Our journey to the Kotobanu

This is just one story of how God is using people working with groups in the diaspora to enable Bible translation. In this situation, we hope to see Bible translation enabled in a language where living and working in the homeland would be impossible. We believe that this will become an increasingly significant strategy for SIL through the work of the Global Diaspora Services. 

For us, the story starts over 30 years ago. I was young and passionate about seeing God glorified among the peoples, and I had been invited to go to a Muslim nation with a medical team.  That particular country was unreached and underserved.  I approached the Board of Missions at our church with an application for service there. That was the end of that story, because the chairman of the missions board asked me to marry him, and we went off on a wonderful 30 year mission adventure in a completely different part of the world!

As a couple, we were involved with Bible translation for two languages, teaching people to read, and helping them learn to meet God in His Word. But I continued to pray for the people of that country I never went to. I always wondered if God would send me there “later.” 

Around 2015, our oldest daughter became involved with Kotobanu refugees. I was thrilled to hear that my own daughter was reaching out to unreached people from the country where I had wanted to serve all those years ago. Through her church, my daughter and her husband were involved in some ESL and practical help for newcomers from this group to the USA. God did amazing things to bring these refugees in contact with the ministry team. My husband and I started praying for this church team as they began to build relationships among the Kotobanu people. 

Not long afterwards, on a short visit back to the USA, my husband and I were able to meet a few of the Kotobanu people ourselves. I couldn’t help but ask if my hope for ministry among these people was finally coming true. Even though neither of us had the opportunity for specific ministry among them at that time, we did plant ideas about ways to preserve their language. 

A few years later, I was in the USA for a visit, and our daughter told me that the Kotobanu were asking some of the ministry team to learn their language. The team was finding this particularly challenging because the language was unwritten, and no outsider had studied it before. I agreed to give a couple language coaching sessions to some of the team.

Early in 2020, our lives were turned upside down with the birth of our daughter’s second child. He was born with a constellation of devastating heart defects. We decided to come and help out. Miracle after miracle got us here: last minute flights just before a border closed, finding housing very close to our daughter, getting a vehicle--all in the context of the rising pandemic. But we feel God brought us to the USA for another purpose as well.  We began to be more and more involved in the local ministry team. While still working in our roles on the other side of the earth, we began to take an ever-increasing role in mentoring the people working on the language side of things for the Kotobanu. 

Today, the language team has a working alphabet and a 1200+ word dictionary. The Kotobanu community is planning to start the Language and Identity Journey to see how they can maintain and develop their language in their new situation. One member of the original church ministry team has joined SIL with the goal of getting more training and eventually doing Bible translation. Others are considering how they can also join the team and contribute. 

As for my husband and I, we have now taken official SIL partial-assignments working with this group. New doors keep opening for language development, trauma healing, and translation work. God has provided funding as well. It’s our goal to support this language community and the ministry team and to find ways to share Gospel truths with them through their languages. We look forward with anticipation and hope to see this community respond to God’s call for them to come to himself, and to see them engaging with His Word in the languages that speak best to them, including their Kotobanu language. 

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