Wycliff e Bible Translators of Canada • Fall 2008 Translated children’s Bible stories and an audio New Testament speak the heart language of a communal people. Wycliff e, PAOC Sign Agreement Bogota Meeting Encourages Scripture Use Reshaping Missions COVER BY Hutterite Tony Waldner strides home from Down to the teaching Sunday school at Forest River DWAYNE Fall 2008 • Volume 26, Number 3 Colony, N.D. With help from Wycliff e Bible JANKE Shirt Collar Translators, Tony is translating an audio New Testament in his Hutterisch mother tongue. Before I interviewed Arnold Hofer for this issue of Word Photograph by Alan Hood Alive, the Hutterite minister of Acadia Colony, west of Winnipeg, Man., showed us the colony’s church. Aside from padded oak pews, the sanctuary is FEATURES unadorned—no cross, no fancy pulpit, no stained glass. Arnold Articles by Dwayne Janke • Photographs by Alan Hood took us to the long table at the front, where he later led the daily, pre-supper Gebet (worship or prayer) service. Showing us a Hutterite German songbook, Arnold focused in on one example of what Hutterites sing in colonies across the Canadian and U.S. prairies and plains. It is a song written in 1557 by Hans Kräl, a They’re Here! Hutterite elder, about being imprisoned for his Anabaptist faith. 4 Bible stories, written in their Authorities caught Kräl, identifi ed as a hated Anabaptist, while he mother tongue, come to the travelled in Austria. Th ey tied him behind a horse, dragged him to Hutterites for the fi rst time. prison, interrogated him and put him in a dungeon for several years. “His shirt rotted off ,” Arnold told me. “Only his collar was left .” “God helped him to testify and he was willing to give up his life,” Arnold continued. While being escorted elsewhere, Kräl escaped from a drunken guard. He returned to his community, but was so skinny Finding An Open Door and ragged that his wife fi rst mistook him for a vagabond. 14 Wycliff e discovers interest for “Th is is the kind of story we tell our children,” concluded Arnold. “So, we sing this song once a year, or once every other translation among Hutterites. year, to be reminded.” It quickly became obvious on our visit that Hutterites greatly value their faith, history and tradition. Th ey know of their forefa- thers’ religious steadfastness in the face of persecution and even death, which they met with a deep trust in God. The e-Book is Coming Part of the Hutterites’ history and tradition is using German in 18 Aft er an uncertain start, translation church services, including Luther’s Bible as the authority. But another for an audio New Testament in important piece of Hutterite heritage has been the day-to-day use of Hutterisch moves steadily forward. Hutterisch, their mother tongue for more than four centuries. With this in mind, Wycliff e has helped Hutterites translate children’s Bible stories into Hutterisch—the fi rst-ever Hutterisch printed material for wide distribution. Wycliff e is also helping to translate an audio New Testament Alan Alan Hood Tony The Translator into Hutterisch. Some Hutterites, like Ruth Kleinsasser at Milltown Viewed from high atop grain bins, Forest 26 Colony near Winnipeg, are eager to see the fruit of this labour. As . and German teacher, and River Hutterite Colony, in northeastern DEPARTMENTS North Dakota, is patterned after a layout gardener, and historian, and we visited in her kitchen, Ruth told me she is aware of how a Bible common to the 475 colonies in western translation for the Mennonites in their Plautdietsch mother tongue archivist. North America. Hutterites have lived in 3 Focus Down to the Shirt Collar has been of spiritual help to them. such communal, largely agriculture-based “I was so amazed,” Ruth said. “How much could it do for us?” settlements on this continent for more than a century. Th at is one of those questions only God can answer—and I’m 30 Word Watch Wycliff e, PAOC Sign Partnership Agreement sure He will. As God promises in Isaiah 55:11 (NIV): “My word . will achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” 31 Eureka! Reshaping 21st-century Missions Word Alive, which takes its name from Hebrews 4:12a, is the official publication Word Alive is published four times annually by Wycliffe Bible Member: The Canadian Church Press, Evangelical Press Association Wycliffe Canada Vision Statement: Quoteworthy of Wycliffe Bible Translators of Canada. Its mission is to inform, inspire and involve Translators of Canada, 4316 10 St NE, Calgary, AB T2E 6K3. For additional copies: media_resources@wycliff e.ca A world where translated Scriptures lead to “The gospel is a joyful message from God the Christian public as partners in the worldwide Bible translation movement. Copyright 2008 by Wycliffe Bible Translators of Canada. Permission To contact Word Alive editors: [email protected] transformed lives among people of all languages. to reprint articles and other magazine contents may be obtained For address updates: circulation@wycliff e.ca Canadian Head Office: Editors: Dwayne Janke, Dave Crough and Christ . a word of liberty that sets people by written request to the editors. A donation of $12 annually 4316 10 St NE, Calgary, AB T2E 6K3. Designer: Laird Salkeld Note to readers: References to “SIL” are occasionally made in is suggested to cover the cost of printing and mailing the Phone: (403) 250-5411 or toll free 1-800-463-1143, Staff Writers: Janet Seever, Doug Lockhart, Deborah Crough Word Alive. SIL is Wycliffe’s key partner organization, dedicated free and makes them devout and blessed.” magazine. (Donate online or use the reply form in this 8:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m. mountain time Staff Photographers: Dave Crough, Alan Hood to training, language research, translation and literacy. issue.) Printed in Canada by McCallum Printing Group, Edmonton. Fax: (403) 250-2623. E-mail: [email protected] Web Version Designer: Kenji Kondo —Peter Riedemann, early Hutterite leader, —25 Years | Fall 2008 | www.wycliffe.ca 3 in Hutterite Confession of Faith, 1565 hey’ve enjoyed a hearty supper of home-canned Tchicken, french fries, green beans, salad and carrot sticks; book-ended by prayers of thanks said by their minister, Bible stories, written in their Rueben Hofer. mother tongue, come to the They’re Here! Now, many of the 100 Hutterites at Elm River Colony walk Hutterites for the first time. briskly home to their homes from the centrally located com- munal dining hall. Darkness has replaced the final glow of ARTICLES BY DWAYNE JANKE sunset that earlier ignited wispy clouds lashing the flat horizon PHOTOGRAPHS BY ALAN HOOD (at left). The frigid sub-zero air during this wind-chilled first week of March reminds these Southern Manitobans, an hour’s drive west of Winnipeg, that spring has not yet arrived. One of them is Linda Maendel [MAN-del], who arrives home before most of her family. She makes a beeline for the large sitting room with its multiple couches and rockers on the main floor of their long, eight-bedroom house, which like everything else, is owned by the colony. As her mother, sisters and sister-in-law join her, Linda repeats some exciting news: “The books are here!” Linda has opened a small cardboard box, brought from a Hutterite bookstore at neighbouring Baker Colony, through a sort of informal Hutterite courier system of travelling friends and family. Her glasses barely wiped of condensation after coming in from the cold air outside, the rosy-cheeked, middle- aged woman leafs through the much-anticipated contents. Here, at last, are several copies of a blue paperback book, its cover featuring a painting of animal pairs entering Noah’s Ark. It’s entitled “Hutterischa Bibl Tschichtlen 1.” The newly printed volume of illustrated children’s Bible stories, with accompanying narration on CD, represents an important step for the Hutterites and their mother tongue, called Hutterisch. Five centuries into their existence, these 45,000 communal people have printed material for wide dis- tribution in their mother tongue for the first time. And this is only a beginning—three hours’ drive south of this area, in North Dakota, the New Testament is gradually being trans- lated into Hutterisch (see “The e-Book is Coming”, pg. 18). Our Own Language Linda carefully scrutinizes the colourful book, with its single sentences of Hutterisch accompanying each page’s drawing. This teacher’s assistant in Elm River’s colony-run, K-12 school spent many hours in front of her classroom computer working on 30 Bible stories for this and four yet-to-be-printed volumes. An overseeing Hutterite Education Committee that supports the project assigned her to the job. Dick Mueller, a linguistic/translation consultant with Wycliffe Bible Translators, assisted her at a distance, via Internet telephone and e-mail from his home in Denver, Colo. Dick, acting as our guide on a visit to several Hutterite colo- nies west of Winnipeg, is here too. He eagerly thumbs through the finished product that still smells of fresh ink. In a sense, tonight’s living room session and the next few days represent an informal launching of the book. Dick boards at the colony commercial woodworking shop. He sits beside Karen, and is immediately prodded by the vocal female majority to give the Hutterisch text a try. It’s his first time. But in just minutes, the dark-bearded, spectacled young man reads it fluently. Like a nervous author finally seeing her work in print, Linda expresses a little apprehension about the book: how people are going to take it.