From Essex to Uganda: ‘Culture shock and feelings of panic’

In November 2023, my wife Heidi and I pulled up our roots, leaving our Essex home and the church I had pastored for 28 years, for Koboko, North West Uganda.

Our mission? To help the team of Keliko believers who are translating God’s word into their mother tongue. The work is supported by Wycliffe Bible Translators and Grace Baptist Mission.

Heidi is trained in Biblical languages and linguistics. Her job as translation advisor is to assist the translators in finding the right words to convey the original meaning of the Scriptures. I am officially retired, but I lend a hand with Biblical background and context, preaching, and DIY.

Although living in Uganda, the translators are from neighbouring South Sudan. The New Testament took many years to complete, starting in Sudan in the late 1980s and being published in Uganda in 2018. The work was interrupted twice when the translators had to flee their country due to civil war. Now settled, albeit as refugees, in Koboko, the team hopes to complete the Old Testament rather more quickly. Genesis, Exodus and Esther are complete and we are currently working on 1 Samuel and Psalms.

Making the Scriptures accessible

As well as translating, the team prioritises making the newly translated Scriptures accessible. This includes running training courses on how to read Keliko fluently. At the time of writing, we have a week of workshops planned for November, to train church leaders and teachers who will then be able to train others.

If you have been taught to read English at school, learning to read your own newly-written language is relatively easy. I understand that you can more or less master it in half an hour. However, Keliko has the added challenge of many diacritics (dots and accents to you and me) which can change the meaning of a word to its opposite!

As well as educating Keliko leaders, Heidi and I are looking forward to being enlightened by it too.

Challenges and blessings of living in Uganda

To a rather unadventurous stay-at-home type, living in Africa presents its challenges. We have experienced our fair share of culture shock and feelings of panic. But the Lord who promised ‘My presence will go with you and I will give you rest’ (Ex.33:14) has come with us and made things so much easier than we might have expected.

The translators all speak English, so we can take our time learning Keliko, the language of the translators; and Kakwa, our neighbours’ language.

Our home is a newly-built brick building with a Western-style toilet, in a very friendly neighbourhood about a mile from the translation office.

We have two watchmen and a cleaner who look after us and help us to navigate the difficulties of life in Koboko: buying chicken for dinner on the local market (alive and kicking); paying our respects to the dead – including viewing the body; and providing hot cross buns and chai (the local tea) for 40 neighbours when we invited ten!

As an added bonus, we have been surprised to discover that we have better internet than Heidi’s parents in Norfolk, so we are able to have frequent video calls with both elderly parents and our little granddaughter.

For the Knight’s news and prayer letter contact philip.knight@wycliffe.org.uk