Here is the rest of the story of the missing belt!

On Dec. 9, a long rainy season finally ended, and Mary and Keith left their apartment in Yaoundé, Cameroon, for a trip to Ngoyla, the home of the Njyem people.After an apparently uneventful arrival in Lomie, they woke up the next day to discover the battery was dead! The local car repairman declared the alternator dead—not true, as it turned out—and proceeded to tear it apart and rebuild it. The difficult part was when he started using a hammer and chisel on it. Finally he got it back together again only to discover the REAL source of the problem. The alternator was hammered back into near-original shape late on the 11th under the light of a flashlight.

Now the Beavons were 216 miles away from any alternator that had not yet felt the blows of hammer and chisel. Praying for God's care, they continued their trip farther to the southeast, where we crossed a ferry and went into the home area of the Njyem people.They shared their food and fellowship, helping them to reorganize themselves for a new launching of the Bible translation movement that has been faltering in some degree since 1996.On Dec. 22 they drove back to Lomie and on the following day they made it to Yaoundé. God took their minds off the alternator, in part by giving Keith a tropical virus that gave them something else to think about. No sooner had they gotten back to Yaoundé than the battery light went on! Parked at our training center, Keith lifted up the hood and was amazed at what was missing: any sign of a belt to the alternator! Upon closer examination, however, he found loops of steel that once held the belt together.God chose to let us limp back with a car whose diminished capacities he knew about all too well. He let the abused and damaged alternator spin around with a belt that was ended up looking like fishing leader. The timing of the breakdown of the belt after the repair was synchronized perfectly with the end of the trip 400 miles later. Only God can do this.Mary read Keith’s thoughts when she said, “One thing about doing these old-fashioned Bible translation projects is that you get to see old-fashioned miracles.” This miracle of the alternator belt is as old-fashioned as the one related in Deut. 29: 5: “During the forty years that I led you through the desert, your clothes did not wear out, nor did the sandals on your feet.” Truly, God is leading us back to the Njyem to bring them the joy of his Word!

What's missing from this picture?

A functioning fan belt!

We are praising the Lord who sees no problem here but who brings us home to Yaounde without allowing the idiot light to flash even once!

Adult Literacy in Ngoyla

Cyrus Nkouom is excited about the opportunity that he has to teach Njyem young adults to read and write in their language. He will be looking to us to furnish him with 200 copies of literacy materials that will facilitate his task. The literacy sessions will be August 8 and 9.

Adapting the Scriptures to the current orthography

We have just adapted Badwe'e MARK into the new orthographic system. The next project will be Nzime LUKE.

More to read in Badwe'e

Ferdinand Elanga has just finished editing a collection of stories and lessons in Badwe'e that come from a number of authors. The booklet is 72 pages in length. I have included a little lesson on the definite article that has to follow relative clauses. It is an area of the grammar that the Badwe'e have had trouble with. The book is for those who have graduated from studying the primer.

Relative articles

This is a relatively complicated part of the Badwe'e grammar, so we are adding it to the second volume of the transition primer.

There are 2 series of relative articles in Badwe'e, one series when the article is in phrase-final position and another series when it is in phrase medial position. There are four words that we've noticed which move the article to the phrase medial position:

1. The interjection

2. The word "thus" or "then the following would be true"

3. The conditional "if"

4. The interrogative "is it true?"

Examples would help. Here is one:

In phrase final position, the article harmonizes with the preceding vowel. If the preceding letter is a consonant, the article is a barred "i".

Badwe'e Gospel of Mark in the new orthography

We have just finished adapting Badwe'e MARK to the new orthography, which has fewer tone marks. It is available for downloading here.

Post-primer in Badwe'e

We were amazed to see the quality and volume of a post-primer that Ferdinand Elanga brought to us! It is available here for any and all to download and print. Sorry, it is only in Badwe'e (ISO 639-3: ozm)!

Revising the Njyem Transition Primer

Seven Njyem-- all young adults in university programs-- came to the Cameroon Training Center in Yaounde on March 23 and 4 came on March 30 to report on their work revising the Njyem transition primer. Some of this work was done in a group setting on Sunday afternoons, but others were working on their own, finding things to correct or comment on. They hope to work on this again and bring it to conclusion. We are keyboarding the changes and are very hopeful that they will be encouraged by the outcome of our collective efforts. Here it is in its present state. We are now sending out a few copies to people in the village to use in literacy classes and to correct further.

Jonah in Badwe'e

Mary and I are checking the exegesis of Jonah (Badwe'e) before sending it back to the authors with our comments.

Dramatic recording of Genesis

The work of preparing scripts for the dramatic reading of Genesis is going fast! I am using the program Dramatizer, which is available free. The recording should be in July, after enough readers are trained. We hope to get funding for a playback device to use in presenting this version of Genesis to the Nzime people. It may also be played on CD devices and on the rural radio.

A notebook computer for Rev. Ndjelo

The past week we trained Rev. Ndjelo on a notebook computer running Windows 7. For his work of Bible translation, he has Paratext and Open Office.

The Njyem Grammar

It's coming! The first part of the Njyem grammar is now available in French. I have written on the voices, modes and will now describe the tenses and negation.

The transition primer is getting checked.

On the 20th a group of 28 Njyem met at the home of a community leader to study the new transition primer. From the first page onward, they found things that needed fixing. We have incorporated their proposals in the on-line copy of the transition primer at http://dl.dropbox.com/u/16109934/NjyManTrans.pdf They will be meeting again on the 27th and report back on their proposals.

La revue du syllabaire de transition commence

On the 13th a group of 28 Njyem met at the home of a community leader to study the new transition primer. From the first page onward, they found things that needed fixing. We have incorporated

La revue du syllabaire de transition commence

On the 13th a group of 28 Njyem met at the home of a community leader to study the new transition primer. From the first page on

La revue du syllabaire de transition commence

On the 13th a group of 28 Njyem met at the home of a community leader to study the new

Nzime Genesis to the Printer

We are excited by the progress that has been made. The Nzime are eager to receive the teaching of Genesis and it has now gone to print. The printer is Guilllaume Nguezere, one of those trained in the SIL printshop, which has since been closed. We are producing 220 of them. Before the Badwe'e translation of Genesis can go to print, we need to receive the reactions of the Badwe'e reviewers.

Nzime Genesis to the Printer

We are excited by the progress that has been made. The Nzime are

The Njyem of Yaounde are meeting to learn to read and write their language

This Sunday (March 13), some of the Njyem living in Yaounde will be meeting in one of their homes and begin to study and correct the new literacy booklet we have been creating. It is of great importance to us all that they commit themselves to follow through with this process of becoming readers and writers of Njyem. If they do, we can continue with much less difficulty in the direction of producing audio and written Scriptures.

Our Next Trip

Travel conditions will permit it. The rains have come early and we are as surprised as everyone else.

A page from the Njyem grammer

A page from the Njyem literacy book

In this lesson, we are teaching the letter "u", which is pronounced as in English rather than in French. This means that the Njyem readers would find it slightly challenging and they have to read it differently than if it were in a French word.

The Njyem Transition Primer

To see a PDF file of the Njyem transition primer, go to http://dl.dropbox.com/u/16109934/NjyManTrans.pdf. The lessons and key to the exercises are complete. I have also added an index to the topics taught in addition to the letters. In a few days we go back to the Njyem area and test it and teach people to write their language in the southern canton. We have not been there before, but some people there know us from having met us elsewhere. We will go with our camper this time and look for a place in the area where we can set up a permanent base.

Gospel of John, ch. 6, in Njyem on the Internet

Etienne Amfangnsok and I have adapted John 9 into Njyem, from Nzime, and it is now available for reading at http://kulnjyem.blogspot.com/2011/02/levangile-selon-st-jean-ch-9-en-njyem.html. We hope to have audio files there someday, but we don't know when. The main job we have is still to get the transition primer roughed-in for his departure on Thursday.

The Idioms of Njyem

There is an idiom in Njyem that means "unrelenting". It is based on the ant called "njyoomaa" that is known for being large, having large mandibles and never releasing its grip when it bites its enemy. The expression is lekwaa lebu'u le njyoomaa. Literally it means "to hurt anger of the ant 'njyoomaa' ". It means that the person with this anger is going to maintain his angry posture unrelentingly.

Fighting malaria through literateness in Njyem

Here is a 1-page presentation of the information needed in order to survive the perils of malaria.

The Njyem Alphabet

Go to http://www.youtube.com/user/mbeavon#p/a/u/0/dJpifGMqclk and you will find a narrated display of the Njyem alphabet!

Our ministry in Cameroon

Here is a bit of video on our ministry.

The Parabole of the Lost Sheep

Here is a bit of the Gospel in Njyem for your listening pleasure.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZs-Mf2zK0A

God enabled us to return home with no alternator belt

Psalm 18:32-33 says, "It is God who arms me with strength and makes my way perfect. He makes my feet like the feet of a deer; he enables me to stand on the heights." This past trip to Ngoyla was accompanied by a miraculous return. I managed to drive back with a damaged alternator/water pump belt. By the end of the trip, it was no belt at all! I have a picture of it... it looks like some dirty wire, certainly not a belt that was meant to turn an alternator and water pump. It was just draped around the pullies loosely, certainly not pulling anything. But the Lord made my way perfect! Not only did the battery never run out of electricity during the 600-mile trip, the engine never stopped and the red light never came on to indicate that the battery was not charging. It came on only after we had arrived at our destination. This was the third time that God has done this. The first two times were when a metal tube, a piece of the carburator, was aspirated into the engine block of our VW combi and when I mistakenly dumped kerosene into my gas tank instead of gas. In each of these three cases, I never knew that a problem existed until we had arrived safely at our destination. God is working miracles!