Anaphora Nefarious

Here's a story from a linguist colleague in Nigeria describing how linguistic research has made a big difference in seeing how Bible translators can mistranslate a text because they are not aware of certain differences between the source language (here English) and their mother tongue (here Tugbiri). Knowing these differences can be used to help train translators to resolve current problems and avoid mis communications in future translations.

"One of the things we have uncovered is a major difference in the use of pronouns and zero anaphors between Tugbiri and English. (A zero anaphor is when there is no word for one of the text participants, and the identity of the participant is understood from the context.) An example of this problem is found in the Tugbiri translation of Luke 14:1-4. Unaware of the differences, the translators replicated the English pronouns and zero anaphora faithfully, exactly as found in the English text, but this had the effect of completely changing the meaning in Tugbiri! On the right below, I have written out the words for the participants in full, so that you can see what the Tugbiri translation was (mis)communicating.

Tugbiri speakers understood from this incorrect translation that Jesus was rebuking the Pharisees
for wanting to heal ‘their man’ on the Sabbath, and that the man with dropsy healed the Pharisee
by means of witchcraft. Thankfully, our analysis of Tugbiri texts helps us not only to identify
problems, but also to make considerable headway in resolving them. It is a slow process, however..."

happy birth day!

Frieda Joyce - the sweetest gift from God, born into this world on March 24, 2016 in Yaoundé. We were blessed with a wonderful doctor and clinic. Our first three babies are Texans, and we now have a little American-Cameroonian baby. We are so thankful that she has joined our family. Welcome to the world, little one!

dry season

It's still dry season in Cameroon--the natural state of the children at the end of today being them colored in various shades of orange from the dusty earth they've been playing in all day. The haze around the sun as it rises in the morning, the blazing heat of the mid-day never cut by a downpour. While some people are having their winter and plowing through mountains of snow just to drive anywhere, we're still running around barefoot and feeling thankful when the electricity runs and the water is good, so that we can have a fan blowing on us and a cold shower once or twice a day.

In about a month, the season will change...downpours will return. A new season of life will start for us, too...yes, it's only about a month until a new little person is due to join our family. We're looking forward to the season to come, but in the meantime enjoying this one while it lasts.

Lois is 2

On December 28 (more than a month ago, I know!) we celebrated the second birthday of our little girl who is such a joy to our lives. She is such a loving and delightful little person; her singing and hugs and spunk bring lots of laughter to our days. As a perfect complement to her sweetness, Lois also has a mind of her own, and an ever-increasing vocabulary to reveal that mind to those around her.

On a walk in our neighborhood...

Visiting with Mama Lucie, one of Lois's favorite people...maybe in part because she always gives Lois as many bananas as Lois wants?

 Peacefully reading...

 Birthday morning cuddles with biggest brother...

 Helping make her own birthday cake...

and getting ready to enjoy that cake with friends!

this week: the cultivation of knowledge & skills

The last week has been a refreshing time for us, as different family members have been able to have some concentrated time of learning new things. Adam had the opportunity to take a course called, "Sharpening Your Interpersonal Skills"; it's always valuable, of course, to hone your skills at relating to other people (especially when that's a big part of your job)!

The whole SYIS group together:

Meanwhile, John and Sam are enjoying their second "Joint Learning Session" for the school year; during these couple of weeks, they take a break from homeschool and go to the local Greenhouse school with their friends. The December session is extra special because they also get two weeks of swimming lessons at local pools! Here they are on the final path to school with a couple of neighbor friends who are in Sam's class:

And Lois...she's getting potty trained. A major life skill! That is a smiley face reward sticker on her hand: great motivation.

taxi backs

To celebrate our one-and-a-half-year anniversary back in Cameroon - yes, 18 months in Cameroon today!- I decided to share photos I took of taxis on our 8+ hour drive from Mbingo home to Yaoundé today. 

Sometimes drivers paint encouraging truth, like Scripture verses or sage adages, on the back of their taxi.  And then sometimes the messages are weird, less than clear, or mixed (like the taxi I saw a couple weeks back that had a large window sticker of the virgin Mary, and underneath the words "Seduction" and "Android 3G").

In any case, you see enough painted words and phrases on cars that after a while you come to realize that a hearse like this isn't wrong...it's just different, to me...and to my Cameroonian friends, it makes total sense.

Without further ado, the taxi backs from today's drive (a couple of loaded vehicles thrown in for fun). I'll caption ones that may be hard to read. Oh, and please, if you have an interpretation or explanation for any of them, please do leave a comment below!

 "Better Boy"

 Plantains a-plenty

Do you see that bag that looks like it's falling off on the right?

 "King Ziki / Beautiful World, Wonderful People / VIP"

 "No Peace for the Weaked"

 "Bo Bo / Marlboro / God in Control"

"Activate the Cherubim with the flaming sword."

giving thanks

Thankful for a doctor (who lives a seven-hour drive away from us) who invited us to drive up and see him on Thanksgiving Day so that he could help me figure out how to treat a leg infection that wasn't improving...and thankful for God's healing as my leg continues to improve!

Thankful for the vehicle that carried us up here, for the beautiful (never dull!) drive, the competent driver, and the three happy cuties in the back seat:

Thankful for an absolutely gorgeous place to "vacation" while getting well--Mbingo, Cameroon:

Thankful for two Thanksgiving celebrations with mostly-new friends:

Thankful to live in a country that knows such natural bounty, where there are various types of fruit in season throughout the entire year (that blue speck in the tree is John, hitting down guavas to those waiting expectantly under the tree):

Thankful that the sleek forest cobra that slithered by near the outdoor lunch with the missionary doctors today met his demise shortly after he was sighted. Everyone else was snapping pictures with their smart phones as several doctors valiantly went after him and chopped his head off with a shovel (the RIGHT hing to do with this type of snake!)...I was meanwhile trying to keep my children from venturing too close until the decapitation was complete!

Yesterday, Adam and I were recounting what we have done for Thanksgiving for the last 10-11 years. I realized that I haven't spent two consecutive Thanksgivings in the same place over all those years, and only one of them with my Molitor family. But ever since 2004, when I first moved away from home, I have spent every single Thanksgiving with missionary friends and other believers somewhere in the world! God has given us more "family" then we ever imagined we'd have! Thankful for the body of Christ--the family of God--and for Jesus who makes us all one.