In December Rodney traveled to South Africa for two weeks of work and annual team meetings. Week one was story gathering: interviewing/photographing Diane Lovell and Steve Pillinger for stories on Wycliffe.net, where our work as Wycliffe journalists is published. Week two focused on team building.
Diane Lovell is a Bible translation consultant-in-training. She will be serving the South African Sign Language (SASL) Bible translation by helping to review translated texts to ensure that they accurately reflect the original Biblical texts. As a new mother she struggled with figuring out how to balance her desire to be involved with Bible translation with the needs of her new daughter. However, she found that the SASL project was the perfect fit for her. It is only 20 minutes from her home, and the team, who are mostly Deaf, are not bothered by her daughter's crying.
Steve Pillinger's work is largely unfamiliar with people who enjoy reading, but without it the readability of the Bibles we produce would greatly suffer. As a typesetter it is Steve's job to make sure the Bibles that Wycliffe produces are as easy to read as possible. It takes Steve three months to bring a New Testament to the point where it is ready for printing, making sure all the margins are exact, that headings are centered perfectly, that table of contents are accurate, pictures are properly placed, etc.
On our free day in Cape Town we visited the Imizamo Yethu township. Imizamo Yethu means "Our Struggle" in the Xhosa language. It just happened to be National AIDS Awareness Day the day we visited. As we strolled through the township, someone noticed our camera gear and invited us to visit an adjoining orphanage where they were having festivities including dancing, face painting, music, stories/drama, etc.
Kalk Bay, South Africa
