Anna shares progress on the Bible Time Chichewa Translation Project
Recorded October 2023
Transcript
We’re continuing with translation and revision of the Bible time curriculum and we’ve just about completed the first year. We need to do some revisions now. We’ve been testing it out with the kids here and found some activities work some don’t.
We’re also about halfway through the second year’s worth of material.
There’s still some things that need to be tweaked and adjusted but overall I see it has a lot of potential for use in teaching children the gospel.
So I think it’s a good tool that can be really useful in reaching children throughout Malawi.
Pray for continued help with the translation and revision and just wisdom and direction to know how to take this area of the work forward.
Malawi has one of the worst records in the world when it comes to child marriages. According to the UNPFA, almost half of women in Malawi are married before they’re 18, with an alarming number married very much earlier than that. Child marriages often have devastating consequences for the girls involved. Not only are they often subjected to sexual violence, risky pregnancies and HIV, but many drop out of school early, dooming them to a life of poverty and dependance.
Stephen asks that we join in giving thanks for his safe return and for a very profitable trip to Malawi. Although he landed in Addis Ababa in a very serious rain and lightning storm, the return journey was otherwise long, but uneventful.
Yes – “Give Thanks: The Nthawi ya Baibulo (Bibletime) books have arrived” from the printer.
Anna adds:
PRAYER REQUEST
Please pray for the five groups including us who will be using the curriculum, for help to get comfortable and use it prayerfully to ground children in the truth of the gospel.
Note: This is a very significant moment for the team who have been involved in the painstaking work of translation for well over a year now. This is Year 1 of 3. The experience gained from this should enable the process to go more smoothly in the future as the next two years’ material is translated.
To be brutally honest, I never expected a course on safeguarding children and young people to be so profitable – and so enjoyable.
I don’t think it was just the entertainment value of the numerous cars and trucks playing “stick in the mud” on the road passing the site. Or the valiant, if entirely futile efforts of the many muck-defying entrepreneurs offering to dig them out for a fee. There is, as you may have heard, “money in muck”.
But I digress.
On the contrary, our three guest trainers, Martin, Susan and Robbie from Tehila Zambia, did a truly fantastic job of engaging and informing us all. Their professionalism and passion for safeguarding children and young people was plain to see. And as usual, Brother Harold excelled in translation on those occasions when the visitors ChiNjanya was just too different to the local Chichewa to be understood.
Why is safeguarding important?
A very good question. Children make up over 50% of the malawi population. Malawi has one of the highest rates of child marriage in the entire world. According to Unicef, a staggering 42% of girls in Malawi are married before they are 18 years. As many as 9% are married before they are 15. This makes a huge impact on education and literacy levels, as most of these girls drop out of education. These hard statistics bear out what we know intuitively after almost 21 years experience here.
Malawi has one of the highest rates of child marriage in the entire world.
Sadly, child abuse is a world-wide problem. However, as our course continued, I began to to gain a deeper appreciation of just how big the problem is.
Some cultural practices encourage children to be sexually active at a very young age. Many children in their early teens still attend initiation camps where they learn, and often practise, the secrets of adulthood. Incredibly, some people believe that having sex with a young child will bring them success in their business or career. These, and other beliefs, put children at great risk.
Edit: In the 24 hours since I wrote this piece I have had a further disturbing conversation with a sister in the Lord who works with orphaned children in the Central Region of Malawi. She told me that 90% of the girls she works with have been sexually abused, some from as early as 3 years. One young girl has been left deeply traumatised as a result of being repeatedly raped from 5 years old. Most of the abuse is by family members.
Almost all of us agree on the need to safeguard children against sexual abuse. However, I was equally struck by the many other risks facing children in Malawi. Honestly, I hadn’t thought enough about the issue of children “footing it” when going to school, or our programs at Saidi. You can see from the photos of the “stick-in-the-muds” above that heavy rains can make travelling treacherous. Children walking on village paths often have to negotiate swollen streams and broken bridges. In so doing, they put themselves at great risk.
some people believe that having sex with a young child will bring them success in their business or career
Not to mention, the very real threat of abduction!
You may think it incredible, but stories abound of kidnappers abducting adults and children to traffic them, or to harvest their body parts for ufiti – witchcraft!
Working together to safeguard children
The dangers are real – and plentiful.
Which is why we were so happy to welcome several local community leaders (village chiefs) and representatives of the local police unit to our week of training. Although it’s important to have a Child Protection Policy, together, we were able to explore ways to really protect children. We are less interested in just satisfying our legal obligations than we are in genuinely safeguarding children and young people in Malawi.
A little over a year ago, I wrote an article about the translation and revision of the Bibletime curriculum. As of this week, we are now ready for the third step: publication!
It seems like it has been a long time coming. However, our translator really has done a fabulous job powering through eight student booklets. And four text-heavy teacher guides! It truly is a blessing to have a translator who is just as committed to this project as we are. Gibson is a believer, and he understands the importance of clearly communicating truth.
Stephen says: “Please pray for a week of Safeguarding training planned for later this month. Many children in Malawi are subject to horrendous abuse. It’s essential that SALT not only supports children who are, or could be victims, but that we ensure that they are completely safe when in our care.
Anna writes: Please pray for the timely printing of the Bibletime curriculum and for help as we seek to pilot and continue revising it in the coming year.
The most important thing, of course, is that God would use it to make the many children we work with “wise unto salvation.”
Please remember Anna & Wati who are presently busy with the Children’s Outreach at Dzaleka. Due to increasing numbers, they will run two 2-day camps, the first of which started on Sunday.
Each day, the children will take part in various activities and learn about the “Christmas story”. Most of these children come from very disturbed backgrounds, and it is a great opprtunity to be able to reach them with the Gospel.
Pray that Anna & Wati will be preserved in body & spirit, and that they will have the stamina for what will be a truly exhausting week.
