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.