Many people have been asking if and how the Coronavirus is affecting life and ministry among the Kwakum people. Until very recently, I would have said that there has not been much of a change here at all. However, a few days ago, the Cameroonian government closed all land and air borders as well as schools. Since then, there has been some changes. The first change is that people are starting to speculate as to why everything has closed. Unfortunately, due to illiteracy as well as unreliable news sources, people are left with hear-say. People are therefore wondering if there…

“Understanding Scripture in a language other than the heart language in which we think and experience emotion is like trying to eat soup with a fork. You can get a little taste, but you cannot get nourished.” – Cameron Townsend These past couple months, we have been training a group 8 Kwakum people in principles of translation and we have seen them go from getting a ‘taste of a Word of God’ into being nourished by it. Let me give you an example. I (Stacey) was teaching on how we can translate concepts that are unknown to the Kwakum people…

My job since 2012 has consisted mainly of language learning. First, I spent 6 months studying at the Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics (now Dallas International University). A big part of our coursework involved language and culture acquisition and analysis. We then spent 16 months in France participating in an immersive program in the Alps. After France we moved to Cameroon. We moved into a village with the Kwakum people in January 2015 and spent nearly three years pretty much exclusively studying the Kwakum language and culture. We spent a year and a half completing a Master of Arts in…

On Tuesday of this week, we officially start translator training with our team of eight Kwakum colleagues. Between Dave and me, we have hundreds of pages of notes that we’ve poured ourselves into in anticipation for this coming training. Pictured above, I am standing in front of pages of lectures that I’ve prepared covering the following topics: the message of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation the doctrine of inspiration criteria for what books were chosen to be within the canon of Scripture the history of Bible translation in Cameroon the geography, climate, vegetation, and daily life in ancient Israel…

We have experienced a lot of joy in discipling a couple who recently became Christians. They have been together for a few years now and have a son who will be 1 year old in May. When they were baptized they decided that they should not live together until they could be married. We have spent the last few months watching them prepare for the wedding, and they have been giddy! Throughout the whole process it was acknowledged that before they could be officially married the man would have to pay a bride price. A bride price is when the…

Meet the eight people that we have asked to work with us to translate the Bible into Kwakum! Throughout the years, we have worked closely with many Kwakum individuals and watched how they interacted with people, especially when they disagreed with each other. We have watched how teachable they were when criticized. We have also watched to see how capable they were in their knowledge of the Kwakum language. Then, this past month we put out an application to see who would be interested in becoming official translators with us. We received 18 applications, called references, interviewed people, and prayed….

This is a message that I gave at my mom’s memorial service on Saturday, January 11, 2020 in California. Hi everyone, my name is Stacey and I am the proud daughter of Dan and Margie Edmiston. I am also somewhat of a guest here in that I live in Cameroon, Africa. My family and I moved to Africa in 2014 and that was all fine and good… until my Mom was diagnosed with cancer three and a half years ago. The woman who gave me life, raised me, and just wanted to be with her grandchildren was now a half…

My mom’s three-and-a-half-year battle with ovarian cancer is over and it has been won. No more chemotherapy, no more pain, no more wondering if she will ever get better. She has finally been set free from the body that betrayed her and brought her so much sorrow. Her tears are being wiped away by Christ and she is surely singing, dancing, experiencing the height of joy in God’s presence. I must say that when I am not thinking about how much it hurts to lose her, I am really happy for her. Through this trial of cancer, I can say…

One of the very few Christian Kwakum died tonight. He was in a terrible accident which involved at least two children, one of whom died. I played a very small part in helping with the situation as some of our World Team colleagues took the survivors to a hospital in a city about 40 mins from where we live. But as I went to help, I was stopped by some police officers. In spite of my pleas of emergency, they demanded a bribe. They kept me at the police stop for 20 precious minutes. And now that it is over,…

This coming Saturday will be a big day. On the literacy front, we will be administering a 10-page exam in Kwakum to determine who among our students is ready to receive a diploma and an “I can read in Kwakum” T-shirt (one of the many tools that we are using to get people reading…). In addition to students reading various texts and answering comprehension questions, they will be required to teach someone who has not participated in a literacy class the ABCs. We’ve set the bar high in literacy and so far people are rising up to this standard. On…