Road Trip

It was only 260 kilometers—about 150 miles. Back home, it would have been a trip of two and a half hours; but here in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), it was different. VERY different! In fact, this road trip illustrated what an adventure driving can become when road maintenance is neglected for over ten years.

One of the many "adventurous" sections of our road trip!

It all started when I was asked to visit the head office of ACOTBA-SUBO, one of the Congolese agencies handling Bible translation in the country. I had only two ways to get from Bangui, Central African Republic to their office in Gemena, capital of the far northwest province of DRC. The first choice was to wait around for several weeks for the Wycliffe Cameroon JAARS plane, which makes occasional trips to Gemena every couple months. The second was to cross the Ubangi River by dugout canoe, then hop on a chartered Hilux 4x4 truck for a nine-hour drive. Needless to say, I opted for the second choice.

What I didn’t opt for was the most incredible, jaw-jarring, seat-jolting, mind-boggling road trip I’ve ever been on! What is left of this stretch of the international African highway from Cape Town to Casablanca can hardly be called a road anymore. Deep ruts three- to four-feet deep cut across the route everywhere, and regular washouts force detours into the bush. The rainy season makes every single pothole a major mud hole or small lake.

Example of stuck truck--after two days of digging!

Fortunately for me, Luka, the full-time, professional chauffeur of ACOTBA-SUBA was driving the trusty Toyota Hilux; and a true professional he was! Navigating the slippery mud holes and gutted mini-ravines along the way, he quickly proved to me he knew what he was doing. At times, he would even stop in front of a mud hole and discuss with his assistant the best way to traverse. Nevertheless, there were still a number of times I really believed we would not make it and become totally stuck like the dozen or so other vehicles we passed along the way. Can you guess the average time it takes to dig out a vehicle along this road? Two to three days!

If I’ve impressed you so far, perhaps I will impress you further by reporting that I made this trip with Luka not once, but twice within a three-day period. Now that I realize how crazy it was to attempt such a tight schedule, I can only say how grateful I am that no significant incident happened both going and coming back.

Although my new knowledge might change my future travel planning, I can’t say I’m sorry for the experience. First, the time spent consulting with the director of ACOTBA-SUBA (reported in my previous blog post) was really significant and worth every mile. Second, I will always remember these three days as the time when I gained a brand-new perspective and understanding of what it means to be a contemporary Congolese living in a truly broken country. When provincial leaders consistently line their own pockets with the funds designated for road upkeep, it helps one understand why everyone here feels so used and abused. Nothing short of a moral and spiritual revolution that transforms worldviews and mindsets across this entire country will ever bring the kind of change that can make a difference—to roads and everything else.

Which, by the way, is exactly what God teaches throughout Romans 12. Maybe ACOTBA-SUBO’s labors to produce God’s written truth in dozens of local languages will help start that revolution! 

With Luka--a truly professional chauffeur!

Mother Tongue

Ever heard of a MTBTO?

I hadn’t either until I had a chance to visit two of them last week at the end of my visit to central Africa. It stands for Mother Tongue Bible Translation Organization. These organizations are revolutionizing how God’s Word is made accessible to people who have never read the Bible before in their own language.

ACATBA translation team in Bangui, CAR

Commissioned by Wycliffe Associates to check out to the best way to help MTBTOs develop organizationally, I had the privilege of spending some quality time with two exceptional local leaders and their respective national organizations. ACATBA in the Central African Republic (CAR) and ACOTBA-SUBO in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are separated by only 150 miles, but each organization is responsible for the primary oversight of key translation projects in their countries.

Having hung around mission circles for a long time, I thought I had a good handle on what Bible translation is all about. After the past few days, nothing could be farther from the truth! I have been amazed at how much I learned through my interviews with these men and their dedicated staff. Here are just a few highlights:

• ·         Gone, pretty much, are the days of highly-trained, Western-born, linguistic specialists who come to the African jungle to dedicate at least ten years to learning a local language and then another ten or twenty years to producing a copy of the New or Old Testament. That job has now been replaced by a team of three or four “mother-tongue” national workers who already speak the language and, with only couple years (or even months) of basic orientation, are generating first-draft translations in a third or fourth of the traditional time.
• ·         MTBTOs are effectively managing multiple translation teams at once, each focused on a particular tribal language. The only thing keeping them from deploying more teams is the lack of adequate funds to support them.
• ·         Far from being linguistic lightweights, project team leaders are capably parsing out original Greek texts while their companions do word-comparison studies in English, French, Lingala, Sango, or other existing Bible translations used by local populations.
• ·         Most often, teams are working at a common facility where they have ready access to electricity and V-Sat e-mail communications for their laptops. In the case of ACATBA, it’s in Bangui, capital of CAR. For ACOTBA-SUBO, it’s in Gemena, DRC, a major regional capital.
• ·         Teams regularly deploy on multi-week motorcycle safaris to check their translation work against the vernacular of local people throughout their target region. These visits take them to some of the most remote villages in all of Africa.
• ·         Far from being out of the loop, Western translation experts consult with each team to provide essential theological and linguistic accuracy for final drafts. At times, this interaction occurs during a two-week on-site workshop, but more and more it is happening via e-mail links that connect folks in real time across the globe. 

Main base for "mother tongue" translators in Gemena, DRC

As if this isn’t impressive enough, I also learned that these MTBTOs are thinking more and more about the need for sociolinguistic evaluation and research teams to determine how the changing dynamics of a particular tribal people might affect a translation project. Wycliffe/SIL veterans may have determined various translation projects as priorities ten or twenty years ago, but these projects have hardly remained static. Intermarriage, economic upheaval, and even rebel activity have totally changed, in some cases,  the dynamics of the languages people are currently using in a given area. ACATBA’s director, Bertin, explained, “We don’t want to plug away on a language project, only to find we have completed a New Testament for a language people really don’t use anymore.” ACOTBA-SUBO’s leader, Bolobo, alternatively suggested that smart, aggressive efforts of biblical exposure and literacy training with a local population can actually help preserve a mother tongue.

All of this has added a completely new dimension to the value of helping to bolster the organizational capacity of these worthy, national Bible-translation entities. After hours spent with each leader discussing (in French) everything from board governance and job performance review methods to efficient facilities management, I am returning home with a long list of potential ways friends and volunteers from America could come alongside these partners to make them even more effective and accelerate their strategic role of bringing God’s Word to the people of their countries.

Anyone interested in learning more?