January 2010
Dear friends,
I am so happy to finally be able to give you a peek at some of the Nomaande New Testament dedication celebration from January 9th of this new year. Getting the pictures small enough to send to the U.S. to be posted to my website was a major challenge, but I slowed down the works even more by not getting around to this written text any earlier. Forgive me and thanks especially for your patience. Let the (slide) show begin!
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On January 5th, friends from Grace Community Church in Arlington (Texas) arrived in Yaounde to be part of this special event, but also so they could visit the village home of the Boutwells, an SIL family here in Cameroon who are also members at Grace.
We had a great first meal together
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and by the next day some of the team were willing to brave Yaounde traffic in order to do some shopping and to visit the SIL Admin building |
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| One of the evenings in Yaounde, everyone pitched in to help fold the Reading Guides (reading through the New Testament in one year) that would be given with each NT that is sold |
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| The day before the dedication, two van loads of us arrived in Tchekos with the dual goals of prayer walking and having the high school drama evangelism team perform their three mimes in one or two villages |
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| Plans were modified almost the minute we arrived as setting up in our borrowed village house took longer than expected |
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Also, our team decided to split into two groups and just stay in the village of Tchekos as the hot part of the day had already arrived and we had not been able to contact anyone for official permission to perform the mimes in another village
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In the meantime, preparations were underway in the middle of Tchekos for the next day’s celebration
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The drama team finally got to set up for their mimes in front of the women doing the cooking preparations.
A crowd soon gathered that blocked the women’s view, but several young people responded to the evangelistic appeal after the mimes. |
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All night Friday and right up to the start of the celebration around 10 a.m. Saturday, there were Christian songs being played over the loudspeaker system, so we had no worries about whether the generator was working or not! One of the Cameroonian guests that I had especially invited was Sister Madeleine from Yaounde. She had been our terrific hostess in the retreat center the Nomaande reviewers and I had stayed while doing the final read-through of the entire New Testament two years ago. She had expressed an interest at that time to come and experience our celebration. In the bag she’s carrying, she brought a large marble pound cake for me to share with the team. |
The celebration really got going when the New Testament was brought in to the crowd.
The women danced and sang a traditional tune that is most often used for escorting a new bride to the home of her new husband. However, this time the tune was sung with new Nomaande lyrics declaring that the New Testament in Nomaande has arrived! The four men only carried one NT (instead of a new bride), but they still took their job very seriously. |
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| The NT was then presented to the SIL and CABTAL directors (Nelis and Michel) who then showed it to the crowd before turning it over to the leaders of the major churches in the Nomaande-speaking area |
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More briefly now, I’ll show some moments during the program:
Simeon telling the history of the Nomaande project;
[Simeon is a co-translator] |
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| some of those present; |
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| more of those present; |
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| Jean-Jules’ wife, Rachel, |
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| and a dynamic Omaande Christian woman named Miriam; |
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| Patricia giving a short speech in Nomaande; |
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| Keith Beavon (our translation consultant for most of the project) giving a speech in French; |
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| traditional dancers; |
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| choir from Omaande community in Douala; |
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| the local priest giving greetings from the bishop; |
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| three readers of the Scriptures for the day in Nomaande; |
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| Jean-Jules preaching in Nomaande with another Omaande pastor translating into French for visitors; |
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| buying copies of the New Testament; |
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| The Chief of Ossimb village buys his NT and an audio cd of Bible stories in Nomaande |
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| giving the translators and reviewers their gift copies of the New Testament (and hugs of thanks); |
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and receiving gifts ourselves from the Omaande community. |
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| No celebration is considered complete without the eating of food, so all of the SIL and CABTAL visitors went to the Presbyterian church to eat their feast while other visitors went to the pastor’s house. |
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I don’t have a good picture to show you of the drama team’s 10 minute mime called Redeemer. They presented this just before the Scripture readings and sermon. I found it the highlight of the day really – a very clear, non-verbal Gospel message!
I will put several more photos in the Photo Gallery of this website from events that happened both before and after the dedication, such as my trip to Kenya for meetings (in November), the Paratext computer workshop in Yaounde (in December), and the very restful three days seven of us had at the beach in Kribi soon after the dedication.
Thanks to everyone who prayed for this day, some for close to thirty years, others just more recently. The Lord answered and He is continuing His work among the Omaande people.
To Him be all the glory.
