Category Archives: Missiology

90%!

Family, Missiology, ,

We just hit 90% of our Wycliffe budget! This is particularly encouraging, because for some time now I’ve had difficulty answering our most frequently asked question: “When are you leaving?”

I usually mumble something unintelligible (you might have noticed this), then try to say something about it depending in part on how quickly our finances get together. And the school year constraints: after this school year ends (June 1-ish) and before the RFIS school year starts (Aug 1). But as we get closer and closer to a full team of monthly financial partners, we feel more comfortable making more specific plans, trusting that God is moving in people to partner with us, and that the remaining 10% of our budget will be there soon.

CAVEAT: Wycliffe’s (good) rule that we cannot leave for our assignment without 100% of our budget covered still applies. We’re making these plans because we see God working and bringing people into partnership with us, and as an act of faith in His provision for this work. We believe it is strategic to move forward with more specific plans now, though if our Wycliffe budget is not fully covered in this time frame, we will have to delay our departure.

So our current plans are to vacate our house and hand it over to a property management company by June 15 —in order to have it rented out by July 1. To make that happen, we hope to empty our house by June 1, so we can spend the first couple weeks of June cleaning and painting more or less full-time. And after that, we’d like to take time to celebrate Father’s day and our 20th anniversary, before flying out in the second half of June (exact dates will depend on ticket availability and pricing).

If you are in North Texas and want to help us pack, clean, paint or run a garage sale, please do let us know! We hope to pack and clean as we can from now until June 1. 🙂

The Partnership Process

Church, Missiology, Personal

One cold, foggy February morning I rolled out of bed asking God how to pray. He told me to ask not for one, but TWO new financial partners to join our team today.
I’m stubborn. I refused. It was too much to ask.

The flu had knocked our family flat for over 2 weeks, and I was feeling like I hadn’t accomplished any “real work” in several days. There was no way two new families would start giving when I hadn’t written letters, had coffee dates or blogged anything new in more than a week!

Oh how gently our God teaches us! I knew the still small voice that replied to my stubborn refusal and feelings of unworthiness…

“Is building your team about your work?? Or is it about my work?”

I bit my tongue. He was right, of course. This whole raising-missionary-support thing was not about me, and what I could do. I reluctantly prayed God would add two new families to our team that day, in spite of our illness and inactivity – in spite of the fact that not one new household had joined our team in 3 weeks. I wish I could say all doubt was gone…

God seems to delight in showing his power in “impossible” situations. And despite my weak faith & stubborn doubts, through the fog of flu, we got not one, but two Email notices stating that a new gift had been made to our account! In both cases, they had given in the past week, but the Emails posted that same day.

Oh me of little faith.

I haven’t met an American who likes to talk about money, and we have met several young people with desire to serve overseas, who cannot stomach developing a partnership base for their expenses. Kent’s first assignment overseas was a volunteer position with all expenses paid. He was relieved not to bother with funding. Unfortunately, on his return to the US he was grieved that many friends had forgotten where he was & the work he was doing. Many of the friends who said they would be praying, had forgotten. This was not partnership, and it showed. Paul says, “Did I commit a sin in humbling myself so that you might be exalted, because I preached God’s gospel to you free of charge?” 2 Cor 11:7

It is an obedience filled with faith in God that has us once again building our team to move overseas. It is equally an obedience filled with faith in God that has our partners investing in this work. It is almost a helpless feeling to give up control and throw your entire financial future on the mercy of God. (I grant that none of us actually have control over our financial futures, and all of us depend on the mercy of God. Maybe it is the illusion of control over money “we earned” that we are giving up.)

I learn so slowly! It is a lesson I have learned & relearned & relearned. Patiently, God is teaching us week by week to trust in HIM. He is our Provider. This is his work, his people, his plan, his timing, and for years to come we will be able to look back to this season of partnership development with a confidence that God is the One sending us out. Our own work could never accomplish it.

When our Wycliffe financial statement comes, I am always humbled and in awe of the amazing team of partners who give sacrificially, so we can go. We could never repay their generosity, and it isn’t really ours to repay anyway as it is given to God. Instead we pray for our partners’ families, for their churches, for their jobs, for their health. It is a strong connection. We long to catch up and visit in person whenever possible. We grieve when they grieve. We rejoice when they rejoice. This is partnership.

And I feel like I take all our partners with us to Africa. Their prayers, their gifts are traveling on the back of a motorcycle into the rainforest with Kent to develop an alphabet where people don’t have one. These prayers, these gifts give out that first alphabet chart that makes one of the poorest men on the planet light up saying, “My language is a REAL language?”

These prayers, these gifts carry me into cross-cultural small group ministry where we invest in the local church – whatever weak state it may be in (who can wonder at that without access to God’s Word in a language that speaks clearly?) These prayers & gifts have been with me in times of great danger, in malaria, in rabies, in many many moves, and dark days; and equally in the victories and celebrations as God’s Truth gets translated and then published and then used to transform & heal the broken-hearted.

These are not my successes. They are made possible by a collaborative act of faith, of worship for a Mighty God.
These are his successes.  This is partnership.

Why I attend national conferences

Linguistics, Missiology, , , , ,

One of the purposes of going to Cameroon this march is to attend the second “National Symposium on Cameroonian Languages”, at the University of Dschang, in Dschang, Cameroon. I assume it may not be obvious to you why this is a good thing, so I’ll lay out some of my thoughts on linguistics conferences here.

First of all, recall that I am a missionary linguist. That is, I am a missionary and a linguist, something like a missionary pilot is a missionary and a pilot, or like a missionary doctor is a missionary and a doctor. And I challenge people to see that I am not less of a missionary because I am a linguist, and I am not less a linguist because I am a missionary. One might even argue that these two vocations encourage and better each other —that I am a better linguist because I am a missionary, and that I am a better missionary (at least in some ways) because I am a linguist. I love that I get to analyze languages, serve minority (and therefore disadvantaged) peoples, and glorify God, all in one job. The work I do today helps people to read better, which helps their lives today. But it also gives them more powerful access to the scriptures, which provides “value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.” (1Tim 4:8b ESV)

So how does my work as a missionary linguist apply at linguistic conferences? I have been tempted in the past to look at conferences as a massive information dump, and I think some people do look at them that way. But one obvious (yet astounding) observation I’ve made about conferences is that they are full of people. And they’re run by people. People presenting, people listening, people asking and answering questions. So whatever else is true of linguistics conferences (local, national, or international), they are an occasion for lots of people with similar interests to get together.

Which doesn’t mean that I man a booth at the side of the food court reading “come to know Jesus through linguistics”. Rather, I get to practice what Jesus teaches me about getting along with people, among perhaps the most secular crowd of people I ever interact with. There are people who are ornry and disagreeable. There are people that don’t know yet how little they know about something. There are people who know more than I ever will about something, and who have no interest in relating to mere mortals as myself —though most people I meet at these conferences could be described as “people”, without stretching the imagination much. :-)

I was at a conference a few years ago, where I had a particular opportunity to show compassion to another person there. It was an international conference, but hosted at a particular university in an African country, so lots of people from that area were able to come. This means that there were people who came from other African countries (like me), people who came from America or Europe, and people who came to the conference without using a passport, all at the same event. At one talk, the speaker used some words in a way that was initially at least confusing, if not just plain wrong (about a fairly basic concept that most people at the conference would be expected to know). I was not alone in this opinion; others asked questions afterward, trying to get the guy to clarify what he meant. They went around a couple times, but eventually they gave up on him, with a response that might be translated “he’s nuts.” Time for questions was up, and we were on to the next speaker, and people cut their losses.

But other missionary linguists and I caught up with him later, and asked him to explain himself more privately. It turned out that he was using a particular theory of a particular linguist that had been published, but that almost no one had heard of. And apparently he was using those words correctly within that theory, but that wasn’t enough to help us understand him without this much longer conversation. In the end, we were able to explain to him that the theory he was using wasn’t known or used many others, so he should either use more standard terminology, or else explain very clearly that he was using these words differently.

But the more important message, to me, was that we cared enough about him as a person (and as a linguist) to follow up with him, and help him get his thinking straight. It cost more time and energy than writing him off when his presentation didn’t make sense (even after questions), but it was worth better understanding him, and helping him be better understood. This idea is part of a core goal of my work: mentorship. That is, I want to have alphabets and writing systems done, so people can read (see above!), but if I can do that, and at the same time train up others to do this work, then I multiply myself, and the work gets on better and faster.

So while an introvert like me is certainly tempted to take every 15 minute brake I get for myself, those breaks are often taken up by processing things with people I know, and getting to know others that I don’t. And often all that rubbing shoulders yields unexpected results.

At the last conference I went to (in the US), there was a team of linguists from Ghana (IIRC), who were trying to analyze a tonal language (what I do), but without any particular training or orientation. I was able to point out Tone Analysis for Field Linguists, by Keith L Snider (full disclosure: he was on my committee),  probably the most helpful and practical approach to doing tone analysis. And I was able to sit and do some actual acoustic analysis with them. That is, they got out their computers, and showed how they were looking at the speech stream in their recordings (as I described for consonants here). Because all those lines and differently shaded areas require interpretation, and because good interpretation requires experience, I was able to give them some pointers to help them see their data in a more helpful way. It took maybe an hour altogether, but it was time well spent to help someone get along better in this work, and to show friendship and solidarity as well, and that in Jesus’ name.

Anyway, because of the prejudice against Christian missionaries common in most linguistic circles I’ve been in, any time I can show people compassion, care, and honest friendship is a win, even if just a PR win (people know who I work for; it’s on my name tag). But it isn’t just people thinking better of Christian missionaries, or of the church generally. I also get to mix friendliness and compassion with excellent academics (well, I try anyway :-)). So every chance I have to help someone think more clearly, or present his ideas more clearly, or understand someone else’s ideas more clearly, is a chance for people at the conference to see that Christians worship the Truth (John 14:6).  Not that everyone receives this, of course: “But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler. Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name.” (1Peter 4:15-16 ESV)

So regarding this upcoming conference, there are two kids of relationship to build. One is with my expatriate colleagues, other missionary linguists like myself. I know some of them a bit, but most not at all. So it will be good to interact with them through the conference, to enable better collaboration down the road. The other kind of relationship to build is with national linguists, whether they are involved in Bible translation movement or not. I anticipate my work in Cameroon including relationship with government and university entities; this work can only be helped by knowing and being known by Cameroonian linguists. And for those that are still in training, there is a great opportunity to come alongside them, and encourage them in ways that will facilitate more mentorship down the road.

Anyway, I look forward to this opportunity to glorify God by seeking truth and loving people in a way that I am particularly enabled to do, and in a way that will amplify our effectiveness in facilitating local Bible Translation movements throughout the central African basin.

Security Update

Church, Missiology, Travels, , , , ,

The following is a security update on Cameroon, from our colleagues there:

The situation in the Northwest and Southwest regions of Cameroon remains tense and unpredictable. We continue to pray for our staff serving in these areas, those with family members there, and for staff that have had to relocate to other areas of the country.

Please pray for:

  • Those in positions of power in the government and military, especially President Paul Biya. Pray that they would govern with wisdom and righteousness.
  • Those living in the affected areas whose lives continue to be disrupted by the political situation. Pray that they will know the Lord as their “refuge and strength, and an ever-present help in time of trouble.”
  • Those who have had to leave their homes, that they will know the Lord’s concern for them and that he will provide for their physical needs.
  • Those who are grieving the loss of family and friends- that they will not be given over to anger or a desire for vengeance.
  • Christians in the country- pray that they will be a faithful witness, a comforting presence, and a shining light. Pray that the Lord will give them the right words to speak at the right time, and that they will be equipped by the Holy Spirit to minister to others around them.

We continue to pray for peace and justice to reign in Cameroon.

“Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, and faithful in prayer.” (Romans 12:12)

On Message

Anthropology, Church, Missiology, Texas Culture, , , , , , ,

As I talk with people about our Wycliffe ministry, I feel like I’m repeating myself a lot, which makes me feel something like a politician. So to make my speech more clearly above board (for my conscience, but also for anyone else who might ask), I thought it good to lay out my “message” here. As I consider this, I see that I have three basic things to say these days, to three different audiences:

To the World

Sin, death, and hell are real, as are righteousness, repentance, forgiveness, and heaven. Trust Jesus to get you from the first to the second. I’m astounded how much these things need to be said, but in this age of increasingly divisive politics, I think it helps to remind ourselves of what is truly important for all humanity, and to focus on that.

To the Church

God’s plan for us is that we would work through local churches to build and grow the universal Church, which is composed of everyone united by the blood of Jesus: all ethnic groups, languages, tribes. Spiritual maturity includes (at least) the desire to work together with all types of Christians to accomplish this mission, which is given to us by God. I’m amazed how often I hear a christian disparage either the local or universal church. If we care about the local fellowship of believers, we should be committed to it (tithe and all). And if we care about the fellowship in Christ, then whether someone is in Christ should be more important to us than all the many other things that divide people these days (e.g., socioeconomics, ethnicity, nationality, race), and we should take joy in finding Christian brothers and sisters unlike us in these other ways, and we should mourn with them when they mourn (e.g., watch/read international news, pray for churches in other places).

To our Friends

We believe our part of God’s mission is to help African people groups develop writing systems for their languages, such that they may have powerful Bible translations which will transform their cultures and churches into the likeness of Christ. While this has been our mission for some time, some of our friends are only recently hearing more about it, and it is as true now as ever. But more specifically:

We hope to take the next step in this mission by moving to Cameron in June, after a short reconnaissance trip in March. To do this, we need your help; we need your partnership in our Wycliffe ministry, through prayer, personal assistance and encouragement, and finances.

Maybe you’ve heard this from us already, face to face. If not, or if you’d like more information about this agenda, please just let us know. :-)

Senior Year Abroad

Anthropology, Congo + Culture, Family, Homeschool, Missiology, School, Texas Culture, , , ,

It doesn’t make sense on paper to uproot a teenager for the final year of school. But we were questioned about taking him to France as an infant, or to Congo as a kid; much about our life looks like foolishness to some people.

But there are a number of reasons why it makes sense for us to go to Cameroon at the end of this school year, including the fact that Anna will be starting junior high, and Joel will be starting high school.

But James will be a senior next year, and the school in Cameroon has a policy of not admitting students for their senior year only. We believe this is a good and reasonable policy. However, we also think is a good and reasonable thing to ask for an exception to this policy for James. In this post, I’ll discuss some of the reasons their policy makes sense, and why we think James will do OK.

The policy makes sense

Teenage years are tumultuous enough already, without adding a change of school (not to speak of country and language). I know; I moved high schools after my sophomore year. The transition to a new school wasn’t easy, with new classes, new class requirements and prerequisites. I made the best of it, but I wasn’t changing languages or countries (unless you count California to Oregon as an international move.… :-)).

Added to the above are the transitions particular to life in a cross-cultural context. The school is in Cameroon, which has its own cultures, languages and politics. Language might be the easiest to deal with, since French is a national language in Cameroon (in addition to English). But needing to use French to take a taxi, or to buy or sell in a marketplace, is a different kind of stress than having to take a language class.

Politics in Cameroon is its own thing, perhaps especially right now. I hear (from Cameroonians) the president has been in power for a long time, and many people hope for change. There is talk of succession from the provinces that use English, to the point that at least some expatriates are not living there now. When we were there in 2004 (just after Joel was born), I recall the particular irony of not seeing any campaigning for the presidential election until after the election took place.

Encountering other cultures is one of the mixed blessings of any cross-cultural context. We get to rub shoulders with other brothers and sisters in Christ before we meet them at the throne of God (Rev 7:9̈-10). That said, other cultures have other foods, customs, and expectations of life, and these can take some getting used to. My personal top two “I hope I never have to eat that again” foods (tadpole soup, and fermented manioc) were first encountered in Cameroon, though we also saw fermented manioc in D.R. Congo. These adjustments are not insurmountable, but they do take time and work to deal with.

So when you add changes in language, culture and politics to changes of school and hormones, we get that this is not a small task, and we understand why many students would isolate themselves, come to hate themselves or their new context (or their parents, or God), and ultimately do very badly in a single senior year abroad.

James will do OK

That said, we believe that James will do OK, by God’s grace.

As I have talked to people who survived having missionaries as parents, and as I talk to people who work with missionary kid issues, it seems like one of the biggest indicators of how a missionary kid turns out is how much a part of the mission the child personally feels. Because of this, we have for some time talked our kids through transitions from the perspective that this is something our family is doing together for one purpose —not that dad has a job change and everyone else has to go along.

Another key element in weathering transition well, I find, is talking through transition, before, during, and afterward, to make sure everyone is processing it emotionally. This was a particular issue as we struggled with the more difficult years of Asperger’s, but we got used to talking each of our kids through what we would do when and why, so when we did it, there were fewer surprises for them. As soon as we would have an itinerary, we would talk about which planes we would take where (including which would have bathrooms, and which would have movies). I’m not saying this is something we have perfect, but we as a family have lots of experience weathering transition —enough to feel when things are going well, and when we need to take more time to work through things.

The above has two caveats. First, our kids have mostly been in Texas the last five years. So while James remembers Africa, I’m sure he will be surprised more than he thinks. Second, all of this (as in all things) has been done by God’s grace. When I say “experience” above, what I really mean is having some information in advance, but still screwing things up, and depending on God to make things right. Then spending time processing what happened and how to do better. Which means we have more information for the next time, but we still screw things up, and still need God to work all things to good (Romans 8:28). So ultimately what I mean by saying “James will be OK” is that God has given us a history both of weathering transition, and of depending on him, and we trust that he will show himself to be good in this case, as well.

What does this look like practically, right now? We are nine months out from a potential move to Cameroon at the end of this school year. We have already had a number of conversations, both as a family and individually, about the cost and the value of this transition. I have asked each of us to spend some time considering what the cost and value are for us personally, and we’ve had a number of very productive conversations since then. My goal is that each of us would have bought in to this transition without reservation —well in advance of any family move.

So far, I’ve talked more about our family process than about James. There are also a number of reasons why I think James will handle this transition well —beyond the fact that we have experience processing these things as a family. Basically, James is doing well in school, better than we imagined he would five years go. He takes tests very well, and he has developed friendships with classmates that he wants to see outside of school (something I never did much of in high school ;–)). But despite learning to be social, he is excelling at honors and college prep classes in almost every subject, including AP English; he is taking calculus now, as a Junior. James is in his fourth year of French now, and seems eager to be able to use it. Despite wanting to study math in college, he is also working on an endorsement in engineering. And until recently he insisted on taking (and enjoying, and doing well in) art —something I never managed to do myself.

Outside of school, James has showed a commitment to piano, both in practice and lessons (currently working on Sonata in G Major), and in leading worship at church. He is a very emotive pianist, and has said that playing the piano helps him express feelings that don’t come out in words. His commitment can be seen in that he wakes up at 5:45am to practice before school each day.

I’ll let James himself speak to his own motivation to go to Africa for his senior year (post coming soon), but I am grateful for the growth, maturity and responsibility he’s had to date. I am more grateful to see the man God is making him – especially given where he’s been.

WHEN (Cameroon Timeline)

Church, Missiology, , , , ,

So, when are we leaving for Cameroon? This is the top question we get right now; the short answer is “spring and summer 2019, God willing”.

First, recall that we’ve accepted an assignment with the Linguistics Services Team (LST), based in Yaoundé, Cameroon, but serving the Central African Basin in Francophone Africa. We will continue to use participatory research methods to develop writing systems in language communities that need them, so Bible translations will be read with fluency and power.

So when will we begin that assignment? While there is lots to do to make that happen, there are two main issues we are working on right now. The question of James’ schooling I address in another blog entry; the other is our financial readiness. Recall that Wycliffe has a policy that we must be receiving 100% monthly financial support to start a new assignment (which is a good thing). Since we are currently at 74%, that represents a non-trivial difference.

In the mean time, we have plenty of work to do. We are praying and talking to people about our work, individually and in small and large group meetings. But each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver (2Cor 9:7 ESV). We are also making plans and preparations for the move to Cameroon, trusting that God will provide us the right ministry partners at the right time. If you’d like to hear more about our work, either individually or in a small or larger group, please just let us know. If you have decided to join our Wycliffe ministry in financial partnership, you can do so here.

We currently hope to visit Cameroon in March. There is a linguistics conference one week, and a branch conference the next. In addition to these conferences, a March visit would help us plan and prepare for a move as a family, hopefully in June or July (between the end of school here, and the start of school there).  Our kids could meet some of their classmates for the following year, which could really help them transition. And we could see housing and transportation options first hand, as well as the kinds of things that are locally available (and thus unnecessary to ship).

A March trip is something of a bold plan, though. Logistically, in order to buy affordable airfare, we need to buy them in advance. This means we would need to have enough support to justify the trip by about Christmas, or perhaps January at the latest. But such a trip would be worth it; a family move (over the summer) would go much better, as each of us would have more realistic expectations of where we will be moving to.

Whatever comes of this March trip, I (Kent) should be ready to start on my LST work as we have our full budget coming in and get released to our assignment. Some of that work can be done at a distance (I attended a meeting virtually last week!), in addition to the work of selling/storing/packing up our house and preparing for the move.

As we plan this next transition, it feels like we have more questions than answers. How will the presidential election in Cameroon affect stability for this next year? What should we do with the stuff we left in DRC (is any of it worth trying to transport across Africa?) What will we need to make the move to Cameroon (e.g., a vehicle, household setup), and what will that cost? We hope most of these will be settled by the end of a trip to Cameroon in March.

Please join us in prayer that God would provide monthly financial partners for our Wycliffe ministry, such that we would have 100% of our monthly budget by Christmas, so we can make plans for March and June, and get back to serving the Bibleless peoples of central Africa, one alphabet at a time.

Assignment Details

Linguistics, Missiology, , , ,
Francophone countries in blue; LST works in darker blue countries
The LST domain is the central African Basin (darker) subset of the francophone African countries (blue). Yaoundé (captial of Cameroon) is starred.

We recently accepted an invitation to work in the Cameroon, on the Linguistics Service Team (LST). We’ve already begun sharing some of this informally, but I’ll describe the LST here, rather than leave anyone out. The basic facts are that my work won’t change, though the location and level of that work will.

The LST has been described as “a fairly loose association of linguists who work together on specific activities and come together to encourage each other”. I find this rather loose description encouraging, first because I have not worked in a team of linguists before (recall that I’m a missionary linguist). Everyone in Wycliffe has some knowledge of linguistics, but so far my interaction with other professional linguists has been limited to conferences, which I have attended maybe once a year. So I look forward to having other linguists look over my work, and to being able to help other linguists improve their work.

What will stay the same

The basic paradigm for my work will stay the same. As indicated in past newsletters, and in the Africa Night post, a lot of what I have done (and will continue to do) involves helping people get involved in the analysis of their own language. We use what we call Participatory Research Methodology, often sitting around a table sorting cards as a group. The purpose of this work remains twofold: to understand the sound system of a given language in order to develop a writing system for it, and to train a group of people who can take that writing system and do something with it.

What will change

While the basic paradigm of my work will remain the same, the geographic and academic scope will involve some changes. As the director described the Linguistics Service Team (LST) to me recently:

The vision of the team is to provide linguistics services that will help meet the needs of language communities, and translation projects, both SIL and with partner organisations, both in Cameroon and in the Central African Basin zone. A secondary vision is to help in the development of linguists, both expat and nationals at various levels and to provide a place where each linguist can belong and pursue their interests while working in a team.

I like this quote because it deals with a change in scope, in two dimensions.

Geographically, we’ll be working in Cameroon, but also in surrounding countries which have French as a national or official language (i.e., Francophone Africa). We plan to live in Yaoundé, the capital of Cameroon, but we will help linguists and translation projects in other countries, such as Chad, (RO)Congo, Central African Republic, and maybe some day western DRCongo.

Administratively, I will also be working more actively to develop, train, and mentor other linguists, in order to multiply the people ready and able to do this work. This will involve bringing along assistants to workshops and identifying and mentoring leaders in each community, but also teaching at a university and seminary level. The goal, again, is to work more effectively to get more of the work done faster, without sacrificing quality.

Participatory Research Methods

Linguistics, Missiology, Thoughts, , , , ,

I just realized I don’t have an article to refer to on this topic, while I’ve been using and talking about these methods for some years, so I’ll briefly describe what I mean here.

The term comes from “Participatory Research in Linguistics”, by Constance Kutsch Lojenga (1996). Others have used it, but the basic idea is to involve people in the analysis of their own language, as much as possible.

While this may seem a weird thing to have to say, many Field Methods courses in linguistics involve asking a naive speaker how to say things (or if saying something is grammatical), while the researcher takes notes. Those notes are not typically shared with the speaker, and it is relatively unimportant whether the speaker has any idea what is going on.

This is the paradigm that we are turning on its head, when we want to involve as many community members in the analysis, as much as possible.

Involving as many people as possible is good for our data, because it means we aren’t basing our analysis of the language on what just one person says. I join many in believing that language is a community property, not that of a single person. Yet it is not uncommon to have claims about a language made on the basis of a single person’s production. Involving more people can only increase our confidence that our data represents the language as a whole.

Involving as many people as possible is good for our analysis, as well. When I sit on the other side of a clipboard, and leave the “naive speaker” out of my thinking entirely, I’m looking at only half the problem. Sure, I can see how things look from the outside (etic), but I cannot see how things look from the inside (emic) anywhere near as well as can a native speaker of the language. Even if my analysis could be completely right without that inside perspective, its presence can confirm the rightness of that analysis. But working from both inside and outside the language allows more perspective to push the work forward faster, and on a more sure footing.

Involving as many people as possible is also good for the community of people who speak the language. I have no interest in finding out a lot of cool things about a language, publishing them and becoming famous (as if), and leaving the people who speak that language ignorant of the work. On the contrary, I think the community is best served by being as involved in the work as possible, so that as the work progresses, those who are most closely involved in the work can explain it to those around them —and typically in terms that might escape my attempts to do so. This accomplishes two things: it builds a cadre of people who are able to teach the analysis to others, and it increases the number and kind of people within reach of that teaching.

Consider the implications for literacy work. The above might not mean much to you if I’m dealing with some obscure syntactic phenomenon that you couldn’t even point out in English, like “Successive Cyclic Movement and Island Repair” (which is a real topic of conversation between some linguists, btw). But if I’m producing a booklet that should help literacy teachers teach people how to read, but no one understands the booklet, how will they teach people to read? On the other hand, when I finish a workshop, anywhere from three to fifteen people have a good idea what we’ve done, and could explain it to someone else. Maybe they’re not ready to be literacy teachers yet, but they are at least on their way there.

So involving as many people as possible is good for our data, for our analysis, and for the people we work with. Because I am strongly invested in all of these,  I use these methods almost exclusively.

There is a caveat: I’ve put “as much as possible” hedges above intentionally. I have a couple graduate degrees in linguistics, and I shouldn’t assume that everyone can understand everything I have figured out in a language, or even what I’m trying to figure out, or why. There are times where I have to accept the limits of the people I’m working on, and use what I can get from participatory methods. There are lots of things in my dissertation that I wouldn’t bring up with almost anybody, without some serious background conversation (and for some not even then). Rather, as I consider what is possible, I seek ways to simplify and explain what we’re doing so a subsistence farmer might be able to grasp it. This is why we use papers in workshops, rather than computers. This is why we stack them in piles, organizing them visually on a surface to show the differences between them. To invite and enable more participation, will only increase the value of our work.




Fluent Reading Makes Powerful Bibles

Church, Linguistics, Missiology, , , , ,

As we have thought through our messaging lately, one thing we saw friends do was develop a personal ministry hashtag. This is not just to try to be trendy (though hashtags are integral to communication these days), but to communicate a particular repetitive theme in a terse manner.

I think this was a good exercise, because it forced us to think about how we would summarize our Wycliffe Ministry in a few words, even if it was in the format #MyHashtagIsLongerThanYourHashtag…

So we came up with #FluentReadingMakesPowerfulBibles, and I’d like to take this post to explain why. First of all, as a full sentence, I hope that it doesn’t require much explanation. 🙂

But to explain our thinking in any case, #FluentReadingMakesPowerfulBibles makes a connection that I often find myself communicating face to face. That is, what do I do as a missionary linguist, and how does that connect to the larger Bible translation movement?

Thinking about #PowerfulBibles, something that has plagued some Bible translation projects is the question of whether the Bible will be used once produced. I think we all agree that a Bible on a shelf is not the point; we want Bibles in use, powerfully sustaining, encouraging and growing the church for the people who speak the language of that translation.

There are certainly many reasons why a Bible translation might get less usage, but the one that impacts my work the most directly deals with the fluency with which people can read the translation (#FluentReading). If people stumble over words they’re not sure how to pronounce (e.g., because a given spelling could be pronounced multiple ways), or if they have to read a sentence to understand it before they can pronounce all the words (therefore reading parts multiple times to pronounce the words correctly), then we should not expect reading or listening to be very enjoyable.

Such a lack of ability to clearly and fluently communicate meaning translates almost directly into a lack of power. If your mom calls you to the table, but stumbles over the words, would that mean the same to you? Or again, if your father corrects you, but stumbles over his words, would that mean the same? When we hear God say

Come, everyone who thirsts,
come to the waters;
and he who has no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price.
(Isaiah 55:1 ESV)

This should sound as a mother calling children to the table, with power to provide, and pleasure on the other side for all who respond. And when we hear God say

let the wicked forsake his way,
and the unrighteous man his thoughts;
let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him,
and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
(Isaiah 55:7 ESV)

That should sound like a father disciplining a son, with power and fear for the rebellious, and compassion and pardon for the repentant.

We are, of course, not denying the power of the Holy Spirit to communicate in spite of a bad writing system. But He typically chooses to communicate through the written word, that written word is contained in one writing system or another. And that written word is turned into the spoken word by people more or less able to do so well.

The goal of my work developing writing systems is to remove as many barriers as possible to fluent reading, that the path of communication between God’s word and peoples’ hearts would be as clear and direct as possible. And this is why I’m going to keep talking about how #FluentReadingMakesPowerfulBibles.