Adventurous Trip to the Awing Bible Translation Office

I went to the motor park to take public transport to Awing but because I went a bit late, I could only ride on the back/top of the truck! Yes it was embarrassing but that was the only option. Riding on the back/top of the truck on pretty bad Awing roads is very scarry. You have to grab the bars with both hands and struggle to balance yourself as the wind blows seriously on you. The only good thing however is that you can see everything around including lake Awing and the beautiful rocks and countryside. So I struggle to get some shots with my camera. I am very thankful that on my way back I got a comfortable seat inside the truck. Praise the Lord for safety on these roads.

IT work in Ngwo Project (Njikwa)

CABTAL IT Service went to install Solar power and Internet service in the Ngwo Bible Translation Office in Njikwa so as to accelerate the work of Bible Translation and Language development for the team. The roads to Ngwo are not very friendly. But with the expertise of Kenga Ernest and the CABTAL Landcruiser plus the absence of rain you can be sure to make it safely.

When we arrived in Njikwa, men just showed up from nowhere and gave us a helping hand in digging and mixing the sand and cement, breaking the rocks and all that was needed to setup the platform for the solar panels.
We were very happy for the help that several men came from no where and gave us.

We were able to train the typist and other ladies to use the computer to type in Ngwo, their heart language. Lovert was very happy to be able to able to use the computer to type Ngwo - her language.

The Fon came to see what we were doing. He is very encouraging and supportive to the Bible Translation Project. He has given the Land of Ngwo to Jesus! He even invited us to his palace that night. We were amazed to get to know and hear a lot from such an important personality like the fon of Ngwo.

Connections

Every time I go to my village, people always want stop by and say hello. Greetings are very very important and cannot be ignored. In fact, as one of my Physics teacher Mr. Seka Godfrey will always remind us when teaching us,"greetings are prayers" so do not ignore them. These two men with my mother are from my village. These are men I grew up and they have always been around. They have also been very healthy but age is coming real fast. The one on the left doesn't see very well but he is a very good organist. He hails from a neighboring village and I always enjoy him playing the organ in Church back in those days. It is amazing how long he treks even with poor sight.
The Pa on the right is my parents closest neighbor and family friend for as long as we moved into this area. He has been a petit merchant over the years. He sells just a few things moving around with them asking someone to open the market (tóʼ la wáy?). Actually he is said to have been the one who started our market in Sop which has grown to become a very big market but he still says just his few goods. You never see him at home with any such items to sell but what happens is that when he gets to the market, he takes them from other stationed traders and then moves around selling them. At the end he goes back with his own little gain.
He reminded me in appreciation something that happened sometimes ago that I had actually forgotten. He once asked me for money in the market when I just arrived from Bamenda and I politely told him that I didn't think he needed the drink. He was very surprised but I added that I am sure that he was in need of oil or soap or keresene and he gladly accepted. I provided him with cooking oil and that taught him a lesson. I was very happy when he told me that I taught him a lesson that he will never forget. God can work in ways that we cannot imagine. All we need to ask God each day is to use us. May we be His hands, feet and mouthpiece so that the world me may know even in smaller things.
They all belong to meeting together and they have their meetings on Sundays after Church service.

Do you like tethering goats?

When I was growing up, I didn't like tethering goats for several reasons. It was a very difficult thing for me to do because I was suppose to tether them when it was very cold in the mornings and I didn't like to leave my comfort of my warm blanket. In the evenings too, I could not stay out a bit longer because the goats need to get into pane??
As if this was not enough, some goats were very heady. Even more so, goats will chew up any savon around and we will be in trouble with either our mother or didn't even have any soap left for washing stuff.
From time to time a goat will let loose and eat up someone's crops and you will be in trouble. One day I went to tether goats and grabbed some grass and a snake was right there. It almost got me.
When I finally left the village, I had nothing to do with goats for a very long time except to have them in my place for I really like goat meat.
One day I had some money with my father and before he long, he told me he had used it to buy a goat. I was very mad at him for buying a goat with my money even without my consent. Actually my father bought the goat because the goat owner had some health crises and my father would not watch someone in need when he had the money and the person wanted to sell the goat. I almost told my father off about the goat issue but thank God I held my peace. Several months down the road, I received some money from my father that my goat gave birth and the young grow up and was sold. I felt so ashamed of myself in front of my father. This is my little goat that my cousin is tethering for me. It has another young again. Maybe I will eat that one with time since I like goat meat.

Burial of Mama Munchep

About 1924 - 2015 (~91 years) Wiba Josepher Yeli (Mama Munchep) is one of the oldest grandmother in the neighborhood. She is one of the very first wife's of Bondi. She is also known as one of the first Wiba in Donga Mantung who decided to go to Church as it was unheard of wiba's like her at the time. It was even seen as a taboo for her to have done such a thing. She was baptized in 1983 in PC Ntundip.
She was a traditional doctor specialized in treating fractures, pile, filaria and delivery related issues. She was recognized by the government in 1987 as a tradi practitioner. That is her she got the name Mama Munchep.
She had five children, 36 grandchildren, 44 great grand children and 5 great great grand children giving a total of 85 but God called 3 sons and two grand daughters home already. She left 80 immediate family lives to mourn her.
The funeral was really awesome. Interestingly, the family organized a thanksgiving service this was the first time for me to see a family organized a thanksgiving during a funeral service. But I do think that this is something worth emulating.
There was a band all the way from Nkongsamba to animate the occasion. Even at the family compound in Bondi, she was buried as a christian and this was to my greatest surprise especially when I overheard one of the elderly men complaining bitterly to the compound heard that the juju's had gone untop of the grave when she was buried the christian way. It would appear they gave her an entire day to be buried as a christian and then let traditional dances come on as from the following day.

Pray at all times

When ever it rains, going to our office is not without challenges. Even if your car is 4X4 you are still unsure until when you navigate through without sliding into the ditch or something. sometimes you are never sure if the road is going to be completely blocked or not. The other day as I approached this spot, I was motioned to stop. I then packed nearby to walk to the office. To my greatest surprise, I noticed that a timber truck had struggled there and dropped off some of the poles it was carrying. So it took a while for the workers of this factory to clear off the debris from the road. So I always pray as I stop on this particular spot that I will go through successfully. God has been so faithful to me and I always make it through.

Consultant Checking with the Babankin Project

Working with the Babanki (Kejom) MTTs this week. We are learning and growing through the challenges we face as we work on consistency checks on their Scriptures. When we started, it turned out that the book of Matthew is not what they expected it to be. I dug through some backups and we got the right one. As we go from check to check, they are realizing that they still have a lot of work to do in pruning their scriptures. Since they come to the same office with me everyday, it is going to be easy as they can stop by my office and ask me questions.

Back to School preparations

Back to school is a very important time for students, pupils and parents. It is a time that some children are really looking forward to starting school for the very first time in their life. They might go to school with all the enthusiasm but as their parents leave them there, they will cry because it is a totally new environment. With time they will adjust though. For those students who have to be away from home (bordering school) you might see children as well as parents crying. For those who didn't succeed in an end of course exams such as FSLC or GCE, it is even more painful for them to repeat.
As for the parents, the difficulty is that a lot of money is spent at this time in purchasing uniforms, dresses, books and paying of school fees. I noticed my wife was very conscious as well as our girls to get their things ready for the first day of school. Everyone was involved in doing something just to make sure the children ready for school. Praise the Lord that they have been in school now for 3 weeks and all has been going on pretty well.

the sparrow and the mirror what about us?

The other day this sparrow was struggling on the window and I wondered what was going on. I thought it was trying to get in but I noticed it was fighting with another bird. Unfortunately for the sparrow, it was only fighting with itself as it was only seeing itself on the mirror. Are we like this bird sometimes?

Information & Language Technology Annual Report 2015

Information and Language Technology:
CABTAL IT service exist to ensure that Competent CABTAL and ICC staff are effectively using well-secured, properly functioning, and appropriate IT resources to achieve the ends of CABTAL and its partners.
Language Technology and Training:
In 2015 one of our IT staff completed his training and was named our first Language Technology Consultant. This was a very significant milestone for CABTAL. The job of a language technology worker is to advise language programs leadership as to available language technology, provide training and support for such technology so as to maximize the efficiency of field teams and guarantee high quality outcomes.
Several language projects were trained in 2015 to make maximum use of available IT resources especially ParaText software to produce good quality back-translations thereby facilitating their work with translation consultants. Projects nearing completion of their Scriptures or ready to print scripture portions where trained to use advanced features of ParaText software to run spelling checks and do various consistency checks to get their text nicely formatted and ready for typesetting.

Software licenses were ordered for several language projects and consultants who needed ParaText and Translators reference library for their work. We installed linguistic software, complex keyboards and fonts for several language projects, linguists and university students involved in language development work.
Information Technology:
IT is a service that never stops working. Currently CABTAL has 65 language projects in Cameroon and we service and maintain all their computers and other IT equipment plus several office computers. These keep our IT staff very busy on a daily basis to be up to speed with our daily IT needs.

In 2015 we upgraded our network. With the coming of 3G technology to Cameroon, our Internet connectivity has greatly improved hence improving our ICT operations as well. We are very pleased that some of our village teams can do their backups unto the Internet hence keeping their data safe. As a result of improved Internet connections, we have been able to access, troubleshoot and fix issues on project and office staff computers remotely saving time and travel costs.
In 2015 we worked with Global Alliance IT Administrators in the background cleaning up our email system and migrating everyone to use a new and improved system - Google Apps. This was very successful and CABTAL was the first Alliance organization in Africa to complete this process. We assisted other Alliance organizations in Africa in their migration process. This kind of teamwork is very useful for IT work is team work.


Challenges:
One challenge we have is viruses. Despite the fact that we deploy antirust programs, many people do not remember to scan every USB device before opening.
There is a significant increase in tablets and mobile devices and we are concerned about their security as some of these devices carry sensitive work related data and emails.
Prospects:
- We are working on putting Scripture on mobile devices so that many people will have easy access to the Holy Scriptures on devices that they carry around all the time.
- Our desire is to train each of our staff on appropriate ICT use at least once a year. This will build the capacities of everyone to use ICT to improve performance.
- Looking into the future, we think that open source software will help us all more.

Working with a Mbembe MT Translator

This week I have been working with Abe Paul doing consistency checks using ParaText software to fine tune their gospel of Luke and the book of Acts to get those ready for typesetting. Both of us were amazed at what ParaText program can do to help us in this. Pray that these Scriptures will speak to the hearts and minds of the Mbembe people.

ParaText Training in Pinyin

This week I've been working with the Pinyin Bible Translators training them on how to use ParaText (Special software for entering, editing, checking... Scriptures) They have learned to do several powerful checks which will help them to get their scriptures ready for typsetting not too long from now. Pinyin has several touristic sites, and surprisingly very cold at this time of the year. Due to the bad nature of roads, getting to Pinyin is very challenging.

It was really good for me to spend time with Translation Team to hear how they sometimes argue to arrive a something good. The Task of Bible Translation is a very noble job.
To my greatest surprise, Pinyin was very cold but I enjoyed my time there especially as I got to visit the water falls right around the corner. There are lots of touristic sites

like caves in Pinyin but I didn't have enough time to get there. Next time will do.