In February, Church@Work reported on the completion of a new translation of the New Testament in Mali (“New Translation is born in Mali”). This new translation makes the gospel story accessible to the primarily Muslim Fulfulbe-speaking people.
CRWRC’s Mary Crickmore reports that New Testaments went to “box libraries” in 40 villages. “Recently World Missions coworkers Evy Smith and Christine Tubby traveled to one of those villages to see how the library was functioning. They talked to the volunteer librarian, who noted that their copy of the New Testament was not there because a young man had checked it out. This is exactly what we have been hoping for!”
The April 2007 Banner featured a story about the “blood diamond” wars in Sierra Leone and the CRC’s work there (“Deadly Beauty”). That same month, CRWRC staff visited six villages in Sierra Leone that had been burned down in 1998 and had received support to rebuild.
“Women and men told about how the whole community came together to rebuild each other’s homes,” Mary Crickmore reports. “They shared that they had learned about forgiveness in their village development training and this enabled them to find healing and unity.”
Crickmore also noted that a loan of seed that had helped villagers to restart their farms five years ago has been repaid and the villages now have ongoing seed banks; schools that had been destroyed are open and filled with children, and communities that were grieving in 1998 welcomed CRWRC staff with music and parades.
