Theo and Martha Enns Connecting YOU to tribal missions Burning in May 2012
“Give me oil in my lamp, keep me burning…”
Last month I tried to translate the Haitian Creole greeting « N’ap boule », but I got it wrong. I even used Google, but it does not mean “Not burned”. It’s literal translation is closer to: “We’re burning (right along)“. But I can’t speak Creole yet, so I’ll leave it at that for now. Our two weeks in Haiti were
Visiting a Haitian student whose education is sponsored by a friend in Alabama.
very enjoyable, but also profitable. The Baptist Haiti Mission school director chose six Haitian teachers to take our Bible lessons “checker” workshop, and we organized two teams to help me check the Grade Two lessons for easy-understandability for Haitian students who speak only Creole outside the classroom. A BHM missionary will scan & send me their lesson corrections, and I’ll send the “cleaned-up” revisions back to her to pass out to the second set of checkers. That process will be repeated a third time, before a Haitian professor does the final proof-reading of the 350-page Teachers’ Textbook, so it can be printed.
The next three months will be very busy for me,
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Tags: Bible curriculum, Firm Foundation school curriculum, Haiti
Linked in in April 2012
Bonjou. Koman ou ye?
Haitian boy on Gr.1 Bible textbook
N’ap boule, mesi.
The common response to “Hello, how are you?” is: “Not burned, thanks.” There are various dialects of Haitian Creole, which are a derivative of French. But please don’t take our word for it, we really don’t know how to speak Creole. We look forward to our two-week trip (April 10-26) to work with the personnel at the Baptist Haiti Mission, where we plan to eventually live for a couple years. For Martha, this is her first visit to Haiti.
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Tags: Bible curriculum, Firm Foundation school curriculum, French Bible lessons, Haiti
Seconds in March 2012
Who’s on second?
One of the pictures to be updated.
Well, we are now working on our Second set of 100 pictures for the Firm Foundation Home School curriculum. After Martha collects Bible pictures that might suit the stories in the curriculum, several other missionaries help me critique the content for ideas to give to the artists who will be drawing up our new pictures. A second project for this month is writing Second Grade Bible lessons in French. We will take our rough drafts with us on our trip to Haiti, April 10-26. I will be holding a workshop with Haitian teachers, who will be checking these lessons,
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Tags: Bible curriculum, Firm Foundation school curriculum, French Bible lessons, Haiti
Pictures in February 2012
Three (300) hundred pictures?
As if writing seventy 10-page lessons for each grade isn’t enough… Martha is now helping me collect 300 picture samples from which we can get illustrations for these Bible curriculums. Some of these pictures will become coloring pages for primary school children. Others will become the “pictures say 1000 words” that the children can use to follow and remember the chronology of the through-the-Bible stories. When we go to Haiti in April,
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Tags: Bible curriculum, Firm Foundation school curriculum, French Bible lessons, Haiti
Scopes in January 2012
What’s the scope? Read the rest of this entry »
We had a great visit with the Lieb family from Haiti last month, as they were
traveling through the area on their “home assignment”. We have since
been able to send them a Scope & Sequence proposition, laying out what the
Grade Two Bible lessons would teach, along with several sample lessons. Chris
will be showing these to the Baptist Haiti Mission schools’ director for
evaluation. We plan to finish compiling and writing the remaining 30 lessons or
so, and getting them all checked by the folks in Haiti, by the end of June,
Lord willing. We are praying about Martha and I going to Haiti for a few weeks
in April,
Tags: Bible curriculum, Côte d'Ivoire, French Bible lessons, Haiti, New Tribes Mission, NTM, Palaka
AnProFi in December 2011
Another Project Finished!
The 350-page teachers’ manual for Grade One Bible lessons is completed! It is being printed by the Baptist Haiti Mission, for use in their 330 schools in northern Haiti. This month I will start working on planning the lesson lay-out for their Grade Two Bible lessons. Then in January, Lord willing, I will be working on the Scope and Sequence for the international school curriculum that New Tribes Mission is developing. This is the curriculum that we will be taking to Haiti for writing the French lessons for their Grade Three through Grade Six Bible classes. For now, we are continuing to work on these projects from here in Alabama, as we wait for our house to sell.
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Tags: Bible curriculum, Côte d'Ivoire, Firm Foundation school curriculum, French Bible lessons, Glaro, Haiti, Loron, Palaka
QUESTIONS in November 2011
Questions, but not questioning God!
ordination of the first Loron pastor/elders
It hardly seems possible that we had packed up to move to Florida a year ago, now, but here we are, still serving from Alabama. We do keep busy working on our “long-distance” grade one Bible lessons project for Haiti. We praise the Lord that in October, we found some more Haitian people to check the Creole translations of the Bible stories for each of the 34 lessons (teaching through the book of Genesis) for grade one. Of course we really do enjoy serving the Lord here, as well, including singing in the choir (for Martha) and me teaching a senior adult SS class and helping in the church “sound room” Wednesdays for choir practice, and then in 3 services on Sundays. This last month our realtor has “shown” our house to several different people, but none have yet made an offer to buy. So our question to our loving Father is: when do You want to free us to move on,
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Tags: Bible curriculum, Côte d'Ivoire, Firm Foundation school curriculum, French Bible lessons, Haiti, Loron
Excitement in October 2011
A new church is born!!
Norbert Yao family from Côte d'Ivoire
Just today, as I write this (Oct.1st), we have heard that a new body of believers was started this weekend among another previously-unreached people group. This was in Papua New Guinea, among the Siar tribe. Another piece to the Revelations 5:9 puzzle is coming together! [For more details click on
http://usa.ntm.org/field-news/church-born-among-siars]
And in the Loron tribe in west Africa, they have another milestone coming up this month. Our missionary collegues will be formally appointing elders (teaching-pastors) to head up that young church
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Tags: Bible curriculum, Côte d'Ivoire, Firm Foundation school curriculum, French Bible lessons, Haiti, Praise & prayer list
Countdown in September 2011
10, 9, 8, 7 … « Dix, neuf, huit, sept, … »
School kids in Haiti counting down
I find my days filled with editing, proof-reading and multiple minute details, as the countdown for preparing these grade one Bible lessons for Haiti is upon us. Their schools start October 3rd, and all of the final checking hasn’t been completed yet. The first main French language check is almost finished, but
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Tags: Bible curriculum, Côte d'Ivoire, Firm Foundation school curriculum, French Bible lessons, Haiti, Ivory Coast, translation
Alone in August 2011
Little girl in Haiti
I’m home alone!
Martha flew out to California, to visit our oldest son Aaron, Avé, and our three grandchildren (ages 5, 3 & just-turned 2). And I’m at home working on the Haiti Bible lessons for grade one. We are a bit behind schedule right now on these lessons, since working on a translation from long distance really does slow down the process. We are trying to express Bible truths in simple French, for 6-year-olds who speak only Creole at home,
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Tags: Bible curriculum, Côte d'Ivoire, Firm Foundation school curriculum, Haiti, Ivory Coast, Palaka, translation