an interesting time for Guinea-Bissau. The country is completing the transition from military to civilian rule. A military junta ousted former dictator João Bernardo Vieira last May. The first round of national democratic elections took place on November 20, with the second round due on January 16.

Its combination of Portuguese-based vocabulary with African grammar makes Kiryol an unusual and interesting language. The Kiryol Bible, too, has a fascinating history. In 1974 a brash young man named João de Deus Batista Lobo approached Scottish missionary Isabel Arthur with his Portuguese Bible and asked questions about the faith. After some discussion, he said that people needed to hear the message but they did not understand Portuguese – they needed it in Kiryol.

As a project, the Kiryol Bible has been international in scope. With roots in Portugal and West Africa, a coordinator from Scotland and consultants from Ghana and the United States, it was published by the Bible Society of Côte d’Ivoire which administers the work in Guinea-Bissau. The printing was undertaken by the Bible Society of Korea.

“I am very encouraged to have a Bible in Kiryol. It will be our main Bible. Every student must be able to read it. It speaks directly to them and it is easy to understand,” he said.

Pastor Moises expressed deep gratitude to the Bible Societies for their partnership in this work. He was quick to point out, however, that their job is not done. He mentioned Balanta and Manjanko as two important languages in Guinea-Bissau which do not have the New Testament yet, much less the whole Bible. Even a hernia operation contributed to the advancing of the Kiryol Bible.

Evangelist Robert Nhange, who helped with the checking, was used to riding all over the area on his bicycle but at a crucial time in the translation he was afflicted with a hernia. After his operation, the doctor told him to rest for a while. He arranged to spend a few weeks checking the translation, and this proved “really productive”, according to Ms Arthur.

In fact, as the argument became a struggle, first of words and insults, and then came to blows, one brother made up his mind to end this problematic relationship once and for all: he would find a way to kill his brother as soon as he could. Disengaging himself from the fight he ran, not ‘beaten’ as the other brother assumed, but to find a weapon, a knife suitable to kill his brother.

Then he found his way blocked by a crowd of people. They were watching a film and the characters in the film were handling knives.

He became interested and decided to watch more: perhaps he would learn some good techniques for using a knife. The film did feature a knife fight, but it was not a film about violence. The Cross and the Switchblade is the film of the story of the Rev David Wilkerson, who had developed a ministry reaching out to young drug addicts and gangsters in the New York housing estates during the 1960s. From this outreach the young gang leader Nicky Cruz had become a Christian and brought many of his gang members to know Christ.

The brother began to realise that the film was speaking to him in a different way. Here was the true story of God’s love working in the life of an angry young man. This gang leader was brought to recognise his sin before God and repented. The transformation from murderous gangster into a dedicated Christian at peace with himself, his fellow men and with God created a deep impact upon the brother.

Pastor Jerome is an audio-visual worker with the Bible Society of Congo (DRC) who travels around Kinshasa showing this film and other Christian films – especially the Jesus film – and distributes Bible Society Portions to all those seriously seeking salvation.

The brother asked the pastor to pray with him. That night, while searching for a knife to kill his brother, with thoughts of revenge, hatred and murder in his heart, the brother gave his life to Jesus Christ and like the gang leader Nicky Cruz, witnessed a miraculous change in his life.

Remarkable testimonies such as this one are not uncommon in the city of Kinshasa, where the Bible Society has recently started operating this audio-visual ministry. There are regular showings of the Jesus film and others like it in different areas. And new believers are provided with the Scriptures essential for them to grow in faith.

And poor or absent roads are not the only difficulty: renewed fighting between government forces and rebel factions in certain areas has made the situation even more hazardous.

There are many stories of Christians in inaccessible regions who walk as far as 20kms to the nearest major town in order to get access to a copy of the Bible – and that is often only to read part of it. Having read what they can they return home. (Please see World Report December 1999, 346/16.)

Many of these single copies of the Bible are wearing out with overuse – it is only a matter of time before the book will fall apart. Distribution has always constituted a major problem for the Bible Society here. Often, the only way to ship Scriptures into the interior has been by aeroplane, which greatly adds to the cost of the Bibles.

However, the Bible Society has been considering another method of reaching Christians in these remote areas. Discussions with the UBS Regional Office have led to a suggested plan: to start a floating ministry along the River Congo using a boat acquired for this purpose. If this project can be financed, four of the country’s 11 provinces would be accessible and could more easily be served with the Scriptures.

She made her appeal during an address to a gathering held by the Bible Society of South Africa to launch a Scripture Portion entitled Living in Hope: Help from the Scriptures for Coping with HIV/AIDS.

Whereas the fear evoked by other fatal diseases had not prevented the Church from undertaking compassionate and supportive ministries to those who were suffering, AIDS had engendered “a unique inaction”  on the part of the Church.

For people claiming Jesus as Lord, this was a failure in discipleship and pastoral care, she said. People with AIDS – and their families  – must be loved with the same unmeasured love that Jesus embodied.

People who were filled with repugnance at the thought of reaching out to those with the virus should reach out to the carers instead, she said. They, too, needed pastoral care and spiritual comfort.

The Portion was described by BSSA General Secretary the Rev Gerrit Kritzinger as “an attempt to give the Church a tool to reach out to those who are hurting as a result of this dreadful disease”.

“My passengers love the programme very much,” he recently told the Bible Society of Ghana (BSG), which is responsible for the daily broadcast.

“But people keep bothering me on the return trip because by then the programme is finished. I need a copy of the tapes to play for the passengers during the return trip from Accra to Kumasi.”

The program involves a 15-minute daily broadcast of the New Testament on Capital FM – one of the country’s most popular radio stations – and also operates the Faith Comes By Hearing (FCBH) program in 200 churches in the Ashanti region, using the Asante-Twi New Testament on audiocassette.

To complement the daily broadcast, the BSG also broadcasts a Questions and Answers programme every week to respond to the many letters and telephone calls they receive from listeners wanting to know more about the Bible.

“The Scripture journey has been soul-nourishing to us,” she said. “Children in our whole area have memorised the programme jingle and sing it like a household song.” Mrs Owusu described how members of the Women’s Fellowship gather every morning to listen to the broadcast. They then discuss the issues raised by the day’s Bible reading, and end with a prayer.

It is not only Christians, however, who are being impacted by the broadcasts and the FCBH program. One Presbyterian pastor told the BSG about a young man of another faith who first heard the Word of God through attending a FCBH session. He has now become a committed Christian and is an active member of the church. (WR 348/11 - 02.00)

EAST AFRICA — In Kenya the number of groups who gather week by week to listen to dramatised Bible readings is no less than 620. The readings are provided on audio-cassettes under the Faith Comes By Hearing (FCBH) scheme which is a joint Bible Society-Hosanna program.

The majority of the listening groups are based in churches, but, in addition, some 70 groups meet in schools, five in hospitals, two in prisons and three in commercial businesses — while another group meets weekly in the Nairobi Police Department.
 

The Rev Joe Cangiolosi of Hosanna Fellowship learned these figures when he spent three weeks last August observing the progress of the FCBH program in Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia and Malawi.

Although readings have hitherto been available in English, the Swahili version is expected to increase substantially the numbers at FCBH listening sessions. Many of the churches where the program is enjoying success are in rural areas far from the cities.

“They [the promoters] take public transportation and then walk for miles to reach these rural churches,” says Mr Cangiolosi. “I talked with them about their work and it is apparent that they need to have motorcycles to do it properly.”

Among his visits, Mr Cangiolosi went to a school which is running FCBH. Located in the mountainous region known as Upland Country, it caters for some 50 children aged from four to 14, all of whom have either been orphaned or abandoned, or come from broken homes. After taking it in turns to recite Bible verses for the visitors, the children all recited chapter five of Matthew’s Gospel — in its entirety, word for word!

Mr Cangiolosi predicts that FCBH will continue to grow in Kenya provided more promoters can be recruited and if transport to help them get to rural areas can be improved.

In Arusha, Tanzania,  he attended part of a two-and-half day training session — conducted in both English and Swahili —  for pastors intending to run FCBH.

In Tanzania, as in Kenya, Mr Cangiolosi attended a FCBH launch. Although in a remote area, the church chosen for the event was nonetheless full.

In Zambia Mr Cangiolosi was told by the FCBH coordinator, Frazier Khatamga, that over the past eight months more than 100 churches have started  FCBH listening sessions. He met a group of pastors who have embarked on the program.

They said that in their experience it helps people who cannot read to start understanding who Jesus is and how they can live their lives according to the Word of God.

One pastor said that his greatest joy came from the grandmothers in his church. Usually when the preacher preaches his message, the grandmothers find it difficult to understand and leave the church perplexed.

Mr Cangiolosi also met the people working on the recording of FCBH tapes in the Bemba language. A Baptist minister from the Northern Province where Bemba is predominant stressed that only a minority of speakers can read.

“People are already preparing for the tapes to come,” said Mr Cangiolosi. “When they do, there will be an explosion in this country.”

Meanwhile, Radio Christian Voice continues to broadcast FCBH in English every day, seven days a week, as it has done for several years.

Questions asked by listeners are answered periodically on the air by local pastors and personnel of the Bible Society. Satellite links carry the programmes far beyond Africa itself. Malawi, where Mr Cangiolosi spent the last six days of his visit, also has a radio station broadcasting FCBH sessions.

“Everyone was so excited about the Word of God in their language that they did not want to stop listening!” he said. The minister also helped Mr Banela promote FCBH in five other SDA churches. His own church was preparing to begin a second listening session for the many new members it had gained since starting its first series. (WR 348/12 - 02.00)