| Khesed News #80 November 2009 |
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Page 2 of 3 An Alyawarr milestone [east of Tennant Creek & Alice
Springs]
- from David Blackman's Bush Telegraph, Nov
09
The job’s
done! I posted off the CD and 900 page printout of the new Alyawarr MiniAngka Mwerr-angker, right on the deadline
date of 30th October! The weeks leading up to that day were very busy. There
were some things my colleague, David Moore, and I would rather have spent more
time on, but if we want to meet our deadline of a planned dedication ceremony next
Easter, then we should first meet the publisher’s! In this case, the publisher is the Bible
Society, who will have the Bible printed in Asia and will make it available at
a subsidised price. It will contain extensive selections from Genesis, Exodus,
and 1 & 2 Samuel; and all of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans,
Galatians, 1 & 2 Thessalonians, Titus and James.
As I
mentioned in my last BBT, we have decided to print the Good News English translation in parallel
with the Alyawarr text in the New Testament books. This is a version readily
available to us, being a Bible Society text. We hope having both languages will
encourage more Christian Alyawarr people to buy and read their Bible,
especially those who could read Alyawarr with a little bit of practice, and
only need the English as a prompt.
Thank you
to those who were praying for us. There were several technical hitches along
the way. I’m grateful to Gordon Thompson and Janet Ezard for their ability to
make a very sophisticated desktop publishing program do what we want and not what it wants! The biggest challenge was to
line up the Alyawarr and English texts in the New Testament books, especially
once maps and other illustrations were added. As our approach is to translate
the meaning of
the text, rather than the individual words in it, the Alyawarr often uses many
more words than the English. Hence its need for much more space on the page.
The team
now plan to finish translating the entire NT and 20% of the OTs. Bi-Lingual challenge
-
from David Blackman's Bush Telegraph, Nov 09
Some of you
will be aware of the ongoing debate in the Northern Territory over the NT
Government’s recent decision to dismantle what remains of the bilingual
education program, and to teach only in English for the first four hours of
each day. SIL assisted with the setting up of the bilingual program back in the
seventies, when education in the NT was handled by the Commonwealth. Where the
program was well-supported, it worked very well. Where it was not
well-supported it did not.
Unfortunately,
there has been a systematic policy of non-support or outright opposition at
many levels of government over the years. So it is now possible to “prove”
(according to the government’s criteria) that the bilingual program is
“responsible” for the failure of remote indigenous children to meet national
benchmarks. Yet both common sense and extensive research show, that children
learn best if taught in their own language in the early years of their
schooling. AuSIL has joined the ranks of those advocating for a change of policy. Colleague Chuck Grimes has produced a book entitled Indigenous languages in education: what the research actually shows, to challenge the “there is no evidence” line. It contains a bibliography of 691 relevant articles and studies. It is available from SIL office for $5.00, plus postage. On the home page of AuSIL’s website [www.sil.org.au] there is a link in red print to other items relating to this issue. Pray for a real breakthrough in government attitudes. Khesed Directors' 2nd 2009 road trip
Thank you sooooo much for your prayers and support! Over 7 weeks and 11,000kms: NSW, QLD, SA, WA - Aug-Oct 2009. The Sante Fe 4WD is now 9 months old with 24,000kms on it, and meets our needs extremely well. The new caravan was a hassle, with severe swaying most of the first half of the trip until we were able to fit stabilizer bars [told we didn't need them!] and new tyres [cords deteriorated with age, even thought they had plenty of tread left]. After that it was great!
We stopped at Penong, SA, to take photos of the many windmills there.
May the wind of the Spirit pump the water from the River of God that comes from
His throne into every part of this dry and thirsty land!
The trip was a time of catching up with many people and
meeting many new friends. Teaching at Ganggala was a real joy – again – as was
the Tweed Valley Conference and college graduation – a real time of honouring
God and each other!
After we left Perth, we received an invitation to attend a
retreat in Adelaide: Training Aboriginal Christian Leaders, which is hosted by
the Heads of Churches in Adelaide. This was a really special time.
Our time in Narrandera included meeting with a number of the
Wiradjuri Christians and praying with them, and encouraging them in their
desire to re-establish their own church in the town and hold a 'Back to
Narrandera' festival. There are historic issues that need to be dealt with in
the area, and we were able to talk and pray with some about this.
On the way home, we stopped off at Kalgoorlie for a few days
of the convention there, and were encouraged to hear of many Wongayis who gave
their lives to Jesus.
Overall, a really valuable trip! Ganggalah Training Centre
Ganggala Student graduation Aug 2009
Ganggalah Training Centre needs
help to purchase a new bus for their students in their daily travel and
outreach, including trips for ministry in NSW & QLD towns.
Contact Ps Willy Dumas at
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
07 5524 7856 PO Box 6369 Tweed Heads NSW 2486.
Ruakken Church and the Coorong area, east of Adelaide, SA
Earlier this year Rose Rigney wrote to us:
Please keep us in
prayer through your contacts around the nation as we have just relocated to
Raukkan Aboriginal Community, in the Lakes/Coorong area of South Australia. My
husband Clyde and myself are a part of a body ministry here. We are Aboriginal
and from this group (Ngarrindjeri) and God is doing a mighty work here. We are
a part of the church on the $50 note...This is the first time I have read this
newsletter and do confirm that we have also had words and heard others say that
God has shown them that He is going to start fires of revival around the nation
and use Indigenous people to spread the Gospel. We will pray for you as you
continue your ministry to the Nation through this newsletter...
The Coorong - the mouth of the Murray River
Raukkan Aboriginal Community
recently celebrated their 150th
anniversary and Rose wrote.
The glory of our
Lord surely shone on us last Saturday and people have still been ringing the
Community to tell of how lovely they thought the day was and how they went away
feeling uplifted... we had about 500 people and lots of reunions,
reconcilliations and fun...it was certainly a time of Ngarrindjeri 'arising,
and shining' in the gifts He has given ....Amen.... Health Funding Delays
WA's special funding for Aboriginal health, designed to help close
the gap between indigenous and non-indigenous health, has become bogged down in
'consultation processes', so that after five months of the financial year, none
of the $20m allocated has been released.
A Western Desert Kidney Project set up by Professor Dr Christine
Jeffries-Stokes [wife of Wongayi pastor, Geoff Stokes] has had to delay their
project, which will combat the high level of diabetes in the area. Kidney
disease is probably something like 100 times higher in the WA Goldfields than
in the general population. Stillbirths and children born with defects can be
prevented by access to fresh fruit and vegetables, and dealing with this is
part of their program. Pray for release of funding effectively
into the right areas to make the dramatic changes that are possible. Jerusalem House of Indigenous Peoples
- from Gavriel Gefen,
Director of WCGIP7
For many years, I
have carried a vision toward establishing a house of indigenous people in
Jerusalem. A number of tribal leaders around the world have also shared this
idea for a long time. Some of them would like to see a house of prayer in Jerusalem
set aside for indigenous people, where they may offer up their own traditional
songs and prayers and dances. They have hoped for a house that would
welcome and host them on pilgrimages of faith. Other tribal leaders would like
to have an embassy as a diplomatic center of representation for tribal nations.
This month,
we opened the Jerusalem House of Indigenous Peoples, with the above purposes.
It includes an office of representation for indigenous people and also guest
rooms for visiting indigenous tribal leaders. It will be a home for indigenous
leaders coming for longer visits while connecting in deeper relational ways
with both the people and the land. We will coordinate these times of residence
in rotation in order to maintain a continual presence and representation of
indigenous people in Jerusalem. Khesed Directors' Program
Healing The Land Road
Trips 2009
Nov – Dec – Jan officework,
developing resources, local outreach, family time
2010
Feb Ganggala College
teaching [8-12th] + family time in Newcastle
Apr – May Central
Desert road trip Khesed Resources development:
Fire in the Outback: we ran out of stock
in November and it is currently being reprinted - expected delivery date is Wed 9 Dec, in time
for Christmas – it makes a great gift, so get your orders in!
We are planning work over the summer on a simplified Healing
The Land manual, Dhurrkay Praise CD, teaching booklet/DVD of God's House, a CD/MP3
book-reading of Fire in the Outback, and a DVD of Australian
Indigenous Revival Fire stories.
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