‘Wisbeys’ (2 of 5)

This is the second part of a five-part blog series on who we are, what we do and why we think it is worth doing. As we said in the first post, we are the Wisbeys: Matt, Liz and Levi (Dec ’11). Here is some very brief background about us…

Matt is from Oxford, Liz from Exeter. We met at university in Sheffield, Matt studying Law and Liz studying Biblical Studies and Linguistics. We’d both had short-term experiences of overseas travel, Liz in Africa and Matt in the Americas, and after getting married we decided we wanted to be involved in the area of overseas ‘development’ work somehow. After some listening to God, talking to others, and trying out some options, we decided Wycliffe Bible Translators would be a good way for both of us to use our (very different) skills/training/experience. To find out more about Wycliffe, see our next post!

We decided that the best way for us to be involved was through the area of literacy, an essential but often forgotten part of the Bible translation task. We also believe that education, in particular being able to read and write, is a basic human right that all people should have access to (if they want it – which, by the way, most people do to one degree or another) regardless of their religious belief. Without this basic level of education people are often excluded from opportunities, denied their rights, and generally restricted in the ways they might want to interact in the wider world. In short, they are severely disadvantaged.

Our initial assignment (from January 2008 until May 2010) was in the town of Mbeya in Tanzania, East Africa. We worked as part of a large team, supporting literacy work across nine minority languages (which are spoken by around 3 million people!) through teacher training, materials production, staff recruitment and training and partnership work in the communities.

Liz fell very ill in late 2009 and so, having exhausted medical options in Tanzania, we returned to the UK in May 2010. Initially Liz spent a lot of time resting and Matt got some further training and worked in the Wycliffe UK offices. As she was able, Liz also continued to support the literacy work in Tanzania by proofreading new literacy books while Matt completed an MA in 'Literacy programme development'. Since Levi was born in late 2011, Liz has been a fulltime mother while continuing to recover from this long-term illness and Matt has been working with a team called 'LEAD Asia', helping support language, education and development work in Asia (more on this in post number five, ‘development through literacy’) from the UK. As part of this, Matt is also involved in teaching on some of the training courses Wycliffe provides.

We cannot continue to do this work without a strong support team partnering with us. To find out how you can join us in helping people to access their basic rights click here.