The Good Samaritan vs the Bad Bochochos

At Wednesday Bible Club (WBC) yesterday, David helped me lead the singing. They do enjoy the action songs. This pic I include is from ‘Who’s the King of the Jungle?’. Then I told them the parable of the Good Samaritan. We divided the children up into 3 groups afterwards and encouraged them to each put together a mini play from the parable. This was something they had never done before but they soon entered into the spirit of it all. In Owamboland, thieves are called bochochos. Everyone wanted to play the part of a bochocho (see photo)! And when the Samaritan arrives with his donkey, you should see these children smack their friends on the rump as if they were herding cattle back in their village! In one group’s presentation, one chap was ‘going down to Ondangwa from Ongwediva’ in his new car. Some boys asked another boy for a lift … and then attacked him and stole the car (all too common in this day and age)!
They came the bows. Meanwhile, David was videoing it all and the culmination was trouping into the lounge to watch themselves on the TV. There was much hilarity as they watch each other acting.
Etienne has been learning to play Amazing Grace on the recorder. It was an ideal time to set him the biography of the writer of this famous hymn, John Newton. He really enjoyed it. Here is his review:
Amazing Grace
John Newton was a boy when the story starts; angry and disobedient, etc. He was so naughty that he got whipped! John had a terrible life. He was a slave, on a slave ship. Then he became a captain of a slave ship. Then his ship got caught in a storm and he prayed to God for help.
God changed his life. He became obedient and trust-worthy. He got married to Mary Catlett.
One of John’s best loved hymns is Amazing Grace. I can sing it and you may sing it too. My favourite part was when John kept preaching after Mary had died.

As you can see from the WBC pix, we are now outside as it is cooler and the lower sun means more of the garden in shade. The nights are rather chilly now (much to David’s delight!).
David leaves on 31 May for Angola. It is a bit daunting as drinking water can be polluted, many roads are more potholes than level surface, and communication between places is poor. We are not sure if even to let him take the camera as apparently they charge you at the border for the ‘privilege’ of taking in such things. The effects of the war are much more apparent that side of the border than here, where infrastructure is beginning to bring the outside world into this corner of Namibia. Broadband arrived at the end of March (tho’ is still very expensive). Many people around towns (and thus coverage) have cell/mobile phones now. Land lines are not very common because many folk have no electricity in their homes. You can go to little roadside businesses like barbers and plug your cell/mobile phone into their power supply for a fee.
The pressure is on at the moment to get the first section of my Sunday School training/teaching manual completely translated into Oshindonga as, when the CESA (Church of England in South Africa) team come up end of June, one thing on the agenda is an all-day training seminar for people interested in learning how to teach Sunday School. We plan to give each person attending Section 1 (6 lessons plus info such as genealogy, time line, Wordless book, how to tell stories, mini Bible overview etc) of the manual, ‘Hidden Treasure’!
However, it is hard to find people to help me correct the Oshindonga as Oshiwambo generally has few fixed rules when it comes to which words should be joined up/separated, and even how to spell some words so there can be differences of opinion on what I have written, and both opinions be right! The English language has Shakespeare to thank in many ways for standardising spelling, grammar and sentence construction. (The plethora of plays created a relatively consistent grammar.) However, of all the languages in the world today, it is Greek that has changed the least. It is still very similar to the Greek of Homer’s day. We can see how much English has changed by trying to read some Chaucer!