What's it really like? One to One
Stephen Johnston in Ethiopia: "But life would be boring without challenges, eh?"
"Now hang on to your britches as this is gonna be a shocker, but ironic as it seems, I am here serving God with Wycliffe Bible Translators – and I ain't a translator! In fact I am the extreme opposite; languages in general are not my strong point. In fact some would say they ain’t a point at all! So that is challenging. But life would be boring without challenges, eh?"
Stephen Johnston, an Art student at Belfast Art College, wanted to take a GAP Year and use his drawing skills… could we use him in Wycliffe? Yes, of course we could! So Stephen spent 9 months in Ethiopia… after a month or so, he wrote, "Generally I draw all day. It’s great, and they let me call it work!"
But Stephen’s drawing was work: very useful work!
Kande’s Story is an HIV/AIDS awareness course developed in Africa. The booklet has 40 illustrations and the text is added in the local language. However when our colleagues wanted to use it with Ethiopian languages, they discovered that it’s not just the text that needs to be translated - the drawings also need to be 'translated' to fit the cultural context.
And that’s where Stephen came in, taking the original set of drawings and tweaking them until Ethiopian colleagues said - yes, that’s how it should look in our country! Kande’s Story, with Stephen’s translated drawings, is now available for use in Ethiopian languages.
That was just the start: Stephen traveled around Ethiopia to take photographs and make drawings for AIDS education and literacy projects; teach drawing skills to local people; and provide illustrations for a government mother tongue literacy programme with which colleagues are partnering.
One of the best moments was teaching Suri people to draw. The Suri women wear large clay plates inserted into their lower lips while the men indulge in rather aggressive stick fighting. You may have seen them featured on the BBC2 programme Tribe.
So what did Stephen learn from his experience?
"I learnt a lot of things… one of which is to be content in any and every situation I find myself in. Another was about God’s grace. Before I went I was just surviving by God’s grace, but now I feel I am living by God’s grace. What a difference there is. Living in Ethiopia and being around such poor and desperate contexts, has shown me just exactly what God’s riches are. It certainly has been a unique eye opener. Without a doubt this has been the most beneficial, rewarding, most worthwhile thing I have ever done."
"Drawing for nine months was a bit daunting, and there were a few points where I naturally got fed up, but all in all it has been the most satisfying, fulfilling year of my life."
"I love the fact that when we are weak, we are at our strongest because that’s the point at which God fills us up most with his strength. And it is only through that strength that I have been able to do what I’ve done this year."
"The more I live my life, the more I realize that it has nothing to do with me, but only everything to do with the one who created me."
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