Project History

Nyarafolo Project History
I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. (John 12:24) Want to know the story of the Nyarafolo Translation Project?? It was a dream, a dream that died . . . then grew again in a whole new way! In 1961 Jim and Lois Gould arrived in Côte d’Ivoire and began language learning, hoping to evangelize the Nyarafolo people who live around Ferkessédougou. The Baptist Mission Hospital was being opened there, and they began following up contacts made with Nyarafolos who came for care. Then on Christmas Day 1966, while returning from driving the first five Nyarafolo believers back to their village after church, Jim had an accident and died. Linn was 14 at the time, the daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Dwight and Barbara Slater, who were part of the hospital team. The missionaries gathered to pray with Lois, and her dad’s prayer became a seed planted deep in her heart, out of sight: “Lord, please send someone to continue this work that Jim had only just begun . . .” When Glenn and Linn Boese were appointed as missionaries with WorldVenture (formerly CBInternational) in 1977, they were sent to Ferkessédougou due to Glenn’s profession: medical technology. The seed in Linn’s heart had been sprouting, and she and Glenn took seriously the ongoing need for someone to focus on reaching the Nyarafolo people. In the intervening years, no one else had tried to learn the language and the people were “resistant,” very few becoming believers – although missionaries continued to disciple that first handful which had now become a church of 40 or 50 people in the village of Pisankaha. So in 1980, after arriving in Ferke, they began language learning. The language was still unwritten, and there was no language school. Working with what they had learned at the Summer Institute of Linguistics in 1978, they found a language helper from the village of Tiepogovogo and went at it – pencil and paper, tape recorder, village visits, hours of phonological and grammatical analysis. After a year they had made a start! Glenn went to work at the hospital to develop the laboratory, but Linn had found a vocation and continued to pursue the language (in between babies and childrearing!). During the couple’s first home assignment she completed her master’s in linguistics at Michigan State, writing her thesis on Nyarafolo discourse. While studying she met David DeGraaf, an undergraduate linguistics student with an interest in serving the Lord, and invited him to come help with ongoing linguistic challenges. In late 1983 he joined Glenn and Linn in Ferke, staying for 15 months and contributing in significant ways. Even more importantly, he was “infected” with the burden to reach the Nyarafolo. In 1992 he and his wife Karen, now Wycliffe missionaries, joined the Nyarafolo Project. (Another Wycliffe couple, George and Sharon Semerenko, had spent three years in Nyarafolo language learning just prior to that, but had decided to transfer to a different ministry in the States.) The decade of the ‘90’s became the one for real progress in bringing some closure to the orthography (linguistic jargon for how to write the language), prepare literacy materials and begin translation! During this period, “Speedy” (his real name is Abdoulaye, but the nickname has stuck) joined the team to be trained in literacy, and Abdoulaye Ouattara joined the Project to be trained as a linguistic assistant and Bible-translator. The Gospel of Mark was translated and checked by a Wycliffe consultant. Near the end of the decade, Moise ( a gifted lay preacher from the town church) was hired part-time as cultural specialist and to help develop Christian teaching materials. Meanwhile, the Lord had been drawing a new nucleus of Nyarafolos to himself in the village of Tiepogovogo, where Glenn and Linn had been “adopted” during their years of language learning. In the mid-80’s five young men announced their desire to enter the Jesus Road, and Glenn began teaching them in evening “Bible studies,” using an interpreter, and without any Nyarafolo Scriptures. None of these men could read in any language, anyway. They were traditional farmers who had never had the opportunity to go to school. Slowly the group grew by another handful over the next few years. The Nyarafolo people are very conservative, cautious about trying new things, and these believers were being watched to see whether this new “Way” was anything that would last, and to see whether Jesus could actually do anything for them. The believers suffered persecution, mostly in the form of being excluded socially in certain painful ways. During the mid ‘80’s the Nyarafolo believers in the Baptist churches in Ferke, lacking a Nyarafolo church service, started meeting together Sunday afternoons. This Nyarafolo Group, as they called themselves, began making Christian songs in their own language and musical style, using the ballaphone for accompaniment. Over the years they produced several cassettes of praise songs and Scripture-based songs recounting the life of Christ and the early Genesis stories, benefiting from music seminars taught by Dr. Roberta King (a WorldVenture missionary at that time, now a professor at Fuller Seminary). They also learned to pray with great fervor for their families and friends, and that the Nyarafolo people would respond to the gospel. Members of the Nyarafolo Project team and the Nyarafolo Group began helping with teaching and outreach in the villages. Abdoulaye’s wife, Mariam, helped teach the village children, and her natural gifting was evident. She joined the team part-time as well, to be trained by Linn in developing teaching aids for Nyarafolo Sunday Schools. (Unfortunately, in 2004 she died after a long battle with breast cancer.) Men from a village just beyond Tiepogovogo, Neduulo came to an all-night evangelistic thrust in Tiepogovogo, and asked that someone come teach them about Jesus too. So Glenn and Linn, alternating with some of the other team teachers, began going to Neduulo for Sunday meetings as well. And some of the wives of men in both groups announced their decision to enter the Jesus Road. A new cement church building went up in Tiepogovogo, with an exterior baptistry, and the public baptism of people from both villages drew a huge crowd from the area. There was a sense of excitement as the work of the Lord in hearts was revealed to be deep and true over the long haul. Big changes came in 2000. Dave and Karen moved to other responsibilities in Wycliffe, and Abdoulaye was sent by the Project to FATEAC, a seminary in Abidjan, to study for his M.A. in Bible translation. Linn realized that the Lord was directing her to move from a role in linguistics and editing to the translation side of the Project. She began attending Michigan Theological Seminary while on home assignment, at first to take Hebrew and hermeneutics so that she could be exegete for Old Testament translation. In testing the Gospel of Mark, the team had realized the immediate need for the Pentateuch to provide the basis for chronological teaching and a clear understanding of the gospel. So upon her return to Ferke in 2000 she began working with Moise, who was a gifted Nyarafolo speaker but had never had the advantages of schooling, to prepare for a new approach and to begin translating Genesis. They had translated the first 15 chapters, all checked by a consultant, when everything changed. In September 2002 a group of rebels calling themselves the “New Forces” attacked three major cities in Côte d’Ivoire, taking the two most northern ones. The country has remained divided between a rebel-held north and government-held south ever since, as France, the Organization for African Unity, and the United Nations have all mediated the conflict and attempted to bring resolution. Disarmament is supposed to take place this year, in 2006, although the process remains halting. Glenn and Linn were evacuated along with many other missionaries, and were unable to return until March 2006 due to family needs. Abdoulaye remained in Abidjan, studying. The three men in Ferke switched their efforts to literacy, making three trips each week to Neduulo and Tiepogovogo, and teaching interested people in town. They collected folk tales and riddles for future use in Nyarafolo books. And they helped to continued to disciple believers. A young Nyarafolo from Ferke, Kiidu, and one of the “kids” from the Tiepogovogo church went to Bible school in Korhogo beginning in 2001. The school was closed during the first year of the Crisis. Fuhoton was home in the village, evangelizing and starting cell groups in other villages. By the time Glenn was able to visit in 2003, the group at Tiepogovogo had nearly doubled in size – the increase being many young people! In 2005 the two young men graduated from Bible school and were assigned as pastors, Kiidu to Pisankaha and the multi-ethnic church at the neighboring sugar plantation, and Fuhoton to Tiepogovogo. Another Nyarafolo village church in Sonyono (planted by one of the Ferke Baptist churches) that has undergone intense persecution was sent a pastor as well, a young man from the neighboring language group, Nafaara. Now it is 2006, and the Project Team and Glenn and Linn have been reunited. Abdoulaye, at seminary, will finish his studies this year and take up his role in translation again, along with the team of Moise and Linn. Glenn is eager to mentor the young pastors and lay leaders in the Nyarafolo groups. It is time to see a new flowering of the seed that seemed to die, the seed that was planted so long ago: the dream of reaching the Nyarafolo for Jesus. There has already been a harvest that no one would have predicted 25 years ago. Churches have been planted, and other villages are now asking for teaching. We anticipate exciting days ahead in this particular harvest field as the good seed of the Word of God in Nyarafolo, the heart language of this people, reaches more and more men and women!

Nyarafolo Project History

I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. (John 12:24)

Want to know the story of the Nyarafolo Translation Project??

It was a dream, a dream that died . . . then grew again in a whole new way!

In 1961 Jim and Lois Gould arrived in Côte d’Ivoire and began language learning, hoping to evangelize the Nyarafolo people who live around Ferkessédougou. The Baptist Mission Hospital was being opened there, and they began following up contacts made with Nyarafolos who came for care. Then on Christmas Day 1966, while returning from driving the first five Nyarafolo believers back to their village after church, Jim had an accident and died.
Linn was 14 at the time, the daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Dwight and Barbara Slater, who were part of the hospital team. The missionaries gathered to pray with Lois, and her dad’s prayer became a seed planted deep in her heart, out of sight: “Lord, please send someone to continue this work that Jim had only just begun . . .”

When Glenn and Linn Boese were appointed as missionaries with WorldVenture (formerly CBInternational) in 1977, they were sent to Ferkessédougou due to Glenn’s profession: medical technology. The seed in Linn’s heart had been sprouting, and she and Glenn took seriously the ongoing need for someone to focus on reaching the Nyarafolo people. In the intervening years, no one else had tried to learn the language and the people were “resistant,” very few becoming believers – although missionaries continued to disciple that first handful which had now become a church of 40 or 50 people in the village of Pisankaha. So in 1980, after arriving in Ferke, they began language learning.
The language was still unwritten, and there was no language school. Working with what they had learned at the Summer Institute of Linguistics in 1978, they found a language helper from the village of Tiepogovogo and went at it – pencil and paper, tape recorder, village visits, hours of phonological and grammatical analysis. After a year they had made a start! Glenn went to work at the hospital to develop the laboratory, but Linn had found a vocation and continued to pursue the language (in between babies and childrearing!).

During the couple’s first home assignment she completed her master’s in linguistics at Michigan State, writing her thesis on Nyarafolo discourse. While studying she met David DeGraaf, an undergraduate linguistics student with an interest in serving the Lord, and invited him to come help with ongoing linguistic challenges. In late 1983 he joined Glenn and Linn in Ferke, staying for 15 months and contributing in significant ways. Even more importantly, he was “infected” with the burden to reach the Nyarafolo. In 1992 he and his wife Karen, now Wycliffe missionaries, joined the Nyarafolo Project. (Another Wycliffe couple, George and Sharon Semerenko, had spent three years in Nyarafolo language learning just prior to that, but had decided to transfer to a different ministry in the States.)

The decade of the ‘90’s became the one for real progress in bringing some closure to the orthography (linguistic jargon for how to write the language), prepare literacy materials and begin translation! During this period, “Speedy” (his real name is Abdoulaye, but the nickname has stuck) joined the team to be trained in literacy, and Abdoulaye Ouattara joined the Project to be trained as a linguistic assistant and Bible-translator. The Gospel of Mark was translated and checked by a Wycliffe consultant. Near the end of the decade, Moise ( a gifted lay preacher from the town church) was hired part-time as cultural specialist and to help develop Christian teaching materials.

Meanwhile, the Lord had been drawing a new nucleus of Nyarafolos to himself in the village of Tiepogovogo, where Glenn and Linn had been “adopted” during their years of language learning. In the mid-80’s five young men announced their desire to enter the Jesus Road, and Glenn began teaching them in evening “Bible studies,” using an interpreter, and without any Nyarafolo Scriptures. None of these men could read in any language, anyway. They were traditional farmers who had never had the opportunity to go to school.
Slowly the group grew by another handful over the next few years. The Nyarafolo people are very conservative, cautious about trying new things, and these believers were being watched to see whether this new “Way” was anything that would last, and to see whether Jesus could actually do anything for them. The believers suffered persecution, mostly in the form of being excluded socially in certain painful ways.

During the mid ‘80’s the Nyarafolo believers in the Baptist churches in Ferke, lacking a Nyarafolo church service, started meeting together Sunday afternoons. This Nyarafolo Group, as they called themselves, began making Christian songs in their own language and musical style, using the ballaphone for accompaniment. Over the years they produced several cassettes of praise songs and Scripture-based songs recounting the life of Christ and the early Genesis stories, benefiting from music seminars taught by Dr. Roberta King (a WorldVenture missionary at that time, now a professor at Fuller Seminary). They also learned to pray with great fervor for their families and friends, and that the Nyarafolo people would respond to the gospel.
Members of the Nyarafolo Project team and the Nyarafolo Group began helping with teaching and outreach in the villages. Abdoulaye’s wife, Mariam, helped teach the village children, and her natural gifting was evident. She joined the team part-time as well, to be trained by Linn in developing teaching aids for Nyarafolo Sunday Schools. (Unfortunately, in 2004 she died after a long battle with breast cancer.)
Men from a village just beyond Tiepogovogo, Neduulo came to an all-night evangelistic thrust in Tiepogovogo, and asked that someone come teach them about Jesus too. So Glenn and Linn, alternating with some of the other team teachers, began going to Neduulo for Sunday meetings as well.
And some of the wives of men in both groups announced their decision to enter the Jesus Road. A new cement church building went up in Tiepogovogo, with an exterior baptistry, and the public baptism of people from both villages drew a huge crowd from the area. There was a sense of excitement as the work of the Lord in hearts was revealed to be deep and true over the long haul.

Big changes came in 2000. Dave and Karen moved to other responsibilities in Wycliffe, and Abdoulaye was sent by the Project to FATEAC, a seminary in Abidjan, to study for his M.A. in Bible translation. Linn realized that the Lord was directing her to move from a role in linguistics and editing to the translation side of the Project. She began attending Michigan Theological Seminary while on home assignment, at first to take Hebrew and hermeneutics so that she could be exegete for Old Testament translation. In testing the Gospel of Mark, the team had realized the immediate need for the Pentateuch to provide the basis for chronological teaching and a clear understanding of the gospel. So upon her return to Ferke in 2000 she began working with Moise, who was a gifted Nyarafolo speaker but had never had the advantages of schooling, to prepare for a new approach and to begin translating Genesis.
They had translated the first 15 chapters, all checked by a consultant, when everything changed.

In September 2002 a group of rebels calling themselves the “New Forces” attacked three major cities in Côte d’Ivoire, taking the two most northern ones. The country has remained divided between a rebel-held north and government-held south ever since, as France, the Organization for African Unity, and the United Nations have all mediated the conflict and attempted to bring resolution. Disarmament is supposed to take place this year, in 2006, although the process remains halting.
Glenn and Linn were evacuated along with many other missionaries, and were unable to return until March 2006 due to family needs. Abdoulaye remained in Abidjan, studying. The three men in Ferke switched their efforts to literacy, making three trips each week to Neduulo and Tiepogovogo, and teaching interested people in town. They collected folk tales and riddles for future use in Nyarafolo books. And they helped to continued to disciple believers.
A young Nyarafolo from Ferke, Kiidu, and one of the “kids” from the Tiepogovogo church went to Bible school in Korhogo beginning in 2001. The school was closed during the first year of the Crisis. Fuhoton was home in the village, evangelizing and starting cell groups in other villages. By the time Glenn was able to visit in 2003, the group at Tiepogovogo had nearly doubled in size – the increase being many young people!
In 2005 the two young men graduated from Bible school and were assigned as pastors, Kiidu to Pisankaha and the multi-ethnic church at the neighboring sugar plantation, and Fuhoton to Tiepogovogo. Another Nyarafolo village church in Sonyono (planted by one of the Ferke Baptist churches) that has undergone intense persecution was sent a pastor as well, a young man from the neighboring language group, Nafaara.

Now it is 2006, and the Project Team and Glenn and Linn have been reunited. Abdoulaye, at seminary, will finish his studies this year and take up his role in translation again, along with the team of Moise and Linn. Glenn is eager to mentor the young pastors and lay leaders in the Nyarafolo groups.
It is time to see a new flowering of the seed that seemed to die, the seed that was planted so long ago: the dream of reaching the Nyarafolo for Jesus. There has already been a harvest that no one would have predicted 25 years ago. Churches have been planted, and other villages are now asking for teaching. We anticipate exciting days ahead in this particular harvest field as the good seed of the Word of God in Nyarafolo, the heart language of this people, reaches more and more men and women!

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