MozamWeek

A few weeks ago I had a lovely chat with a friend who loves and supports Little Zebra Books and our community reading programs. Hilda even uses Little Zebra Books in a Sunday School program at her church here in Tete. Our conversation turned, as often happens these days, to our impending exit from Tete. "Are you really going? What will happen to the programs without you? We need you here." "Yes," I replied, "we are going to leave. It is for the best. It has always been planned this way. Others are already running things. There are a few things I can help with from a distance if needed, but I trust my teams." "But it isn't the same. You do everything with love!" I got teary, as often happens this last year in Tete. "Hilda, so do you! You show such love to the kids. So does Veronica! You all do! You can love them even better than me, because you know them better." There is a reason that I'm not in all those pictures. Min...

Long ago, our mission directors decided that a short American girl should share a desk with a tall Swede in Maputo, Mozambique. They were in the same department and the office was very small. That's the beginning of our story. We've told it often and in many circumstances: when we visited churches everyone wanted the "love story"; when we met people in Mozambique and they wanted to know how we ended up together; when I've given a lift to a lady on the side of the road and she asked how I ended up in Mozambique and questions led to the story. God has used the story to show many how he can lead with a smile, and a whisper of hope. We married at the age of 30. It seemed very old at the time! February 22, 1997 Mikael and I have made a life together, and we have mostly allowed God to guide us. He's guided us through good and bad decisions and moved us a little closer to His vision of who we are in Him, I hope. We are never quite there... but we are moving the...

We have been in Mozambique for a very long time. This is our oldest daughter visiting a village a half hour out of town in 2003. This was most of what she knew about the world at the time. This village was new to her, but not scary or strange. Our home was surrounded by a green, lush garden. Tea time under a guava tree was a daily ritual with Rosa and Maria. I admit, this looks a little "colonial" in some ways. But that is just life in Africa: our kids are white and everyone else is not. When you have a picnic this is what it looks like.  By 2012 my kids were happy in their school. The translation project was well under way. I was out and about visiting friends and finding places to share Nyungwe stories. There weren't many. Not many people were interested yet. We were on the verge of a new big thing, but we didn't know it.  After our "furlough" for a year in 2012-13, we returned to Mozambique. Little Zebra Books started publishi...

I am entering (have entered) a phase of transition - again. Every 3-4 years we have a big shift from Africa to Sweden and America. It marks a year-long flip-flop of joy and frustration. Some people derive great comfort from knowing what is ahead and plan meticulously with great conviction and joy. I don't. It is just over a year to the count-down and I'm dragging my feet in naming my destination. USA? Sweden? You see, this is the last time we do this. We will be leaving our ministry base of 20 years at the end of NEXT year. (Every time I mention this people think we are leaving now. No. Over a year from now. Wanna come help us pack?) I can't decide yet. I just can't. Everything we've worked towards is preparing us for careers in Africa. We really like working in this part of the world where our skill can be stretched and used. We hope to come back to southern Africa, but it we won't be based in Tete, Mozambique, next time around. Reality is that we must leav...

lufoyi... love...  penu ndiribe lufoyi... but if I don't have love... ndine lini cinthu... I am nothing... I Corinthians 13... the famous Love Chapter that is read a weddings all over the world, every week... is translated into Nyungwe. The consultant  check  is underway for Paul's first letter to the church at Corinth. Things are going well. There were a few days when the team stayed to work through just another verse and spent an extra hour discussing it. Chapter 7 was tough. Chapter 14 can get tricky. Chapter 13 is pretty much done, at least the first seven verses I begged Mikael to share with us for this post. Here are maybe the most quotable parts... 4  Love is patient,   love is kind.           4  Lufoyi limbapirira, lufoyi limbakomera m'tima.  It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.       Lufoyi liribe njiru, limbasamwa lini ayai limbadzikuza lini.  ...

Bata and Semu are Bible translators If these guys don't get it... Artinha and Rosa are my household "staff"                              ... ask a woman! In Bible translation not everything is a theological question. Sometimes we have to find a way to explain an aspect of New Testament culture in the Nyungwe culture. Let's face it, even the best trained Nyungwe translator will get stuck on certain concepts! In many cases, it is just necessary to ask someone with different experiences - like a WOMAN! My maids, Artinha and Rosa, clarified the two concepts that follow for our visiting consultant during a chat after breakfast. Easy! There is no color purple... Lydia sells "purple cloth" in Acts. In Bible times, people would understand that to mean that the cloth was very expensive; only for the elite. In Nyungwe, they are baffled by the color purple. It might be red (but re...

There are parts of Bible translation we don't really think about... We just got an email asking about how we plan to write numbers. Do you spell them out or do you write the numerals? There is a "rule" in English where anything over ten you usually just use a numeral in a text. (Though I noticed this isn't followed in the English Bible I use.) There just aren't any norms for this in Nyungwe. There aren't lots of books written, so you can't just see what other people are doing. Besides, it is a bit more complicated than following rules. In many African languages the counting system is a little cumbersome. It takes a lot of long words to spell out a big number. It is common to hear English or Portuguese numbers spoken in the middle of a Nyungwe or Chewa conversation. It isn't that the numbers don't exist in the language, but they just use English or Portuguese numbers because they are easier or they are used to them. So this morning, we were t...