Scripture on Smartphones in Africa--Higby Herald March 2015

March, 2015

Dear Friends,

“I have it! The Bible in my language!” One by one the room was filled with excited shouts for joy until there was a whole chorus. This was on March 19 in Burkina Faso and we had been battling against very poor Internet causing some participants of the Digital Bible Publishing workshop to struggle at their task. But slowly and surely each one processed the Scriptures in the African languages they brought, then installing them on the smartphones they had received at the beginning of the workshop. That’s right, the goal of this workshop was to publish the Scriptures in digital form, but with a new twist. The last time we wrote about smartphones was back in September where we used the popular “Bible” app. That app is great if you are connected to the Internet, but only 26% of Africans are active Internet users. At this workshop, we introduced a new tool to create custom Scripture apps that work with no Internet. Not wanting to miss the fun, I (Doug) also turned the Fulfulde New Testament into an app that we will make available on the Android Play store for free. All of the participants were able to build a Scripture app that is very simple to install and transfer to other phones.

"People were constantly asking me how to get the Bible onto their phones, and I could never help them. I’m so excited I could attend this workshop because now I know how to do it."
--Julie Diby, Ivory Coast. Provides IT support for translators

Although it was almost twenty years ago, I still have an image burned in my mind from the dedication ceremony of the Dogon New Testament in West Africa. A man was gazing into the pages of his brand new copy of the New Testament with a huge smile on his face. We took a photo and had it framed. Nothing beats seeing the joy on the faces of people connecting with God’s Word in their own language for the first time. Now we can repeat that process without any printing costs or delays, in a technology that is used by 70% of the population. Exciting times!

"I am very happy to see the [Kabba] Bible on the screen of my phone and it almost feels like I wasn’t involved in the translation, but that it dropped down from heaven. Today, I don’t even wear a watch anymore because the phone has replaced my watch; and now today I have the Bible on my phone—what an incredible gift of God."
--Victor Noudjoundima, Central African Republic. Bible translator

In February, I (Doug) assisted a dictionary training workshop in Togo with the goal of getting the dictionaries from 13 different languages up on the web. It was rather difficult since the data had to be converted from older formats, but in the end, a number of the languages succeeded. The Tem language was one of the first to get their data up for the world to see: http://tem.webonary.org It was encouraging to hear anumber of the translators share why the dictionary is important for their language and for their translation projects in general.

Feb 9-13, 2015 Dictionary workshop in 13 languages of Togo and Benin

Also in February, Priscilla and I manned a display table at the UNESCO conference on Mobile Technology for Women and Girls. There was much interest in our demonstration of the Bloom software that enables simple book authoring in any language. It was also good to network with other aid organizations to learn what they are doing to help promote literacy and education in the various countries. It was also rather different to see people's reactions when they learned that our software is completely free in a context where others were licensing there products for profit!

We are very grateful for your interest in our ministry and continued support. The opportunities that God has been providing for ministry in Africa and elsewhere have been deeply satisfying as we watch changes being made in response to the targeted technology that we teach. God's Word has changed our lives and through His influence, we can watch others get excited about new ways to access this pearl of great price. Isn't it worth all that we have?

Partners in the Gospel,      (Phil 1:5)

Doug & Priscilla Higby

Prayer & Praise

• The dictionary workshop in Togo helped thirteen different languages to get their dictionaries up on the web, in a way that will be able to positively impact speakers of those languages and serve as a tool for translation.
• Our older two boys, Henry and Kevin, are working and sharing an apartment in Grand Rapids, while our youngest, Roger is in the same city at Calvin College. We praise God that they can be a support to each other.
• Pray for Doug as he begins an extended travel period to the Netherlands, Australia, and Papua New Guinea to give training to teams, and to try to understand how to best promote technology to advance Bible translation in those areas.