Recent pics

With my new roomie

Group photo after a Sunday morning Deaf worship service

With some new friends from Tanzania and Ghana

Out to Ethiopian food with Ethiopian friends

Deaf team members from Tanzania, Ethiopia, Ghana, and Uganda

going for a walk

Even something as simple as a walk can be an adventure here. =) Ever heard of Acacia trees? Well, they look something like this...

So, last Tuesday, a dear friend and I went on our evening walk (normally, about 3km). When, much to my surprise and dismay...
THIS...

went through this...

and into this...

Which led to my THIRD trip to the hospital in only four months here. Ai yi yi. Turns out those beautiful African acacia trees, up close, look like this...

And, now that you know what acacia thorns look like... here's the kicker. This is the tree whose thorns were used to make the crown of thorns Jesus wore for his trial. They weren't no rosebush pricklies, my friends. They were the real--vicious--deal.

God or Bigfoot?

While working through exegetical checking with one of our translation teams, we spent some time cleaning up the spatial-visual clarity of their translation. They asked me to watch a real-time draft as they practiced rehearsing it for filming. The signer got to the part where God is walking in the garden in the cool of the evening, and calling, "Man, where are you?" when I burst out laughing. God, as portrayed through the signing, was walking, "Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom." with heavy, monstrous steps through the garden. 

Let me back up... Genesis 3:8 in the NASB reads: "They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden."

Issue? "They heard ... God walking in the garden..." From a Deaf perspective, they way you hear sound is by feeling it. So, intuitively, it made perfect sense that God's footsteps would have been heavy enough for Adam & Eve to feel the vibration and thus "hear" God walking in the garden. 

Problem? God is Spirit. And, I'm more than 99.99% sure that He doesn't walk like Bigfoot. ;)

When I pointed out the issue, we all had a good laugh. Shaking their heads, with big grins, they quickly modified the sign to something more accurate. But it provided good comic relief in the midst of a heavy day of work. =) 

I love this all-consuming, challenge, yet positively wonderful learning process. Pray for the translation teams, for the artists, for the consultants, and for our office staff. We feel the weight of "accurately handling the Word of Truth," and feel the enemy's opposition. But, wow, to be in this part of the process... it is incredible. He will upload the integrity of His Word... and it will go forth to bring LIFE. Amen!

"have" vs. "have"

I spent all of yesterday in the filming studio with what I currently refer to as "my translation team" (ie: Uganda). (On Monday, my colleagues return and will take over, allowing me to go back to my previous teammates.) One of the challenges of having so many different sign languages on campus is the influence of the local sign language on their translations. All the teams have learned Kenyan Sign Language, which we use for communication across the teams, despite the fact they each have their own sign language they are translating into.

As we filmed re-take after re-take, I kept seeing one of my translators using the Kenyan sign for "have" rather then the Ugandan one. We stopped the camera and they signed the whole passage again. I thought it was a simply a code-switching error, which are fairly common with the overlap of languages. But, when we finished for the day, the team leader told me it was actually a bigger issue than I had realized.

In Ugandan sign language, there are two signs for "have." One is what I had been seeing them use for the last three weeks, and the other resembles the Kenyan sign for "have." Both can be used, but the connotations of each are completely different! The Kenyan-looking "have" is only used by a person or in the context of being prideful, boastful, or arrogant. Considering the context of our Bible passage, only the first Ugandan sign for "have" would have been appropriate -- it is used generally, but also (purely in contrast to the second) conveys humility and graciousness. The closest equivalent explanation to spoken English could be the tone of voice you would use when speaking (which is normally conveyed through facial expression in sign languages, but in this instance, is actually also packaged in the choice of sign vocabulary).

Welcome to the nerdiness of the things that I find very interesting! ;-) And, obviously... worth writing about...

fleeting moments, eternal weight

I love living in community with so many Deaf brothers and sisters from Africa & Asia. This morning, I looked out my kitchen window to see our Deaf guard standing in the patch of sunlight peeking over the office building. He was looking down in contemplation and was stepping back and forth with a slow rhythym. I couldn't help but smile as his solo, quiet dance to an internal music only he could hear. But then, he looked up, lifted his hands, and started signing in spontaneous worship, his feet keeping time! My heart burst with praise. How beautiful and inspiring it is to see my Deaf family members pouring out their hearts to our King. This is the whole reason we are here... that more and more of these precious ones might know, love, and worship HIM!

not exactly "Bible Trivia"

Creating a VISUAL Bible through a visual language and including hand-drawn pictures is inherent with it's own unique challenges! There are many things in the Bible we can read without putting much thought into what it looked like, but for a Sign Language Bible, that is not an option! Here's a taste of the questions I get asked during an average workday here at DOOR...

What was the Ark of the Covenant made of?
What were the items kept in the Ark of the Covenant?
How do you draw Leah with weak eyes?
How do you draw the concept of forgiveness?
What did Miriam's leprosy look like?
What is the meaning of Daniel's dream in Daniel 4?
Are the Wilderness of Sin & the Wilderness of Zin the same place?
What did manna look like?
How did it spoil in only a day?
How much would one measure of manna have weighed?
What is "curd"?
What is the significance of the ram's horn in 1 Sam. 16:1?
What did the Israelites carry Joseph's bones in when they left Egypt?
Did Moses really carry Joseph's bones himself or did others help?
Were the tax collector's tables that Jesus overturned in the temple made of wood or metal? (Because it matters how you sign it -- and there is no generic word for "table" without saying "wood-table" or "metal-table" in one of the sign languages we're working with).

And did you know...
There is no garden named Eden in the Bible? Eden was the name of the place where the garden was planted, not the name of the garden itself.
Eve is not named until after the fall.
There's no account in Scripture of Adam ever being "named."
Man is the first thing God makes without simply speaking it into existence.
That the Hebrew word for Eve's pain in childbirth and Adam's pain in tilling the soil (Genesis 3:15-17) is the same word!?