Report 2014, June 28 to July 3, San (!Kung), Namibia

San Scripture Engagement 6th follow through workshops !Kung

Petrus and Nico (as translator) from M’kata help facilitate the workshops.

Topics to be covered:

Identifying and confirming the desire and need for Scripture in !Kung
Oral Scriptures becoming a standard like written Scripture
The process of preparing for Oral Scriptures and how it goes hand-in-hand with Scripture engagement using storying strategies (including but not exclusively Scripture telling)
Practicing oral Scripture telling en engaging with the Scripture passages
The importance of addressing the key principle issues Scripture addresses
The importance of repetition
Issues involved in translation (dialect differences, choice of stories, etc.)
Developing a team with workers from the different communities to start oral Bible translation in !Kung

Points 3, 4, 5 and 6 are addressed throughout the workshops

June 27:

Travel from Cape Town to Kalahari New Hope (near Omatako, Namibia) via Windhoek.

June 28:

Pick up participants for one day !Kung leadership Scripture Engagement workshop from Kano Vlei, Omatako (including Nandu - a person from Mangetti Dune who is staying there), and M’kata. Some workers from Kalahari New Hope join in (some for part of the day to get exposure to what I am facilitating).
Our main purpose is to broaden the pool of people involved, spread awareness, provide opportunities for finding people with time and skills to become story tellers (and help people internalize the stories), oral scripture passage translators, and eventually also audio recordists and preliminary consultants to check words and some discourse issues.
After we all introduce ourselves and address the purpose of the workshop, we specifically address topics 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, and 8. Petrus models Genesis 4:1-16 and helps the group engage with the story.
The men take some time to discuss how they should move forward and they are serious about selecting a team to start the process of translating Scripture into !Kung. They also discuss which stories they want to share and process in the respective workshops in Kano Vlei and Omatako.
We close with a rich season of prayer and listening to the first story that has been consultant checked and approved as !Kung Scripture.
After driving the M’kata men back to their home, I answer many questions the Kalahari New Hope team has about the SE process, as well as some Scripture issues in general.

June 29:

In the morning I am asked to preach at the Kalahari New Hope church service and I share Matthew 15:1-20 and help people engage with the passage.

In the afternoon I am asked to share in the M’kata community gathering of Kalahari New Hope and I story Daniel 6, telling the story twice, have the children act it out and then engage the people through questions.
In the evening I engage further with the Kalahari New Hope team, answering questions and working through various Scripture passages.

June 30:

In the morning we start our first community workshop in Kano Vlei with 13 adults present, including Petrus, Nico and Shotty, as well as two other leaders that participated in the workshop of June 28.
We start with an introduction of all the participants after which I share the purpose of our workshop.
I engage the group in laying a foundation of God’s real love for the work of translating Scripture in !Kung. This work will only happen if they are motivated by His love in them and through them, instead of by trying to do it though any self initiated or outside lead effort. I use John 3:16, its context and 1 Corinthians 13 as a Scriptural background and I help them engage in the passages. Shotty provides a great practical example of showing the motivation of love, when right before the session he draws up a chair and cleans the seat of it with his cap for his wife when she arrives. I ask him in the workshop why he did this and he simply said just because he loved his wife. Issues discussed are God’s unconditional love, God’s love in us and expressed through, the issue of doing things without God’s love.
We specifically address topics 1, 2, 3 and 8. We end with a season of prayer and they leave very enthusiastic.
In the afternoon we have our first community workshop in Omatako with 20 adults present, including Petrus and Nico, as well as four other leaders that participated in the workshop of June 28.
I engage the group in laying a foundation of God’s real love for the work of translating Scripture in !Kung. This work will only happen if they are motivated by His love in them and through them, instead of by trying to do it through any self-initiated or outside lead effort. I use John 3:16, its context and 1 Corinthians 13 as a Scriptural background and I help them engage in the passages.
Petrus and I next model Genesis 4:1-16. We both tell the story well and I lead the group to engage with the story through questions. Then we break up in small groups where they practice telling the stories and discuss further what they are learning from the story. Everybody engages well and when we come back together in the large group different people share further insights they have gleaned from the passage. Next one of the ladies tells the story back and she does so perfectly.
We specifically address topics 1, 2, 3 and 8. Mattias closes our time in prayer and everybody seems eager to come back on Tuesday.

July 1:

In the morning we go back to Kano Vlei and we review what we talked about on the previous day, which gets the three new people up to speed and helps the rest process all the new things from the day before better. I ask them to reflect what they took away from the day before and except for a few things that we lost in translation it was encouraging to hear how much they processed. In the midst of it they confirm that they really want to help to get scriptures in !Kung. I also answer a few more questions about the oral translation process.
The second part of the morning three of the men share and process Genesis 4:1-16. Shotty and Petrus finish up the whole process of reviewing the story, as well as helping the people engage with the story and help them discover the truths it teaches. We finish a bit later and end up with a four hour session instead of three.
In the afternoon we return to Omatako, where we have 17 people attending (several couldn’t come this time and a few others joined in for the first time).
First we review what we did the previous day as well as Genesis 4:1-16 and a few people retell it one more time, while one person shares about telling it to others outside the workshop.
The second part of the workshop three of the men share Luke 10:25-37 (a story they selected). One of them reviews the story by asking questions. At one point when asked about an issue early in the story, one lady (Lucia) answers and then completes telling the story perfectly. After that, I model few engagement questions and draw them into the story.
We close with prayer after reviewing the purpose of the workshop and reflecting on how preparing the Scripture passage to be told in !Kung are a key part of the translation process for the Oral Scriptures in !Kung.

July 2:

Today we start in Omatako (19 present) since that works better for both groups. After praying the story of Luke 10:25-37 is told back by three people. Then we discuss some of the key words. I realize that they miss many details that I should draw attention to, in order to help them start translating the narratives orally into !Kung properly. There are also some differences between ‘die Bybel vir allemaal’ translation and most other translations since it is a paraphrased translation that has quite some interpretation and a few changes that limits its use as a source to translate from. They really engage well with this exercise.
Lucia then starts taking the people through the story by asking questions and again this seems very helpful for them to experience as they start to think to what kind of questions would be suitable to ask and how one keeps drawing the people back into the story.
At the end of the time they practice telling the story two by two to each other and I challenge them to test the story with people before the next day.
In the afternoon we return to Kano Vlei (14 present) and they first have one person retell Genesis 4:1-16. They then talk through the story as a group and discuss any corrections that need to be made.
Next they start with the next story they have chosen to work through… it is the passage from Luke 11:1-13. This passage is much more difficult than they realize, even more so since ‘die Bybel vir allemaal’ translation is quite different from other sources. For verse one they discuss whether Jesus’ disciples were actually with Jesus when He prayed or not. They are quite divided because of their interpretations of the translations they use, while the passage really does not say. I then suggest to first process the rest of the passage and then see if it really matters in the end. As we process the passage slowly in detail, they are amazed at how it fits together and what the explicit teaching is. The purpose is to help them do a much better analysis of the story and understand how the pieces of the story fit together. Because of a lack of understanding, they started to bring in early other verses from other areas to substantiate their perspective instead of first looking within the passage. In doing so the passage becomes disconnected and is easily open for all kinds of interpretation, with significant loss of being able to learn well form the passage itself. The group is very enthusiastic at this process and they are amazed what in the end they learn from the passage. They also realize that in this passage it doesn’t seem important whether Jesus was or was not with His disciples when He prayed.

July 3:

This morning we start again in Omatako (19 people present) with three people retelling Genesis 4:1-16. Next Jafet leads in helping everyone engage with the story one more time. They discuss the issue of Abel being a shepherd versus a keeper of the domestic or farm animals, as well as if it was the ground that cursed Cain by not growing crops anymore or if God cursed Cain by not letting the ground produce crops anymore. We then discussed if the ground literally called out to God and opened its mouth or if it was figuratively (using a word picture to show what was happening).
Next someone tells the story of Luke 10:25-37 one more time after which we do a little game to get our blood flowing again. It is the gentlemen’s version of walking in a circle around chairs to music and instead of sitting in the chair when the music stops, one stands behind the chair holding the back as to serve the chair to another person. The person who is left, then gets to sit down and stays until the end of the game, when only one person is left standing. We had old and young, including mothers holding babies and they all enjoyed it a lot.
The last part of the workshop we plan for them to start as a community the process of translating narratives from the Bible in !Kung as part of their Panoramic Oral (or Spoken) Scriptures. The leaders from the three churches present (Ismael, Mishe from AGS, and Jafet from NG) will lead the project in Omatako and their first meeting is at July 9 from one to four in the afternoon, with the aim to meet at least twice each week. All the participants want to serve on the team. The initial passages they will translate, test, and internalize will be: Genesis 4:1-16 (which they started already), Genesis 11:1-9, Daniel 6, and Luke 10:25-37 (which they also started already). They also will review Luke 15:11-32, which already has been checked and recorded (we listen to the recording), but is not known yet by the group. The leaders and one other person from each congregation will also come together at Kalahari New Hope on July 19 from nine to four to review and plan with the other !Kung community team leaders. Since this time they will all prepare the same stories, they can then first check what the differences are between the dialects spoken and then think through if and how it will affect their translation work.
I emphasize that their motivation needs to be God’s love in and through them and then we end with prayer and taking a group picture.
In the afternoon we go back to Kano Vlei (15 present) and they also choose to tell Genesis 4:1-16 and then Paulus (Sr.) started to engage the group. Like with the other group we talk about what Abel’s job was and what he gave to God. In the process we talk in detail about the value of internalizing and orally telling the story in relation to translating the Scriptures (when we tell something, we have to understand it first ourselves; when we share with others, they give us feedback; others then also process and grow right away and engage step by step as more Scripture becomes available).
The second part of the time we process how they will continue just like we did in Omatako. There are two churches and Paulus (pastor of the Kalahari New Hope outreach) and Shotty (NG), together with another person they will choose later, agree to lead the Kano Vlei team and all the participants want to be involved in the work. Their first meeting is planned for Monday, July 7 in the afternoon from one to four.
Like in Omatako, I emphasize that their motivation needs to be God’s love in and through them and then we end with prayer and taking a group picture.

This project is starting to gain more local ownership among the !Kung now we’re involving the broader community. If this really takes root, only then it has a real potential to continue and grow beyond our involvement. Two challenges I still see are that most of them find it difficult to tell the story to others (it seems to go partly back to having the right setting) and that it seems difficult to find a leader who will move things forward (it seems that in their communal relationships leadership functions a different way). It is great to broaden our partnership with the involvement of all the local churches and Kalahari New Hope (KNH). KNH provided space for the first workshop day, provided lodging and meals for three people for the week, provided snacks for the workshops all at no cost. Daniel (the son of Ovidiu) joined in about half of the meetings and helped with translation into Afrikaans. He is a great motivator, understands !Kung reasonably well, has a keen mind for languages, works well with people, and has a servant attitude. He doesn’t have any formal Bible training, but again is eager to learn and he is not afraid to ask if he doesn’t know something. He is a great potential local facilitator for the project to keep moving forward and as someone who can be easily in touch with me. He is praying about his involvement. He did agree to be part of the July 19 meeting and facilitate it if that would become a need. KNH want to remain involved and help with any needed logistics. The contact information for KNH is as follows: Pater Ovidiu and Cornelia is the couple that leads the project, their number is +264-(0)67-687007 and email contact is possible through their daughter Lidia at lidiutza429_pvmpi@yahoo.com or Pater at paterovi@yahoo.com

The people really are engaging, but like I said before, it is still difficult for the people go out and share the stories with others. Like with the initial people involved in the workshops, it is a discovery process for them that developing oral scripture has to be interwoven with storying strategies in order to get the best end result. The assignment for previous workshop we agreed on for each individual was to:

Identify several persons (men and women, both younger and older) that can be part of the next workshop and that potentially could be trained to help with the oral scripture program (a local story teller and/or a person to help preparing oral scripture passages).
Work on developing stories that they feel should be part of an initial chronological storying cycle in their culture, using the firm foundation training manual they each have.

The first objective was met, but they need still more coaching to be able to work on storying cycles.

The progress made still needs to be considered in context of the unique situation of these people groups, but is encouraging to see the enthusiasm of the people from the different communities to get involved, including that it includes all the local churches. For them to start sharing the stories in their communities, is still something that needs to improve significantly. Sufficient time and relevant workshops need to be given in order for them to grow in ownership of the project, as well as allowing them to progress at their pace to establish a firm foundation for them to see this approach effectively work and for it to become well integrated in their world and ministry as pastors and elders. Currently most of these people still don’t have access to easy transportation (but Nandu has a ‘bakkie’), most of them don’t have electricity and running water, and their planning is from day to day. Their area is becoming mobile phone accessible (they have finished a tower in Omatako and it seems almost like it came with phones included J since most people now also right away own a mobile phone… some of them with radio and most of them are MP3 players as well) and the amount of solar and battery powered radios with USB and SD Card slots among the people is rapidly growing (some are priced at NAM 150, which is NAM 100 less than for example a dedicated player from Davar Partners). Besides the monthly interactions through Degnos, there are now two more opportunities to connect the !Kung communities and start working together more effectively. One through the local community groups they are starting and the other through Kalahari New Hope.

My next involvement will be to have similar workshops in Mangetti Dune and M’kata for the !Kung and then also for the Ju/’hoansi in selected locations, as well as follow through with Omatako and Kano Vlei with a one or two half day workshop to further help develop local ownership and help to get the translation process going. If possible it would be good to do this in August.

Respectfully submitted,

Durk Meijer, Wycliffe RTS Ethno Communications Specialist

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