(Part 1)
When we’re home, the question we hear most often is, “So… when’s your next trip?” Many people imagine that when we’re not on a plane, we’re simply waiting around for the next assignment. In reality, the work that happens between trips is what makes every workshop possible. We wanted to give you a glimpse into the projects filling our days right now—and share how you can pray as we prepare for the ministry ahead.
Preparing the Team
In one month, we’ll be traveling to Mexico to work with a team serving one of the Tarahumara dialects. But we can’t simply arrive and expect to produce a full literacy curriculum. The groundwork begins long before we ever pack our bags.
Motivation
From the moment missionary teams enter a community and begin learning the language, we walk alongside them through the early literacy steps. There are resources and a plan of action for them to begin making wise decisions on the alphabet and spelling of words that will be used to represent the special sounds of that language. Teams often need to motivate the community for future literacy classes—especially in places where people may not yet see the value of reading their own language. While our ultimate desire is that everyone will have complete, personal access to God’s Word, there are many practical motivations that help open the door. These might be things like not being taken advantage of when selling things, understanding medical instructions from the clinic, helping their children with homework.
Language data
About two months before each workshop, the missionary team sends us a document of roughly 20,000 words—often the first substantial written material in their language. This becomes the backbone of our literacy software. We run it through extensive checks for spelling, grammar, and consistency. We flag infrequent letters or syllables, ask for additional examples when needed, and help the team refine the written form of their language so it can be taught clearly. And just think, this alphabet will be used to translate the Word of God and communicate the best Message of all! That thought alone fills us with such joy!
Some languages require special symbols, which means coordinating with font designers so we will be ready to print the literacy materials. Others have unique grammatical features that require adjustments to the software. Every language reveals something beautiful about God’s creativity, and we count it a privilege to help shape tools that will pave the way for access to God’s Word.
Classroom vocabulary
The Tarahumara team is currently working through classroom vocabulary—choosing the words they will use for concepts like paragraph, sentence, question mark, comma, and semicolon. Some teams prefer to borrow these terms from the national language. In Mexico, that would mean using the Spanish words. But many communities choose to develop their own terminology so that everything used in the classroom truly reflects their language and identity. Settling these decisions ahead of time is essential; without this groundwork, we could never accomplish all that needs to be done during our time together at the workshop.
All this work gets the data ready as well as gives us the preparation and familiarity with the language so that we will be able to work with the team. We do not learn to speak each of the languages that we work with. But we learn the patterns and grammar enough that we can point out spelling mistakes to the teams!
We’ll be sharing more of the preparation steps soon!
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