Bunia Buzz

My week in Bunia was non-stop: 6 hours per day teaching Scripture Use and Trauma Healing to a very lively, eager group of about 40-50 students, while Margaret Hill (co-worker) taught another 40-50 in another classroom. Evenings we prepared the 4 lessons for the next day, often by flashlight. Thankfully, a team of French volunteers got Translating the Bible into Action into French in time for us to use it. Much appreciated! Here are a few clips from the students' evaluation forms:

• Before when I spoke my language, I felt inferior. This course has encouraged me to realize that God knows all languages, and he wants me to express my joy and pain to him in my language.
• This course has changed me because before the course I’d didn’t really know who I was. Now I have changed my attitude about my mother tongue and my culture and now I know who I am.
• Now I know that God does not neglect or despise any culture.
• I realized that mother tongues are so important for comprehension of God's word, and the African cultures have good things to consider.
• My spouse and I experienced 11 years of problems that traumatized us, one thing after the other. This course has brought us healing of our trauma. Every evening, I went home and shared what I had received with my wife and now she, too, is healed of her trauma.

Huge needs for both Scripture and Scripture engagement. For example, in one class, I had 37 students who spoke 24 different mother tongues. Only 7 of the languages had Scripture, and 5 of those had been done so long ago they needed revision.

Bunia is not the easiest place to live, but I was reminded that Jesus went to the sick, not to those who were well. Those most in need are often outside our comfort zone.

Thanks for your prayers. Videos to follow -- when I get back to the land of high-speed internet!