Zambia: Soli Update

For the past month, Lydia and I have been living in Chongwe.  Chongwe is at the center of sprawling Soli farmlands in central Zambia.  The daily, two-kilometer walk to the makeshift translation office has given me time to think, meet locals, and see behind-the-curtain of Zambian life.  One of the great joys of my commute is talking with the children.  The government has been endeavoring to provide more and better schools in rural areas and one sees the result with the kids—who are happy to be going to school.  Often waiting until I walk past, I am regularly hailed with the customary, English greeting, “Howwa Yu?!”  My heart smiles, as I say “Fine!  How are you!?” and listen to the sing-song chorus of “I am fine!”

The Soli lands are thriving and growing (especially since a seven-year drought seems to be ending).  While the people are excited for the changes brought by modernization, there is also hesitancy and trepidation as cultural norms shift.  The chieftainess and the people have embraced the Soli Bible translation project, and office space, water & electricity, workers, and venues for events have been donated to the team for the past few years.  The Soli translation project, run by The Word for the World – Zambia, is almost done with the New Testament, and soon, the Soli people will have a large part of the Bible in their own language for the first time.

Even though the news is mostly good, Biblical truth is so needed for the Soli people.  While there are local Christian churches and a history of missions work, people in the community still fight, daily, against dark spiritual forces.  Without the Bible in their local language, the average Soli person only learns what is preached by pastors who are using Bibles in their second or third languages.  Some of these pastors are genuine shepherds, but unfortunately, some are wolves.  To many people, the truth of Jesus and the freedom found in the gospel message is veiled, obscure, and unreachable.  Church leaders and teacher search for hidden truths because the simplicity and beauty of Jesus’ teaching has not been given.  When facing difficult challenges, many people, without easy access to the Bible or leaders trained by it, fall back to traditional wisdom–grasping for blessing and help from any source and lashing out in jealousy against those who are perceived to have it.  Even while I was there, one of our translators, who also works as a pastor, was poisoned while helping interpret and teach at a church.  He survived two days of excruciating pain, and later praised God saying, “I really felt the big man standing in for me.”  The work of Bible translation is necessary in places as these to help bring a message of hope, love, and peace to people who desperately need it.  Please be praying for our Soli team–they face surprising and intense struggles every day while they work to help transform their people and their culture.

While here, I was able to help the Soli team compare their translations of the gospels of Matthew and Mark against other major Zambian translations and against the Greek originals.  We discussed many difficult-to-understand passages of scripture; discovered and reworked some key Soli terms; and had the opportunity to revisit some early translation work in order to apply their hard-earned knowledge and experience.  Here are just a couple examples from our sessions:

–In Matthew 6:23, Jesus says, “if the light in you is darkness, how great is that darkness.”  There are layers of meaning here, and finding ways to express this play on logic (if light *is* darkness) in a Bantu language is more difficult than it may first appear.  At first, the translation was made similar to another local translation, and read something like, “when someone turns off the lights, then darkness returns.”  After some discussion, we decided to maintain a more ancient lamp metaphor, and compare a lamp that creates light to a lamp that creates darkness, saying something similar to, “if [your eyes] become a source of darkness, then everything inside is covered in the greatest darkness.”  We had to find the best word for the idea of “source” and so we discussed terms like “source” and “origin” and “beginning” but in the end, the Soli team was very excited about the change and the way the meaning had come to life in their language.

–In Mark 12:29, Jesus starts stating the most important commandment saying, “The Lord our God, the Lord is one.”  Jesus is quoting from Hebrew tradition (the Old Testament), and while I don’t want to bore you with too much linguistics, I do want you to think about what that statement means?  Or even, how many different things the statement *can* mean?  Now, imagine that your language is not able to compare a person to a number while maintaining any meaningful meaning.  So, is Jesus saying that “The multiple incarnations and parts of God are one god.”  Or maybe, “God is the foremost ruler for us.”  Possibly, “God is unique among other gods.”  What about, “God is the only god.”  Putting the two statements into one clause gives us even more options: “This god of ours is our ruler and he is our only god;” or, “This god that is our ruler, is just one god—not many.”  Or, even d) All of the Above.  The Hebrew people left us a rich legacy of meaning in this one profound statement, and determining how to re-express the depth, and breadth, and insinuations of this statement takes careful thought and deliberation.  To keep our translation from becoming a systematic theology thesis, we decided on, “The Lord God is our god, the Lord God is the foremost and is unique.” (in this case, the Soli term ‘unique’ carries connotation meaning of a unique type, special, and one-of-a-kind).

Working with mother-tongue translators is an amazingly rewarding experience in which everyone involved is learning.  You can sense the Holy Spirit is there, reminding us of what Jesus taught; and in fellowship with each other and with God, we were able to find ways to clarify, naturalize, and share the truth of God in these Soli translations.  I feel blessed to have been here working on these gospels, and am excited to return later this year to finish exegetical checks on their two remaining New Testament books: Acts and Revelations.

While here in Chongwe, we also had the chance to engage in some relationships outside of the translation project.  Lydia was quickly adopted into the family of staff at the place where we stayed.  Living life with people gives ample opportunity to talk about God, marriage, identity, and dealing with life’s problems; and eating together builds bonds which transcend race, background, and culture. We are very happy to have actually made friends while in Chongwe.

While we were only here for about a month, we know that we were able to make an impact on people’s lives that will last longer because God is faithful to connect humanity together in ways which bring life, and sustain relationships despite distance and time.  Lydia and I are praying for guidance as these people truly need more empowerment and education, and we want to find our place in God’s fight for the souls of the Soli people.  We step forward into Ethiopia knowing that it won’t be long before we return to continue working alongside what God is doing here in Zambia.