Nuts & Bolts

Usually in my email updates and blogs, I mention bits and pieces of my actual job and the storying process, but a few people have showed an interest in knowing how exactly it all goes down. So I've decided to write a blog explaining the nuts and bolts of the storying process, starting at the beginning of my term. Read if you're interested...if not, no hard feelings.

First Six Months

When I first arrived in Mali last April, I was told that my full-time job was to learn the Sunny language and culture. We lived in the village (Yosemite) 5 days a week and came into a small town (G-Vegas) 2 days a week to rest up, run errands, etc. Every day in the village, I would go meet with a language helper (Jenny) to get new vocabulary and the rest of the day I'd go visit people and practice talking. To learn the culture, we did and still do two simple things: observe & mimic. Our primary goal was to become Sunny women (right down to our new Sunny names), but we were careful to only do this with cultural aspects of life...not religious. It's one of the best compliments ever when somebody looks at you or hears you or watches the way you do something or asks your name and says, "You are a Sunny woman!"

The Why

Well...because the Bible is not available in the Sunny people's heart language yet. And even if it was, none of them could/would read it. They are an oral people group. For centuries, they have passed down information orally. All of their history and traditions are taught to the generations through story-telling. This is how they teach and how they learn and they are awesome at it. So, when we know that we have the most important message they will ever hear, why wouldn't we present it the way they will receive it? Someday, the Bible will be available to them in their heart language, and someday they will want to read it, but for now this is the best way for them to have the opportunity to hear the gospel.

Pre-Story Set

After spending time with our people, we began thinking on a redemptive theme for our Story Set and which Stories would best support and illuminate that theme. The reason we go about it this way is because every people group is different and we want them to hear the full gospel in a way that will most resonate with them. Now, the gospel doesn't change and it's the Holy Spirit that reveals it to people, but we want to make sure that we're doing our part for the truth to sink in as quickly as possible. And if that is more likely to happen, for example, by emphasizing the sacrificial aspect of salvation, then Stories that show God's purposes of sacrifice are likely to be included.

We spent several months praying for direction and wisdom, observing our people, speaking with colleagues, and talking to each other to decide on a redemptive theme that would most speak to the Sunny people. We settled on "Jesus is the Only Way." Our people are very (VERY) conservatively M. Every single day, we watch them get up from what they are doing, go wash themselves, retrieve their prayer beads, lay out their prayer mats, turn East, and go through the recited prayers. They make the atoning sacrifices. They make the prescribed statements about Allah and His prophet. They attend Qu-ran:c school. They loyally walk the M Road daily. It breaks our hearts to see them walk a road that we know will not take them where they want to go. So we knew that pointing them onto the Jesus Road...the Only Way to God...would speak to them. Even their terminology speaks to this...the phrase "Jesus Road" and "M Road" comes from them, not us.

We purposely chose Old Testament stories that would point to Jesus as the Only Way to redemption...the way that God Himself provided. And we chose New Testament stories that verify that Jesus is exactly who God says He is...the Son of God, the Promised Savior. The actual Story Set list took several days to compose and is still in the works, but right now there's a list of about 30-33 Stories that will most likely be included in the final Story Set that will be recorded onto cassette tapes for distribution to our people.

The People

NICK: This is our story crafter. He speaks Sunny and English (and about 12 other languages). He is a believer, but is not very open about it yet. He wants very much to become open about his faith, but is praying for wisdom on how to do that because his ultimate goal is to be a catalyst for the Sunny people as a whole coming to faith in Jesus. He knows a lot about Sunny culture and has traveled quite a bit around the country, so we included him quite a bit while we were choosing Stories to include in our set.

BRIAN: This is our back-translator. He is not a believer, but is actively seeking. He speaks English and hears Sunny, but does not speak it all that well. He also speaks Bambara and French. I'll explain the back-translating process more below.

TESTING GROUP/TESTERS: This is how we describe a group of women on whom we test our story once it has been recorded and back-translated. They can be found at a few different houses that we have spent the last several months building relationship with.

ABBY/SOKONA: This is one of my teammates. Her term technically started 3 months ahead of mine, but she plans to extend 3 months so that our terms will both end in January. She has the mind of a steel-trap and can remember vocabulary that I don't even remember learning! She's from Georgia.

SARAH/MAGOU: This is my other teammate. She and Abby were college roommates and they started their terms at the same time. She can hear the Sunny language like crazy. These women will get to talking insanely fast, but Mags will still know what they're talking about! She's from South Carolina.

JUDY/NAFI: This is our supervisor. She is passionate about making the Word of God available to oral people groups and has supervised several teams like mine who were creating oral Story Sets in various languages. She's from Kentucky.

The Process

1. Abby will gather several resources...different versions of the Bible, our storying training book, a translator's program on the computer, etc...and craft the Story (in English). She will include any questions we need to address with Nick, any Key Terms, as well as reasons she chose to word something a certain way, or include/exclude a certain part of the story. This goes into a Word document.

2. Sarah and I will gather all of the resources Abby used and revise the story. We write down any concerns, add our own questions for Nick and/or Abby, and do any editing that needs to occur.

3. Abby schedules a Crafting Session with Nick and gets everything ready for it.

4. Abby and I meet with Nick to craft the Story. We tell it to him orally (in English) and then he verbalizes any immediate concerns or suggestions he has. We ask him all of our questions and tell him the non-negotiables of the story...meaning...if he wants to change something for the sake of contextualization, we have certain things that cannot be changed in order to maintain the integrity of the Word of God based on research with Bible translation. Then he reads the story for himself a few times to familiarize himself with it even though he already knows it. We make any changes that need to be made, then we record him telling the story (in Sunny) on one of our voice recorders.

5. Then I get the story ready for the Back-Translation session. I type up a new Word document that has any questions that we have for Brian. I list out all of the Key Terms so that we can make sure we have the right Sunny words for them. (Example of a Key Term: Adam) Then I call Brian and set up a time to meet for the session.

6. Abby and Sarah go meet with Brian. They take the voice recorder and some speakers and play the Story all the way through for him. Then they will play it again one line at a time. As he translates the line from Sunny back into English (hence the term back-translation), Abby will type the English version into another Word document. They will make sure that all the questions are answered and that all of the Key Terms are understood and translated. We do this step because even though the Story was crafted in English, once it changes into Sunny it's worded differently. And even though we speak some Sunny, we still need a Sunny person to tell us exactly what it says word-for-word. The reason this has to be a different person than the crafter is because the crafter knows what he's trying to say and would tend to just translate it back the way he wants it to sound. Here's an example from our Story of Abraham sacrificing Isaac: The line, "When they were near to the place of sacrifice Isaac asked his father, 'I know that we have the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb?'" becomes this in Sunny, "While they were getting closer to the place, Isaac said, 'Now I am seeing fire and I’m seeing firewood, but the sheep we are going to kill…I’m not seeing that.'" This step just ensures that even though the wording may change because of the way Sunny people speak, the meaning of the text is still communicated and understood.

7. Then Abby will create an Excel document. Each line of the story will be inserted into a row in its English form. Under each line there is a place to list the Anchor (scripture reference...every line MUST have an Anchor), any Key Terms found in that line, a place to include any notes to explain how and why that line is crafted the way it is, a place to list Testing Questions and Answers, and a place for Nafi to add any notes/suggestions.

8. Sarah and I will go through the Excel document and come up with as many Testing Questions as we can to make sure that the Story is being understood by Sunny people in the way it should be according to the original intent of the Bible. We also put any information that has already been obtained into a Key Terms tab and a Cultural Notes tab of the Excel document. We list all questions onto a piece of paper for the Testing Session and schedule a time to go meet with a Testing Group.

9. Abby and Sarah will go to one the houses that we have built relationships with to test the Story. They will play it through a full time and ask if they understood the language in the Story. Then they will lay it through line by line and ask the questions corresponding to that line. They'll also make sure that the Key Terms are correct and understood. Most of the time, the testers will offer more information on the Key Terms according to their own culture because most of the Old Testament stories are already known by our people. At the end of the session, the girls will ask somebody from the testing group to retell the story. This shows us if the story is memorable and easy to understand. If an important part of the story is left out in the re-telling, we know that we might need to emphasize it differently or that maybe it wasn't understood very well or that maybe the story is too long. The entire session is recorded in Sunny and English.

10. I will listen to the recording and enter the Testing Answers into the Excel document. I will also add all Crafting Notes, Key Term Notes, and Cultural Notes into the appropriate places. I'll go through all of the tabs and do any editing that needs to be done in order for the document to be ready for submission to Nafi.

11. Abby will email the document to Nafi and wait for her to email back with any changes that need to be made or more Testing Questions that need to be asked.

12. All necessary changes are made and the document is ready to be re-submitted to Nafi. Then...hopefully...we have an approved Story! Just FYI, we currently have 16 of the Stories somewhere in the process. We split up the tasks so that we could be more efficient in our work and we also believe the work is of higher quality because of this. God really put the 3 of us together in a way that we each enjoy and thrive in doing different parts of the process. It's been amazing to watch Him work in our team. We switch off sometimes as needed, but the way I've listed it is true most of the time for now.

13. Eventually we will begin the process of making the final recordings that will be put onto cassettes for distribution, but I don't know what that looks like yet.

Whoa. If you've made it this far, thanks for reading!