Dogon Bible Dedication

One of the privileges of working as an MK teacher is I get to see exactly what God is doing through missions. One of the mission organizations our school serves is SIL- and we have several students whose parents are part of their work. Recently in Mali we had some major progress in one of the Bible translation projects- so I asked a friend to fill you all in on what God is doing! So here goes…

Hi, friends of Sarah and Ed! I’m neither one of them…sorry for the disappointment. My name is Kathryn (far right in the picture), and I am their neighbor. I work in Mali with an organization called SIL, and, as our website http://sil-mali.org/ states, “Our primary objective is to see that ethnic groups in Mali can make use of the languages they understand best - in their written and audio forms - for their spiritual, social and economic development. Our areas of work are: linguistic research, training, literacy and the translation of Biblical texts.”

Sarah asked me to write about the privilege I had a few weeks ago of attending the dedication of the entire Bible in the Dogon Toro-so language. This is only the second complete Bible ever published in a Malian language, the first being in Bambara in the 1950s. It’s the first complete Bible that SIL Mali has been involved in, and it is the fruit of almost 30 years of work! Needless to say, the dedication was a big deal.


My colleagues and I had not been certain we would be able to attend the dedication, as it required traveling to a place previously off limits after some of the recent troubles in Mali. Thankfully, as the time got nearer, our administration agreed that a small contingency of foreigners could go, and I was lucky enough to be one of them. I was so glad to be part of the group because I had looked forward to this for months. I work on one of the first steps in the long process of Bible translation, and I really wanted to see first-hand the beautiful end result.

Our SIL group joined about 4,500 Dogon Christians as they celebrated the completion of the Bible in their mother tongue. There was singing and dancing, of course, and plenty of speeches, including an appearance by the Minister of Education and many of his subordinates, which was quite an honor for the occasion. All of that was wonderful, but the best part of the day’s festivities was watching the procession that carried in the first Bibles. They were presented to all of the people who had worked so hard for its completion, all of the dignitaries received copies, and missionaries who had spent years of their lives working toward that goal, but who couldn’t be there to see its fulfillment, were also honored.

  While those moments were certainly moving, I found the next day’s  worship service even more meaningful. That was when the preacher had everyone raise their new Bibles in the air and then asked them to open to the book of Joshua. We watched as rows and rows of Dogon Christians followed along while the preacher read from the Old Testament for the first time in their language. It was a magnificent moment!

The Bible in a people group’s mother tongue is, in my opinion, the most valuable contribution anybody can make to the life and health of the Body of Christ among them. It is a permanent witness of the power, the love, and the plan of God. That’s why I’m here.

Pastors and lay leaders reading from the book of Joshua in Dogon--the first time ever to do so.

 
 

This man, Timothée Kodio, who worked for 30 years to translate the Bible in his mother tongue.

Dancing and music

The Minister of Education wearing his new Dogon outfit

Soccer Tournament

Part of being at a school means sporting events. Each year our school competes in a friendly tournament against a local Malian Christian school. This year we decided to host this on a Saturday to enable parents and family to attend. It was a blast!

Since this is the only competitive game most of our students participate in, they were so nervous!

Before the game we spent time in prayer, then posed for team photos. Our team is blue and the other is yellow

 

The first match was 3-6th graders. They lost 2-0, but played a great defense.

The other school did not bring the youngest students, so our littles (K-2) played a game against themselves.

The oldest students (7th-11th grade) had the most intense game, but lost 2-1.

Regardless it was a fun (warm) morning showing school spirit and having fun!

 

Learning from my mistakes

Three weeks ago my class learned a lesson. Or at least I learned a lesson and hopefully my students did as well.

Let’s start at the beginning. As I was planning this year, I wanted to set up a system that rewarded students for good behavior. I called this system “fish bucks”. The rules were simple:

Everyone in the class comes in from recess quickly they all get 1 fish buck. Do your homework? 1 fish buck. 100% on a spelling test- 1 fish buck. Save up enough fish bucks, spend them on a prize. Viola!

The fish bucks are pieces of paper with a photocopied fish clip art on it. Nothing too special, just a system to reward behavior and spoil the children just a little. In theory this was a decent idea. I made the rules simple for me to keep up with, and the prizes weren’t not too valuable.

What I didn’t expect to happen was the value of fish bucks became huge among the elementary students. Children started trading fish bucks with each other (give me your swing, I’ll give you 10 fish bucks) and they started being stolen. At first, I noticed the stealing (strange how one student was able to get a prize every day) but in the beginning no one reported their fish bucks being stolen so I didn’t investigate too deep. (my first mistake).

During the month of January, things started to get crazy. Students were having fish bucks stolen every day, other classes were trading toys and rides on the swing for fish buck. It was out of control!

I decided to finally take action, and gave the thief an opportunity to return the stolen goods. When that didnt happen- in fact more were stolen, I knew it was time to call it quits! The kids were sad, but I explained that it wasn’t good that they were stealing from each other and it needed to stop. Most seemed to understand.

Looking back on this, I learned 2 lessons.

1. External motivation may give me the behavior I want, but may not actually teach the students. I wanted the students to do their homework, but they do it (or dont do it) whether or not they get a fish buck. In a classroom there are ways of using external motivation- but it must be done with extreme caution so as not to become a burden on me as the teacher or the students. I still am not sure what a better idea is, so I am glad I have a while to mull it over before I start a new year.

2. Human nature is greedy. Even in a small school- the value of fish bucks was seen as desirable- enough to steal. The whole elementary department wanted fish bucks and even students not in my class sought them at any cost. Something I thought was as insignificant, became a problem and caused a lot of anger between students. I am glad it was something small that could be taken care of in the classroom.

I probably could have handled things differently. I could have tried to confront the thief. I could have had a better system of securing each students fish buck. But, I didn’t, and now the days of fish bucks are over. I am still gleaning all I can out of this to apply to future classes. However, I know I am not perfect and am apt to make more mistakes. As long as I take time to admit, process and ask forgiveness, God will still be able to use me.