SIL Tanzania - Scripture Engagement Research and Ministry

In the Nyakyusa language area, from May to September, we met with eight groups (totaling 70-80 people) to listen to their stories. The majority of those we met with were church leaders or people with specific church responsibilities. Some were former SIL staff, some have attended literacy/Scripture engagement workshops held over the years, others had some connection to SIL through church visits made by SIL staff or through the Nyakyusa Community Based Organisations (CBOs). Sense-making meeting On Thursday 5 th October, we held one final meeting, in Kyela, gathering together representatives from the two Nyakyusa CBOs. About fifteen people came, including four from Malawi (which created an interesting language situation as some of them couldn’t understand Swahili very well, which was our primary language of communication in the meeting). It was very hot, and people struggled to stay awake after lunch! Outline of meeting Welcome and greetings (we invited the Chair of one...

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...