Impressive Initiatives

ACOTBA-SUBO, CITBA, ECG—all impressive acronyms that I’m learning about on this trip across the Democratic Republic of Congo. Each are related to efforts to complete translations of the Bible for the many tribal languages of the country that do not have one.

What has been interesting to me is that all of the new effort on translation projects have come not from the traditional Western-oriented organizations like Wycliffe Bible Translators or SIL but from relatively new national agencies. ACOTBA-SUBO is one of those focused on the northwestern part of the country. Undaunted by grueling logistic and economic difficulties common to this part of DRC, they pressed ahead to start four new projects funded totally by the tithes of their own staff! Interviewing director Bolobo Obed, I was able to gather this graphic representation on my iPad about just where these projects are located. The blue markers on this map indicate existing language projects started by Wycliffe missionaries years ago. The red markers are the brand new projects and the green ones are future projects they hope to start as soon as more funds can be procured.

Some 470 miles (and a four hour MAF flight in a Cessna 206) to the east is the jungle city of Isiro, the region historically called by C. T. Studd, the “heart of Africa.” It is also the home of CITBA, another new national Bible translation organization. This effort is a collaboration of three Protestant church groups and three Catholic diocese, all committed to seeing the Bible completed in the tribal languages of the region. Some of the member church groups have donated buildings and property for CITBA to begin work, which now consists of five separate teams focused on translation into such languages as Mayogo and Mangbetu.

Finally, the East Congo Group (ECG) of SIL located in the border town of Bunia is transforming itself more and more from a traditional Wycliffe translation team into a support and training service for other national translation initiatives. Working in conjunction with the Univeristy Shalom Bunia (USB) they are providing technical training to a significant number of Congolese learning the ins and outs of becoming a “mother tongue translators.”

It’s been fun making this trip on behalf of Wycliffe Associates and learning how our logistics and organizational training support can enable these national translation efforts to make new Bibles a reality for those tribes that have never had one before.