Saturday, May 14, I graduated with my class from Baptist Bible Translators Institute. I was given a paper that says I successfully completed the Missionary Training Course in Descriptive Linguistics, Cultural Anthropology, Language Acquisition, and Bible translation Principles, with all honors, rights, and privileges appertaining thereto.
I have emerged from the nine-month BBTI crucible with a changed worldview, a clearer understanding of the task of foreign missions, and a valuable hand-bag of tools to put into practice the principles and theories taught in class relating to on-the-ground evangelism and discipleship in other cultures.
Review
To help you understand the nature of the classes taught at BBTI, here is a brief description of them:
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Phonemics
In phonetics, we focused on all the sounds that can be produced by the human speech apparatus. Phonemics does not focus on all sounds, but rather on the sounds of a particular language. Its three goals are: 1) Discover and describe how a language’s sound system works, 2) Produce a well-suited alphabet for that language (if there is none), 3) Use the phonemic description of a language to help others have minimal trouble learning it. While phonetics focuses on recognition and reproduction of sounds, phonemics focuses on analyzing those sounds, using certain rules and procedures.
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Morphology / Syntax
Morphology is the study of how words are formed. While phonemics analyzes the meaning of a language on the sound level, morphology goes a step farther, analyzing on the word level. It focuses on the affixes of a language, where they occur in relation to the root of a word, and how they modify or change the meaning of the root.
Syntax focuses on the grammatical structure of a language. It concerns itself with how clauses, phrases, and sentences are formed.
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Bible Translation Principles
Bible translation class was an interesting and informative course dealing with the different methods used in Bible translation today. It compared the traditional method of formal/verbal translation of the original text to the modern method of dynamic equivalence, or meaning-based, translation. Essentially, translation involves moving words from one language to another. We were taught that the highest standard in bible translation is to represent each word from the original, maintaining a balance of faithfulness to the original text, and comprehension of the target audience. A word-for-word translation (as viewed by some) is very rarely possible. Rather, the goal of the translator is to produce a translation in which all the words of the original are represented.
We also learned about the many different literary devices used throughout the scriptures, and the potential problems they might cause in translating into languages that do not use the same features. For example, some languages don't use rhetorical questions, while the bible has many of them. Should you change the literary form of the bible, or introduce a new and unfamiliar form of reading into the target language? This is only one of a host of other questions like it that bible translators face.
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Chronological Bible Teaching
This course walked us through the advantage and necessity of teaching the bible chronologically, beginning at Genesis and laying a foundation for the the Gospel through the Old Testament narrative of God's revelation of himself in history. The goal is to prepare the audience for the gospel by using the Old Testament to give them a biblical view of God, man, the world, and sin. The reason for this method is to avoid syncretism of Christianity and paganism, which is a prevalent problem faced by missionaries. This method of teaching enables the missionary to be unmistakeably clear on issues such as God's holiness and intolerance for sin, man's sinfulness and his inability to save himself, and God's provision of salvation. Our textbook was the series Building on Firm Foundations, by Trevor Mcilwain. I cannot recommend it too strongly.
Other minor courses included Church Planting Principles, Deputation Principles, and Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL).
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What's Next?
Below is a basic outline of our (Courtney and I) short-term plans. A lot of things in the future are uncertain, but we don't have time, nor do we feel the need, to worry much about it.
Our vision is to work with unreached tribes in the Amazon jungle, which is home to about 50% of the world's remaining uncontacted tribes. Our general goal is to put into practice the training we have received in an area untouched by the Gospel. All we have at this point to build our plans on is a dream and a vision. We plan to be busy preparing and equipping ourselves while we wait for the command from God to go.
The Summer
I just moved back to Ohio with my family, where I will be working for my brother-in-law until our wedding in early September. Courtney will spend the summer in Texas, also working at her job, and making plans and preparations for the wedding. (After being together everyday at the school from the beginning of our relationship, being so far apart seems like a difficult trial to bear).
After the Wedding
Sometime after the happy chimes of the wedding bells have settled, we plan to teach the Introductory NT Greek we learned at BBTI to a team of bible translators in Ohio, which should take less then a month. After that, we plan to return to BBTI, where we will serve in whatever capacity we are able to. BBTI will be our home base as we take different courses in things like medical training and jungle survival. We will also focus on improving our knowledge (through personal study) of Greek, bible translation, and other things to better equip ourselves for a primitive life in the jungle.
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How you can pray:
For wisdom to discern God's guidance. As mentioned above, we only have a vision and a dream. Our first plan is to follow God, and we know that we are not infallible in discerning his will. Our plans could change at any moment.
For wedding plans to go smoothly. (we've never done this before)
For creative ways to lessen the pain of separation.
