“If you could tell the world one thing about Jesus what would you say?” I asked, looking into the eyes of Kividi Kikama on my computer screen as I conducted my interview over Zoom.

Pastor Kividi thought carefully. “I would say that I have discovered that Jesus is my personal Savior and Lord; He has changed my life.  If anyone accepts Jesus as their Savior and Lord, He is going to change their life also. This is why I am committed to Bible translation projects, because of what He has done in my life and family.“

Kividi Kikama is a senior missiologist at JAARS.[1] Along with his specialized ministry among his own people, the Yansi from the DRC, his job involves building relationships, or as he puts it, “bridges” across cultures so people can work together more effectively.  He also does everything he can to bring about awareness that Bible translation is the most practical way of advancing the Great commission.

Kividi, father of 5, and grandfather of 7, first came to the United States in 1990. He had been invited to work as a “missions interpreter” with the American Baptist churches of Michigan, Great Lakes region. They had put a program in place which entailed inviting a national leader from one of their mission fields to spend a year with them traveling throughout their churches, sharing his story and ministry. His life and ministry represented the concrete fruit of their prayers and giving. They gave the national leader the title of “missions interpreter.” Kividi spent a year doing that.

Kividi’s church in the DRC was very supportive of him going to the USA. They expected that this opportunity would result in a blessing for the Yansi people. They did all they could to help him get to the United States.

After his time in Michigan, Kividi served in the Northern Baptist Theological Seminary, located in Chicago, as a missionary in residence. After that, he attended Trinity International University in Deerfield, Illinois, where God called him to respond to a great need in the Chicago area: to plant a church for immigrants, basically French speaking Congolese. He and his family planted that church and served it for 14 years.

Just as Kividi and his wife were sensing it was time to move to a different area of service, their eldest daughter called for help. She had a child with health issues and needed her parents. Realizing his associate pastor could carry on the work in Chicago, Kividi and his wife relocated to Charlotte, North Carolina. Kividi describes this time in his life this way:

I didn’t know what to do. My wife was so involved with the children, the grandchildren, the one with the health problem. I knew I could help, but what about my ministry? What would I do here? We were praying. At that time God was speaking a word to me, ‘go into something deeper and wider.’ I I didn’t know what that meant.

Kividi explains that before he moved to Charlotte, he had never heard about JAARS as an organization supporting Bible translation. A friend of his daughter’s invited him to visit the JAARS headquarters near his new home. During this visit she asked him to consider volunteering there. Later he met the president of JAARS, Woody McLendon, who shared with Kividi that they had been praying for years for someone with credentials like his to serve as the director of the prayer ministry. Kividi told me:

         So there I was praying and people at JAARS had been praying, and so we came together. The more they knew me, the more they realized that I could do more than prayer ministry. They asked whether I was willing to serve as senior missiologist. This was not only my training but also my practice. I had been involved in doing missions as a missiologist, and, my Masters is in missiology, and my PhD is in intercultural studies. 

Not long after that someone at JAARS realized that Kividi was a native Iyansi speaker. The Yansi people did not have a completed translation of the Bible in their language. People at JAARS got excited and wondered if Kividi could take some leadership in a revived project to translate the Bible.  Kividi could, and did! He started working on the project, which included a revision of the Iyansi alphabet. At the time of this interview, the Yansi team has already checked Paul’s epistle to the Romans.  They have finished Luke, Matthew, Mark, Acts, First and Second Timothy and Titus. Kividi was heavily involved in the translation of the last three books, a role he wanted due to his pastor’s heart.

Whenever Kividi returns to his homeland, the DRC, he says the level of poverty and suffering strikes him. But, he is also thrilled to see how excited his people are to receive the scriptures in Iyansi. He recalls the time in 2015 when he and his wife visited the DRC. They took the Jesus film translated into Iyansi. He remembers that the people wanted to see the film every day. They cried tears of joy to hear their own language.

I asked Kividi what will happen in the Yansi church when they get the entire Scripture in their language. He answered:

I am expecting deeper transformations. I am expecting spiritual renewal in the whole region. This is going to really happen when they read the Word of God in Iyansi. One of the key leaders, there at the highest level said, ‘Wow, God knows Iyansi, and He can speak to us in Iyansi! Amazing.’ Another guy, here in the diaspora, said, ‘Please send me, even one chapter of the work of translation you have done. I want to read it in Iyansi.’ This is because in the Iyansi language you touch their myths, stories, traditions, and heart.

When I asked Kividi what he thought that transformation would look like he said:

Transformation is not only spiritual but it is also in human life. We are using   the term ‘holistic transformation’. The whole person, their community, because of their deeper understanding of the Word of God, they are coming together and working together to see change happen in their land.

As for the future and how he sees it, Kividi explained that from a mission perspective the Democratic Republic of the Congo is an old missionary field, but from the Bible translation perspective the DRC is a new field. “There is a lot of work still to be done,” he said, “and this is why we are committed to work on these many projects.”

Although it is evident God has used Dr. Kividi for many years, the words ‘deeper and wider’ do come to mind as we look at his life. From being a student, then a pastor, and now a consultant to a diaspora translation team, God is using him to bring the Scripture to life in a new language so his people can discover the real transformation that the Word of God can bring.

[1] JAARS supports Bible translation and language development worldwide through locally appropriate and sustainable solutions in transportation, technology, media and training.