Missionary profile – Ann
By Mercy Kambura
Every speaker that stood on the podium mentioned Ann. But I didn’t know who she was.
The sermon was hot, hotter than the coastal sun we were sheltering from. I listened in awe. I laughed at the jokes and said, “Amen,” albeit a few seconds after everyone else.
I was enjoying this sermon immensely. But there was one problem – I didn’t understand half of what the preacher said. I understood the other half because Chidigo sounds a lot like Swahili. I was like a blind man in a sign language class.
As I sat through another joke that flew past me, I got a glimpse of what they must have felt all these years they didn’t have a Bible in their language—lost, confused, getting half the word in languages that didn’t speak to their hearts.
After the meeting, as we sat down to eat, I got hold of Ann. Ann is the Translation Consultant who led the translation team of the Chidigo Bible. She, too, is a Digo.
Ann joined the Digo Bible translation process in 1999, while it was still in conception. The process was painstakingly slow because the Digo language had never been written before; they had to start from language orthography. If the Digo Bible was a baby, then Ann was the midwife.
The levels of literacy among the Digo were also relatively low, especially in the villages. It would make no sense translating a Bible for people who won’t read it anyway! So they also embarked on literacy programmes, teaching the locals how to read and write so that when the Bibles arrived, they’d make sense of the letters, commas, and periods.
“How does it feel to see the Bible written in your native language?” I ask.
“I’m very excited; now we have the Bible in our language. Now, a woman in Kwale who can’t read or understand other languages very well can have someone read it for them, and they won’t need translation!”
Ann is using her skills to serve God in translating the Bible. She has a Bachelor in Sociology and Swahili from the University of Nairobi and a Master in Translation Studies from the Africa International University (AIU). She serves with Bible Translation and Literacy (BTL) in Kenya.
How are you using your skills to serve God?
Copyright AfriGO 2021
