Work in progress
I know it’s bad to obsess about statistics for live issues – whether election results or pandemics – but whilst recognising there are individual people and tragedies behind every number I have to admit it has been fascinating to look at stats on worldometers.info and gov.uk and Nigerian Centre for Disease Control. One thing is […]
Just as we were expecting to be packing up to head to Nigeria, the world went crazy with this Covid-19 Coronavirus virus and Nigeria very sensibly shut down all its international airports. We had already received advice from Wycliffe Bible Translators to stay where we were, so we’re here in the UK a bit longer. […]
Just as things were coming together for us to head back to Nigeria (about a month later than we had hoped), things have got a little lively and unpredictable with this troubling Coronavirus/Covid-19. Airlines are still flying to Nigeria, but it’s possible in a month they won’t be. So it’s looking increasingly likely we may […]
Years ago when starting work with the Koro Ashɛ translation team (whose language is called Ishɛ) the translators asked me about an issue they had. There were too many Hausa words in it. In particular the word ‘amma‘. It’s a common conjunction rather like English ‘but‘ and you do actually hear it frequently in conversation. […]
Merry Christmas, everyone! We’re enjoying being around friends and family in the UK for Christmas for the first time in 4 years, but missing our friends and co-workers in Nigeria. We have now been in the UK for nearly 6 months, and had various plans for our time here which haven’t exactly worked out, but […]
A rare guest appearance from Julie! (Perhaps I’ll persuade her to contribute more here.) Sometimes we may think we have thought of something for the first time and it turns out that someone else got in there before us. In Bible translation work nowadays we are committed to using local languages to express Biblical concepts, […]
“What I like about English,” a student pastor told me at the end of one class, “is that you have so many special words for things, so that means you can think and talk about so much more than we can in our own languages.” This sounds fairly convincing. English has a word ‘justification’ and […]
Reading a comment here criticising Apple the writer finished with a surprising rhetorical flourish: “Go hand your head in shame, Apple: you’re still not doing software engineering right.” Now, when you’re lambasting someone for doing something stupidly wrong, wouldn’t you try to make sure you don’t do the same thing yourself? Of course in true […]
In a fascinating lecture from my alma mater (Trinity Hall, Cambridge), Professor John Clarkson talks through how he cut his teeth on engineering challenges that gave him a ‘systems approach’ to all kinds of other problems. He applies what he’s learned to a process for improving healthcare. I think there’s something here for Bible Translators […]
Back ‘Home’ in the UK for 9 months we face many changes while colleagues in Nigeria help the Ashɛ and Wachi and other teams prepare for a crucial training event in September. We’ve spent the last 6 months nearly managing to finish writing a newsletter, and then getting delayed with bits and pieces of work […]