SIL Tanzania - Scripture Engagement Research and Ministry

This week, I met with Frank and Majaliwa again to continue sense-making and to plan for how to do further sense-making with the Malila community. I thought it was time to share a few of our initial observations, rather than just describe what we are doing. So here is a snapshot of what has emerged. --- Having the complete New Testament (NT) makes a difference: people (including church leaders) are more motivated to use the Malila Scriptures now that they have the complete NT. We also heard multiple testimonies of how much easier it is to understand the Malila Scriptures than the Swahili Scriptures. A variety of materials are being engaged with: there were multiple stories relating to not just print Scriptures, but also audio Scriptures, songs, the Jesus film and literacy materials such as story books. However, deep and consistent engagement was less obvious and distribution may need strengthening. This was particularly noticeable in relation to audio Scriptures; although people ob...

It’s challenging working across two languages! I am constantly having to switch back and forth. Anything processed with my colleagues in Swahili I need to put into English for further analysis and sharing. Anything I have worked on myself I have to put into Swahili in order to discuss further with my colleagues. Google Translate provides a good starting point, but what it produces inevitably needs a significant amount of correcting. So, after the trip to the language area, I began to work on the data, firstly tidying up the Outcome Statements in both languages, so that I could begin to work with them. Then I continued to fill in the spreadsheet, identifying the following points in order to begin some analysis: Main actors: this refers to the person who demonstrated some kind of change of behaviour, whether that be starting to use Malila Scriptures, or demonstrating a change of attitude to using the Malila language, or starting to teach people to read Malila, or becoming a Christian...

On Tuesday 28 th March, I travelled to the Malila language area, together with Frank. We met with Majaliwa in the village of Iyunga Mapinduzi, where we had planned to hold our first meeting. The last stretch of road was rather slippery after the previous day’s rain but we arrived safely. There we met with a group of seven people, from a couple of different churches, all of whom had connected with our project in one way or another, though primarily through having attended workshops. We followed the same format that we followed during our initial field trip to the village of Jojo: we started with a Bible study on John 15 (using the Malila Scriptures, with participants taking it in turns to read the verses, and with most of the discussion taking place in Malila), then explained more about why we were visiting, asked for permission to write their stories and share them, told an example story (it’s important to have a really good one, with clear dates, people and change) and then invited...