POLICE RESCUED BIBLE READING PROJECT

Johan Zerwick 083 458 3837 From 16 Oct. - 24 Nov. 2006 history was made in Ikageng, Potchefstroom when a number of organisations, the Bible Society of SA, Hosanna, and Faith comes by Hearing from the USA, and Theovision from Ghana, took hands to make a dramatised audio recording of the Setswana New Testament. The recording took 5 weeks to complete. A studio was erected in the house of Reverend Makhubozi of the “Gereformeerde” Church. After auditions, readers were chosen to read the different characters of the New Testament. The plan was to use Setswana mother-tongue pastors, reverends, evangelists, teachers and congregation-members from Ikageng. Two proof-listeners were needed to check the reading and the quality of the Setswana of the person who was reading in the studio. The people that were needed to do the recording were 26 men, 6 women, 5 children and other groups to read the parts of the crowds. For the first 2 weeks the recordings went according to the planned schedule. During the third week recordings almost came to a standstill. The people that promised to come and read, did not pitch and new readers were needed. All the schools were visited. Still, almost no readers came forward. On the evening of Thursday 3 November 2006 the first person from the SAPS to hear about our dilemma was Capt. Adel Myburg. She immediately made it her calling to look for readers because she said she knew a few good Christian Setswana speaking policemen. This is where three men from the SAPS, Supt. Sam Tselanyane, Supt. Huma, and Insp. Nyelele, came and rescued the Project! They were always available and willing to sacrifice their time. They came and read after hours and over weekends. Although it is difficult to single out any person because they all moved mountains, the story of Supt. Huma is worth mentioning first. Supt. Huma planned to go on leave long before he knew about the Project. His leave started on 7 Nov. and that is exactly the day when he came and served as reader and listener from early in the morning till late at night. When the Project was completed on 24 Nov. 2006, he only had a few days left to rest but that was suddenly ended when he received a phone call to tell him that he had to come to work and also had to go on a course in Pretoria. God really plans long before we make our plans. Supt. Tselanyane was one of the best readers - if not the best. He read pages without making any mistakes and with the best pronunciation possible. One of the people said that he read "like a Ferrari without brakes". Insp. Nyelele did not only perform his reading and listening, but also played a huge part as transporter of the two men from Theovision. If these 4 people from the SAPS are only a shadow of the kind of people we have in the SAPS, that gives one hope for the fight against crime in our country. They were willing to sacrifice their time and voices to make a success of this Project whilst other teachers and preachers were not willing to do so. During June 2007, when the final CDs and Cassettes of the Setswana Bible will be available to those that cannot read because of illiteracy or old age, it will be a great victory for all that took part in this Project. This will also be a spiritual war that is won because every Setswana speaking person will then be able to sit and listen, or drive and listen to the Bible in their own language! Dramatised recordings of IsiZulu and IsiXhosa have already been completed In SA. The Setswana recordings will form part of the festivities during 2007 to commemorate the translation of the Bible into Setswana that was done 150 years ago by Robert Moffat. In cooperation with the Premier’s Office of the Northwest Province a big Setswana Festival is being planned. God bless the SAPS!