By Helen van der Walt

New Stakeholders for the Siphuthi

The Siphuthi team has been networking in brilliant ways! They are so passionate about the Baphuthi people being known and validated, and for them to be transformed by the Word of God in Siphuthi. They have been travelling all over Lesotho to spend time with and to serve different parts of the Baphuthi community. 

Through connecting with government ministers, radio presenters, pastors, chiefs, and more, they have had some really encouraging responses and opened up many opportunities. Vuyi, one of the Scripture Engagement workers, said:

"When we were engaging with the the Minister of Agriculture at a personal level, he said, “This is my responsibility. I can’t wait to take what I am hearing to parliament.” Already, he wants to introduce us to the Minister of Communication, because she is the one responsible for the Lesotho Broadcasting Network. So, basically, they are waiting for us to set up interviews with radio and TV stations. One of the community radio stations can’t wait for us to start working with them. They felt that it will address some of the issues they have regarding the language of Siphuthi"

"One of the things we did was to introduce Farming God’s Way to the Minister of Agriculture so that he can include that as part of celebrating 200 years of farming in Lesotho. We did two interviews with Lesotho farmers who train people using Farming God’s Way. It’s quite exciting."

A partnership is now being developed between the Siphuthi translation team and a Farming God’s Way facilitator who has offered to do the training for free. We are also excited to see where the growing partnership with parts of the Lesotho government will lead. 

The work of this team is taking the Bible Translation work to the next level. One of the translators, Nzuzo Potsane, described it this way:

"I want to appreciate the closing of the gap we had as translators. This Scripture Engagement team that we have now is going to be practical to engage the community. What we were doing was just sharing, without contact, just sharing the Scripture. But now they are going to engage the Scripture with the community. It’s the gap that we wanted to close."

Songwriting with the Sepulana

The Sepulana team has been making some great progress. In the past few months, they have been visiting different parts of the community and several churches to share about the Sepulana Bible Translation and to raise local support and ownership. One man gave this feedback:

“I never thought God can love us this much, that he raised people to create the Sepulana Bible.”

Some of the team’s Scripture Engagement goals are:

• God’s people free to use their gifts as God intended to serve the church and the community
• All churches, of all languages, unified across denominations and able to worship together and serve each other
• That all Mapulana, old and young, women and children, will know the Scriptures in Sepulana and have them in their hands

It was decided this would be accomplished through:

• Seminars and workshops for being equipped in giftings
• Biblical teaching and encouragement for churches to work, serve, and share resources

Practically, this is going to be done in several ways, but one way the team thought would be important is to have a songwriting workshop in the Sepulana language; this happened on the 28th of September! It was an opportunity to teach about worship, to equip musical people to serve in the church, to unite the churches through worship, and to put Scripture to song so that people can get to know the Scriptures. Some incredible songs were made, and will be used at the worship night on 26th October.