From 3-21 May, a team of 8 from Canada came to experience and serve Oral Bible Translation and the transformation it brings in South Africa and Namibia. Specifically, they came to serve the Kaaps and Himba people groups. Both are very different: the Kaaps are an urban group mostly found in the coastal city of Cape Town, while the Himba are a rural, semi-nomadic group found in the northern desert of Namibia and south Angola.

The main purpose of the trip was to expose the Canadian team to Oral Bible Translation happening in southern Africa, to take part in Scripture Engagement efforts, and to love and serve the communities in any way we could. All expectations were met and exceded, with everyone on the team finding transformation within themselves as well as the people they visited.

How the Word of God transforms, that’s what brought me here. I gained an understanding of how God's Word is transforming people in both the Kaaps and Himba communities. I came to see other people being transformed, but now I’m the one being transformed.

The trip was split into 3 parts:

1. Johannesburg - Mission & Culture and Scripture Engagement training, experienced South African culture and history, attended a missions International Conference (ICON).
2. Cape Town - experienced the beauty of Table Mountain, the pain of apartheid, served the Kaaps community at a soup drive and in a local high school, attended a local church, and spent valuable time with the Alive in Kaaps and Kaaps translation teams.
3. Opuwo, Namibia - learned from and prayed with the translation team, experienced a christian gathering of songs and stories below the stars, attended a local church, and visited local villages.

Read some reflections from the team below:

Our Transformation Trip has ended, and for many of us, we are still processing and reflecting on the transformational experience God has given us in the past three weeks. Every day felt like a fire hose of new lessons, new insights, and new experiences. On the last day, we reflected on our expectations coming into the trip – what we were hoping and praying to gain and to learn. Even “beyond our expectations”, God was faithful.

“I experienced Scripture in new ways,” said a team member. Through song-writing workshops and listening groups, “it came alive in new ways. I experienced it myself, and through the eyes of others.” Several team members are eager to implement new ways of engaging with Scripture in their community and small groups back home in Canada.

I realized that the Word of God changes lives, and I saw the extent of that impact.

Jesus said, “If you seek me with all your heart, you will find me.” Another team member reflected, “My personal goal was to strengthen my faith – that it’s not just a faith I inherited; I wanted to make my faith my own. When I saw the impact of the Word of God in communities, it strengthened my faith in God more. I realized that the Word of God changes lives, and I saw the extent of that impact.”

It was a privilege to experience the “Impact Runway” event at the missions International Conference (ICON). We got a taste of “the joy a community feels when they have access to God’s Word” and saw “the huge investment of so many people involved in the process”. Another team member said:

That was a moment when I understood what we were doing on this trip. There is an army of people working tirelessly around the world to make sure people have access to the Word. I’m happy to be here, for something that matters.

The day we learned about Scripture Engagement from our Wycliffe South Africa host, Helen van der Walt, was “a wow day for me. God is so big, and there are so many ways we can express his beauty through our worship.”

The highlight for one team member was seeing the reaction of a particular Kaaps teenager, when we presented at his school: “God made all the languages of the world. He made English and Afrikaans. Portuguese and German… and he made Kaaps too!” The boy’s smile widened in awe! How fulfilling to see the impact of our affirmation of his language, written all over his face. Someone shared with us that:

Reading Scripture in a language that’s not your own is like eating soup with a fork. But when it’s in your own language, it’s like eating soup with a spoon.

We could see it on the children’s faces during the reading of Psalm 91 in their own language. “It shows how much it matters for people to have direct access to God in their own language.”

When we served alongside the Kaaps team in the community at a soup drive and outreach, we interacted with several people for whom we felt deep compassion; even more people were peeping through their windows, but wouldn’t come out to engage. We pray they heard the message of truth that was preached. Yet “there were a lot of the people in the community who blessed us too. A half-blind man gave us some words of wisdom about our futures”.

A team member was inspired by a young man named Ngombe, a committed member of the Himba translation team. He has a powerful story of how God brought him from darkness to light, akin to Saul’s story of persecuting Christians before encountering Christ. Ngombe is “all in; there’s no questioning, no hindrance. I want to be like that.”

Another team member began to see the value of the audio Scriptures, after a donation of 150 audio Bibles were donated from Canada. We were able to witness a blind pastor in a Himba village receiving several devices for his community, and the pride of a church community over a local boy who had memorised and regularly told all of the translated stories.

When people cannot read (or even see!), the audio form is all they have. The translation team knows the need, and is working with commitment so that many more can receive the audio Scripture.