Valid even here

This week I continue observations of the Northern Outreach Program which uses literacy in the heart language to carry out urban evangelism. If you missed the introduction, you can find it here.

Christians brought to faith through the Northern Outreach Program listen to the Word together in a city in southern Ghana

Many have observed the rapid rate of urbanization in Africa and around the world. There is obviously a need for effective evangelism and mission in the urban environment. Urbanization brings together people from many languages and creates a favorable environment for the emergence of a lingua-franca, a common language which serves them all. The spread of Twi in Ghana, of Dioula in the southwest of Burkina Faso, of Bambara in Mali, of Hausa in the north of Nigeria, of Lingala in the Congo, of Swahili in east Africa and of other languages in other places, all point to the emergence of lingua-francas as important languages of communication.

Drummers from northern Ghana provide accompaniment to the worship of northern Ghanaians in a town in southern Ghana

The emergence of a lingua-franca is so obvious that it leads Christians, pastors, church leaders and missionaries to make the untested assumption that the heart language (people’s mother tongue) is irrelevant to the church and evangelism in cities and towns. But the Northern Outreach Program uses literacy and Scriptures in the heart language and that approach has been very successful. It is important to note that other approaches to evangelizing migrants from the north in Ghana’s cities have failed, or had only very modest success. They have not been successful in stemming the predominant trend of conversion to other religions. The significant difference between the failed approaches using a lingua-franca and the Northern Outreach Program is precisely the heart language, which the Program uses in its literacy program, in its evangelism, in its teaching and in its worship.

A woman leads a worship song in a local language during a gathering of believers from northern Ghana in a city in the south

Many observers fail to notice that the urban environment is not homogenous. It is certainly homogenizing, but it is not yet homogenous. It may be on a course to become homogenous in two or three generations, but today the urban environment in Ghana, and in many other places, is made up of ethnic, religious and linguistic niches which often keep their identity in the face of the homogenizing influences of the urban environment.

The success of the Northern Outreach Program, predicated on the heart language, shows that the heart language is an effective tool for reaching those niches.

Especially as approaches based on lingua franca, the homogenizing language, have proved much less successful.

Women and literacy

A woman teaching other women to read – GILLBT photo

Today is International Women’s Day. Research into translation and literacy in the many languages of Ghana shows that women who become literate in their mother tongue:

• Are more likely to express their opinions in their families and communities
• Are much more likely to have all their children enrolled in school
• Are more likely to undertake new initiatives, such as starting small businesses

Women who read the Bible in their mother tongue are:

• More likely to share their faith
• More likely to have a positive sense of self-worth
• More likely to abandon traditional beliefs and practices which keep them in fear and poverty

Wider research shows that infant mortality is halved for women in Africa who learn to read, perhaps because they can then read the instructions on medicine containers.

Bible translation and the accompanying literacy efforts, it turns out, have very practical outcomes for marginalized, poor women.

How do people read?

This week, I continue my series on the questions I was most asked while in the US. This week’s question is:

How do people read the translations, because their language is unwritten?

Most of the languages without a translation are unwritten. It follows that the people do not know how to read. There is no sense printing a Bible no one can read and no sense translating one that will not be printed. Also, 1/3 of the people in the world cannot read in the language they speak most often. So this question raises a key issue.

Rural literacy in Ghana

First,  if one develops a good alphabet, one that sounds like it spells and spells like it sounds, then teaching reading is easier than for English, much easier. An adult can learn to read in a few weeks or months of evening courses, not the years it takes for English. Also, ordinary people can teach each other, eliminating the need for professional teachers. Rural literacy programs can be run with volunteers at a very low cost. Using these methods, about half a million previously illiterate people in northern Ghana have learned to read their languages, with many moving on to English. And Ghana is just one example. See the video at the end about how one young woman in Senegal turned her education around through literacy in her language.

There are many advantages to doing literacy:

• People who learn to read have a skill that allows them to do many other things successfully, such as having a small business. One woman told of finally being able to track what she had sold on credit, to whom and how much they had paid back. Imagine trying to remember all that, and the conflicts that might cause!
• Young school drop-outs who learn to read in their own language are much more likely to go back to school and graduate. There are thousands of Ghanaians who are teachers, pastors, even some university professors and government officials who got a re-start in school after taking a literary class. Without that, today they would be uneducated peasants.
• The children of women who learn to read are twice as likely to survive infancy.
• Women in particular, gain many advantages when they learn to read in their own language. Here are some other web articles about that:
  What literacy does for women
  Famata’s story
• People will come to a literacy class who would not come to church. At least one successful church planting program in Ghana starts with literacy for this very reason.

But for those who do not learn to read, the Bible is recorded. People listen to it on their phones, on local FM radio stations, in listening groups sponsored by their churches and in other ways. Indeed, listening groups where people listen to the Bible in their own language and discuss it, have been shown to be one of the most effective ways to plant churches and foster spiritual maturity in believers. Some will listen so many times that they memorize long passages. In addition, local choirs write Scripture songs which people memorize, ending up with a repertoire of dozens, even hundreds of Scripture songs.

Carrying out adult literacy for minority peoples erases a question some ask – should I do/support humanitarian work or evangelism/church planting? Through literacy, your money, your efforts and your prayers can do both at once!

Literacy for Life

Many deep comments have been made about the following passage from Luke chapter 4, and rightly so:

And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”20 And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down.

Today, I do not have any deep thoughts about this passage, but I do have one simple question: How and where did Jesus learn to read?

Rural literacy class being held at night by lamplight – Photo by Paul Federwitz

Universal public education is a relatively new thing in human history. It is certain that the Roman authorities who ruled the Jews at the time did not provide education for them. So, how did Jesus learn to read?

Well, he learned in the synagogue from the Rabbi, or perhaps some in his family from his parents.

Teaching children to read was part of the Jewish tradition. Before the advent of government-funded universal education, is also became part of the program of the church. Sunday School started out as a school (reading, writing, ‘rithmatic’) which happened on Sunday before church. It became what it is today when universal schooling took away its original purpose.

A woman teaching other women to read – GILLBT photo

As Christianity has grown rapidly in Africa and other places, it is encountering again some of the issues it faced in the not so distant past in Europe. Many churches today are in places where most people do not know how to read and write. Think about that. What would it be like to be in a church where most people do not know how to read? What challenges would that present for Bible study?

Man selling literacy books in the market – GILLBT photo

Here in Ghana, the organization I work with (GILLBT) is addressing this issue with a program called Literacy for Life. This program, run by Nelson Jatuat, offers churches help (training, primers, etc.) setting up church-based adult literacy for their members. People learn to read their heart language. Each lesson includes both teaching to read and write as well as a Bible lesson. It is offered in 18 of the more than 60 languages in Ghana.

Woman and child reading the Bible in their language at a Bible dedication – GILLBT photo

This year, 900 local churches are participating in the program and over 15,000 church members are learning to read. Every year, different churches take part and a similar number of Ghanaian Christians are enrolled. The program is run on a shoestring – churches offer the locale, chalk, and blackboard  free of charge, teachers are volunteers with no pay (although they may receive something small as a recognition for their services), and learners of their churches buy the books. Using these methods, churches and GILLBT can work together to teach an adult to read fluently in his or her language for well under $100. Now that is a bargain.

The program is run by Nelson Jatuat who travels to various parts of the country to train teachers and help churches with evaluation at the end of the teaching cycle.

Outdoors literacy class – GILLBT photo

Not only do the participants learn to read the Bible in their own languages, they also gain a life-skill that they can use in all kinds of ways. They can keep records, correspond with family, sign their name on official documents, teach a Sunday School class, be the secretary for a local women’s group, take part in a Bible study, or teach a literacy class themselves all things which they could not do before knowing how to read and write. This program has a disproportionately favorable impact on women – the reverse of the unfortunate tendency of development programs to favor men.

Nelson Jatuat who runs GILLBT’s Literacy for Life program

Where else but in adult literacy in minority languages can a person simultaneously proclaim the Gospel, make disciples, enable others to make disciples, carry out a practical economic development activity and elevate the status of women all at the same time? And where else can one do all that but among some of the most marginalized and neglected people on earth? Anyone out there want to get involved in that? Contribute to it? Come and do it? Pray for Nelson?

If we could ask them, what do you think they would say – the people who taught Jesus to read? And the Christians learning to read through GILLBT’s Literacy for Life program? What do you think they will say in heaven about those who taught them, subsidized their books, sponsored those who developed primers in their languages? And when they say it, do you think that Jesus might remember his own experience learning to read and be impressed?

The will to read

In August of 2009 Kenya newspapers carried articles about the passing of the world’s oldest pupil.  Joseph Stephen Kimani Nganga (un-GAH-un-GAH) Maruge (ma-ROO-gay) had entered primary school at the age of 84! He was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the World’s oldest primary pupil.  When he passed away, they posted a tribute to him http://twurl.nl/tkla17.

Mr. Maruge was two years shy of finishing his primary school education when he passed away.  But he did succeed in his goal.  He told everyone that he was going to school to learn to read his Bible.  And learn to read it he did!  The Associated Press quoted  Anne Maruge, 18, as saying “”In the morning he used to wake up early to read the Bible before going to school.  Even when he fell ill and you found him basking in the sun, often he would be reading the Bible.”

Mr. Maruge’s story reminds me of Pastor Paul Hema.  He was the only pastor in the town of Niangoloko, Burkina Faso when Dayle and I lived there from 1978 through 1981.  He would sit in front of his humble house and read the Bible in the morning.  Even more remarkable was the story of his wife Mariama.

She would also sit outside reading her Bible.   But we knew that she had never been to school.  So we asked her how she learned to read.  She said that one day she told Paul that she wanted to read the Bible like he did and so he should teach her.  He responded that he did not know how to teach someone to read.  Her response was that she was determined to read and that he had better figure out the how to do it.  So he sat down with her beside him every morning while he read the Bible.  He read out loud to her while following along under the words with his finger.  And so, with this ad hoc and unscientific method, Mariama Hema learned to read and began reading the Bible for herself.

Mr Maruge and Mariama Hema put me to shame.  My Bible reading is handed to me on a platter by comparison.

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