Olympic Gold!
After Cameroon won the Olympic gold medal for football in 2000, the idea came with a joy and certainty that
surprised me: let's make a football booklet! How can we use the national euphoria to encourage people to "read
all about it"? If we want them to learn to read, and to read the Scriptures, we must give them something they are interested in to start with.
During a shopping trip I mentioned this to some friends, including Michael, an Australian colleague with a keen interest in sport. He was the Team Attaché to the Cameroon national team at the Commonwealth Games in March. Shortly afterwards he brought me a manuscript
with everything I could think of in it-—the Olympic Games, the World Cup, the African Cup, the Confederations Cup, the history of football in Cameroon and some basic rules.
Next, we needed pictures, good quality, realistic and professional-looking. The easy way out would be for someone to draw them. Then Eduard, a Dutch colleague and an artist, came to see if we needed any drawings for the Ouldémé literacy work. Yes, we certainly did!
It wasn't easy to translate Michael's text. There is no fixed football vocabulary in Ouldémé; French is used for words like goal (un but). However, our two boys, Tommi and Miikka, came to the rescue. They grew up in Cameroon
and one of their friends, Amada, helped me with the translation. He worked hard with his friends to find good expressions for words like 'gold medal'.
Miikka then read through the text and suggested an important addition—off-side rules. Having played football with his Ouldémé friends for years he knew best how to explain such complicated rules.
Simon, the Ouldémé translator working on the New Testament, checked the text. We will print some trial copies for Amada and his friends to do their final check before it is published, ready for the next time Cameroon are in an international tournament!
Father, please use this booklet to reach young people.
Show them that there are fun books to read;
that it's cool
to be Ouldémé (they can produce their own literature!); and
that they could become the literacy workers and Bible translators of the future!
