2020 Hindsight: Reflecting on the Road Less Traveled - Perfect for Thoughtful Gifts, Book Clubs & Personal Growth Journeys

John Ellington’s memoir is interesting, comprehensive, honest, intriguing, historically anchored, and accurate. He was born in 1937 in Moultrie, in the far southwestern corner of Georgia. John throughout tells us of his relatives, friends, and especially his children. Scenes from childhood are fascinating. After seeing his friends have a very bad car accident he states “the incident made me think…about the meaning of life, and more specifically, about the meaning of life.” (71)His family was faithful as Methodist church attenders. “In South Georgia in the 1940s and 1950s church-going was a way of life.” (49) The assistant pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Moultrie had great influence on his life, he states, with serious Bible study and spiritual revival. So, a few months before graduating from high school he got a Local Preacher’s License and preached in several Methodist churches in the country.John went on to Emory U. in Atlanta, a Methodist college, where he was on the swimming team, and joined in a student demonstration against the racism of the Georgia governor concerning a football game involving a black player. “The student demonstration prior to the game was my introduction to the politics of segregation and one way to face racism head-on” (85). Although Emory was at that time segregated, he got to know Black students from other colleges.He also was strongly impacted by the story of missionary Jim Elliot’s death in South America. “The mid-1950s may be considered the high point in missionary fervor and commitment in the U.S.” (85) By then he was a pre-ministerial student at Emory. Another high point in his evolution toward a career in missions was meeting Calvin Thielman, then minister of Waynesville Presbyterian Church, “Jesus Christ was the center of all that was said and done” as he led the funeral service of a drowning victim, a child.Also at Emory he was involved in Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship, with prayer meetings and weekend conferences. He attended their Urbana Missions Conference in 1957, and “For an evangelical Christian in the 1950s it was a veritable feast.” John signed a card committing himself to overseas mission. “It was a commitment that changed the course of my life” (101) He graduated from Emory in 1959, and went on immediately to Columbia Theological Seminary, also in Atlanta, getting his Bachelor of Divinity in 1962.John shares the story of his meeting and dating Jo Ann Brown of New Jersey (“Northern” Presbyterian country), and marrying in 1963. She was a nurse, and throughout the memoir we learn of her serving in various hospitals and “well baby” clinics. Early on, while they were in Georgia, Jo Ann worked in the Black side of the segregated hospital in Atlanta, and made friends there. Black people were at their wedding as well.After a year as pastor of Manchester Presbyterian Church, John went back to study at Columbia Theological Seminary, earning a Master of Theology degree. He and Jo Ann then prepared to go to Congo, and had 6 weeks of training and orientation at Montreat, concluded with commissioning.They were off to a year of French language study in Brussels, Belgium, meeting Congolese students, some of whom became church leaders back in Congo. They went by ship to Congo in July 1965. They were to spend their first term of three years in Kinshasa (Limete). They had a tutor and formal language classes in Lingala (a tonal language). John points out the important difference between Kinshasa Lingala and Up River Lingala. John also taught part time at the Ecole Secondaire Presbyterienne de Lemba (most of the missionaries of most of the missions got involved in high school teaching as this was a key goal of the Congolese church members at this time when most of the schools were church administered.)The next two years he was principal of that school, a job he did not seek, not preferring administration. He was able to attend pastors’ meetings and preach. He points out the history of the Presbyterian work in Congo, beginning in the 19th century 500 miles east of Kinshasa in the Kasai, and starting in Kinshasa in 1955. Unlike most Presbyterian missionaries, he did not work in the Kasai, or learn Tshiluba. Beth was born during that first term in Kinshasa. Mark had been born previously in the States. They would later adopt Joseph from Thailand, and Becca from Korea.Throughout their careers John and Jo Ann’s kindness and generosity is revealed by many situations: having a Congolese high school student in Kinshasa live in their home for several months, helping a Congolese get to the US for medical treatment, having a German exchange student in their home for three months, as well as a volunteer who would work in the translations office, and many more acts of kindness.TRANSLATING THE BIBLEThe principal work of John during his career was in translating the Bible. Eugene Nida “had influenced my life choices from the time he was a guest lecturer at Columbia Seminary in 1962.” (232) John considers him to be the “father of modern translation.” He created the DYNAMIC TRANSLATION method of translation, and the majority of translations of the Bible around the world since the 1960s have followed the principles of Nida. Later the term was replaced by DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCE.Near end of lst term Harold Fehderau approached him to work on translation project: Kinshasa Lingala. Harold was Translations Consultant with the United Bible Societies (UBS). “I would go to graduate school to study linguistics and return to be the coordinator and exegete for the new Kinshasa Lingala translation project” (178)So it was that during his first furlough, besides speaking in the churches 95 times, he attended the University of Wisconsin’s Department of African Languages and Literature, and became a Teaching Assistant as well. In June 1971 he received his master’s degree.Coming back to Congo for a second term, John began the project described above. That involved having a Congolese Kinshasa Lingala speaker as translator, who would write the first draft by hand. For that term of three years they worked on the New Testament, along with a priest, and completed it in 1974.Their next furlough took them back to the University of Wisconsin, where John earned a master’s degree in linguistics and then a PhD with the dissertation: “Aspects of the Tiene Language.” Malcolm Guthrie was a famous expert in Bantu languages, and had begun, like John, with Lingala. He later recommended to John the language that he would take for his doctoral dissertation, Ketiene, a language spoken inland from the BMS station Bolobo, some 260 km. upriver from Kinshasa.So it was that for John’s third term in Congo beginning in 1975 he was United Bible Societies translations consultant under Fehderau’s leadership.TTW stands for Triennial Translations Workshops, which John attended throughout his career each three years, in places throughout the world. The journal of translators of the UBS was The Bible Translator.When he was getting into the study of Ketiene, he found useful the two-toned slit log drum. The night watchman next door serendipitously spoke Ketiene, a tonal language that John was to translate. So he used the drum to imitate the tones to help learn them.You will be interested in his analysis of versions of the Bible. The Living Bible gets a round critique. The Revised Standard Version is a literal translation, whereas the Good News Bible followed the Dynamic Equivalence method of translation that John encourages.As to French Bibles: the Louis Segond version of 1910 that we all used, and is popular throughout Europe and Africa, is the “King James Version”. It is a literal rendering of the biblical languages. The new Bonne Nouvelles Aujourd’hui version uses the Dynamic Equivalence method.On pp. 251ff you will find a description of how a consultant in Bible translations works.“The typical translation team was made up of two or three Africans who spoke the language as their mother tongue and a missionary ‘coordinator-exegete’ who had learned the language but whose knowledge was not nearly as deep as that of the mother tongue speakers. Ideally the exegete would have had training in the biblical languages and the other members of the team would have had some Bible school training.” (256-7)He mentions traveling with Air Zaire, pilots of various missions, and especially MAF.Among the languages John worked on in Congo as consultant are Otetela, Tshiluba, Kiluba, and Kisanga. He worked with Roman Catholics, Kimbanguists, and other Protestant groups.In 1983 the Ellingtons left Kinshasa for John to take the United Bible Societies job as Translations Consultant. They moved first to Senegal (Joseph and Becca with them) 1985-1987. And then on to Ivory Coast 1987-1990. The Bible in Basic French (Français Fondamental) for which John was consultant was finished in 1990. One final job in Congo was helping the team in Kinshasa to finish the Kinshasa Lingala Bible, in 1998.In the later 13 years of his career with the United Bible Societies he worked out of Montreat, NC, flying to his consultation jobs (that was actually cheaper than living overseas). He also taught at times in the Christian and Missionary Alliance Seminary in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. He wrote helps for Bible translators. These could be on specific books of the Bible. Usually there were two writers: exegetical author (sometimes Roger Omanson) and John as translation author. Those two wrote advice to translators of 8 books of the Bible. John also wrote articles for The Bible Translator.Among the books he wrote that became highly useful for Congo missionaries (and others):Handbook of Kinshasa Lingala (1973)English-Lingala Dictionary (1982)Basic Lingala (1984)RETIREMENTAfter retirement in 2003 John continued working on Translators’ Handbooks, taught several courses at Montreat College where they were still living, helped organized the Montreat College Association for International Mission that helped relate college students to retired and active missionaries in the area. He also was involved in the LOT program helping the homeless in Asheville, the large town nearby, and in the prison ministry in Asheville, and in the Montreat Nature Center, and William’s Place mentoring men in need of help. He wrote another childrens’ book, and went hiking to Mt. Michell nearby once a year—14 miles one way with 4,000 ft. gain! He did it last year, and plans to do it this one!Thus a life well lived, with an abundant contribution to the access people around the world would have to the Bible, thanks to his many translation projects. You will find it a fascinating book!