Bibles for the London Olympics

Here are three interesting facts about London:

1) It is the city with the most international visitors of any city in the world.
2) London Heathrow is the world's busiest airport by number of international passengers.
3) Next year, it will become the first city to host the modern Summer Olympic Games three times.

Needless to say, London will be bursting at its seems when the Olympic Games are held there from 27 July to 12 August 2012. It is expected that over 10,000 athletes from more than 200 countries will be coming to London in those weeks, not to mention all the spectators and regular tourists!

London has been preparing for the Olympics not only by building stadiums and other sports venues, but also by building new hotels. And the Gideons International in the British Isles have been preparing for the Olympics by seeking to provide Bibles for all hotels and guest houses in and around London.

Last month, I had the opportunity to join around 180 other Gideons from the British Isles to visit these hotels and guest houses and offer them free Bibles for every room.

I went along with a Gideon couple to visit hotels and guesthouses at Heathrow airport and the surrounding area. We enquired whether all their rooms were equipped with Gideon Bibles or whether they had Bibles that needed replacing. Many hotels were already equipped with Gideon Bibles. Of course, there were also those that did not want Bibles. In those cases and in cases where they already had Bibles, we were able to offer a New Testament to the manager or the staff which was well received in most cases, even where the manager/staff may well have been from another religious background. The greatest joy was to come to hotels/guesthouses that did not have any Bibles but whose managers were eager to receive them. In the space of the four days that the Gideons were in London, more than 50,000 Bibles were given away free of charge.

For more than a century, God has blessed the ministry of the Gideons International with its unique business model - giving away its main product free of charge! In the last year, more than 78 million copies of God's Word were distributed worldwide by the Gideons.

God still uses His Word today to change lives. Take a look at this video with a testimony from a man who intended to commit suicide in a motel room but instead had an encounter with God's Word and was given a new life:

Scenes of Lincolnshire

During our five weeks of field training, we also went on two hikes within the county of Lincolnshire. Below are some photos from those hikes and the beauty of God's creation that we were able to enjoy.

Learning Palaka

When my classmates and I were living in tents for the last 5 weeks, the vast majority of our time was spent learning a foreign language and culture. For me and 3 other students, this has meant studying the language and culture of the Palaka people in the Ivory Coast. As our "language helpers", we had a couple who lived and worked among the Palaka for several years. It was a lot more difficult than I expected and at times quite frustrating, but it was a good experience for me.

Recording my language helper as he explains in Palaka how to make a fire

Listening and editing the sound files

Phonetic transcription of the recordings

Entering transcriptions and translations into the computer

Taking part in a "cultural event" (meeting a group of women on their way to fetch water)

During this time, we learned a Christian song that was written by the Palaka people. It was extemely hard to memorise at first, but now I can't get it out of my head. A phonetic transcription of the song might look something like this:

jɛˈsax pəˈtɛŋɡɛ ˈzʲɛzuˌkɾi nɨŋˈɡ͡be wǔˈsɛɾɛˌna

no̞ˈtɛ w̤aˈpɔ̃ weˈpɔ̃nˌkitiˈkʷɔ̃ jeˈnajo̞

zʲeˈzu wuˈkujo̞ wɔkaˈpɛlɛ kame̞ˈna

jɛˈsax pəˈtɛŋɡɛ ˈzʲɛzuˌkɾi nɨŋˈɡ͡be wǔˈsɛɾɛˌna

Here is the English translation:

You must believe on Jesus Christ, the only Son of God.

Otherwise, when He comes, you will be judged.

Jesus died for our sins.

You must believe on Jesus Christ, the only Son of God.

Living in tents

For the past five weeks, I was able to experience what it would be like living in tents with much simpler living conditions, learning a completely foreign language and culture, and being almost totally cut off from communication to the outside world. This part of a special field training and although it is not really an accurate simulation of what life is like for many cross-cultural workers today, it was nevertheless a good experience for me to adjust to different living conditions and different methods of learning a language and culture.



The first set of pictures I am posting below are just to do with life in the tents and on the campsite. All quite self-explanatory, except maybe for the two different kinds of little blue "houses" - one with a bucket as a toilet and the other with a bucket to use for taking a shower...

Set-up for field training

The field from my previous blog post is now my new home. It is now no longer empty but full of tents and people.



Yesterday, our Cross-Cultural Communication class set up our tents for what a special field training programme. For the next 5 weeks, we will live in these fairly simple conditions (no proper toilets or showers, no internet, e-mail, telephone or mobiles, and electricity from a solar panel just to use for our laptops and rechargeable batteries).



Most of our time for the next 5 weeks, we will be doing culture & language acquisition. I will be studying the Palaka language and culture together with 3 other students. We will have 2 hours a day with a couple of teachers who will be speaking Palaka to us. We will record what they say and then spend the rest of the day listening to and analysing those recordings to learn as much as possible from it (vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar, sentence structure etc.). Looking forward to it!



This will be my last blog post for a while as I will not have any internet access for the next 5 weeks.

Below are the first pictures from yesterday and today when we set up and moved into our tents. The last photo is of the tent I will be sharing with two other young men.

The field

The field is ready.

This is where in about one week's time, our Cross-Cultural Communication class will be setting up our tents for a special 5-week field training experience.



In those five weeks, we will be living without many modern conveniences and spend most of our time with culture & language acquisition (CLA). Eight hours a day, we will be learning a foreign language and culture from a "culture & language helper" (CLH).



The language I will be learning is Palaka, a language spoken in the Ivory Coast by about 8,000 people. I will be learning the language from a teacher who used to live and work among this people group.



As I visited the campsite this morning before breakfast, it was hard to imagine that I would soon be living here for over a month together with all my classmates. We will have alsmost no contact with the outside world.



I hope to post some more photos and write a bit more next week once we have set up our tents and while I am still able to access the internet.

Just stop and think

What is life about?

What is your life about?

Just stop and take 15 minutes to watch and think about this video:

This could be the greatest day of your life.

Stop and think.