February 2018
Newsletter of Tanya Spronk,
Prayer Points:
 For wisdom and
creativity in
continued
relationships with
the Ministry of
General Education
and Instruction and
other partners,
including other
international NGOs.
 For peace talks
which are coming up
again in March. Pray
that all those
involved will humble
themselves and
come to some
agreements which
can bring peace.
 For the economy of
South Sudan. Due
to continued inflation
and delay in salaries,
many people, even
when working full
time, cannot afford
very basic needs.
Pray for stabilizing of
the economy and for
God to somehow
provide for people’s
basic needs.
 For the Didinga
community as they
prepare to receive
the New Testament
in their own
language! Pray the
Word will transform
that community and
that people will be
willing and able to
learn to read it!
* SIL is Wycliffe’s field work
partner organization, which I
work for in South Sudan.
serving with Wycliffe Canada
We all have a Part
As I was thinking about what the people in these places! and medical needs (like
to write in this newsletter, I Rather, I’m just one piece in Samaritan’s Purse), or even
also received the Annual what God is doing to show through believers who are
Report from my home church his love and compassion and working with ‘secular’
in Calgary. While reading that care to people and places organizations like the various
report, I was struck by the which are experiencing times UN agencies and other
fact that completely apart of crisis and despair. international bodies tasked
from the support that the with things like monitoring
I know I have reflected on
church is giving towards my this in previous newsletters, ceasefires, we all have our part
work in South Sudan, my but God keeps showing me to play.
church (and wider that none of us is alone as we That also includes you! Your
denomination) is involved in serve His people, and that we prayers and financial support
other ministries that are can’t (and shouldn’t) do it all both for my work and the
serving people in South on our own! I’m thankful for work of so many other
Sudan, and also in Eritrea other organizations that have partners, plays a crucial role in
(where I lived before I moved
their own roles to play in what God is doing here, and in
to South Sudan!). bringing peace and hope to other places around the world.
Knowing that there is a whole these countries. I, for one, am so thankful to
community supporting the From those they fly people, be a part of this community of
people and places that I’ve Bibles and humanitarian believers, working hand in
grown to love is a real supplies to hard to reach hand to bring a piece of God’s
encouragement to me. It has places (like MAF) to those Kingdom to every corner of
reminded me that I’m not
who supply basic food, water the globe.
alone on this journey to serve
New Websites
In January I got to go and learn something design and lay out websites than it is to design
new! A partner organization, Kalaam Media, and lay out a book! I started working with just
supports website and app building in over 50 3 of the existing websites, to add the literacy
countries, ensuring that language communities materials and update the look of them a bit,
have the opportunity to build websites in their and we have plans to continue working on
own languages. These websites can be used even more websites in the near future.
for making things like the Jesus Film and I know the internet isn’t exactly “new
Scriptures, as well as literacy materials,
technology”, but it is great to work with
available to the language community, all in one partner organizations that can help us make
online space. some shifts into the 21st century! Because
While some of the language communities that many of the South Sudanese communities are
we work with have already started websites displaced in various countries these days, too,
.
with some Scripture and Jesus Films available, this is an especially important time to ensure
the time has come to add on some literacy people can access language materials in many
materials to those existing sites. So I got to go different ways. You can see some of what
to a 10 day workshop to learn how to do that! we’ve been working on here:
It’s definitely different than my usual work of
www.bakacommunity.com, www.keliko.org,
managing print-based projects, but I think it www.didinga.com
was almost more fun to figure out how to
 Contact Me
Formal Partnerships
Wycliffe Bible One of the parts of my job that both excites me and frustrates me is SIL’s* more formal
Translators
partnerships with both the Government of South Sudan’s Ministry of General Education
4316 10th St. NE
Calgary, AB and Instruction (MoGEI) and other NGOs working in the education sector. Over the
T2K 6K3 past few years, I’ve been involved with assisting to develop the new National Curriculum,
materials in various languages for baseline literacy assessments (EGRA, for those of you
PO Box 628200 who might be interested!), “supplementary materials” and teachers’ guides for South
Orlando, FL Sudanese languages. I’ve also helped other organizations with advice on how to more
32862-8200
effectively use South Sudanese languages in their own programs, and then train their
Home Address: teachers.
151 Valley Ridge A key component of all of this “external” work is advocacy. It means going to a lot of
Green NW meetings, talking to a lot of people, and keeping my eyes open for areas where SIL’s goals
Calgary, AB
T3B 5L6
and vision overlap with others.
I get really excited by these types of opportunities, because it means that the expertise that
tanya_spronk@sil.org SIL has, along with the materials and research we have been doing over the years can have
a much greater impact than it would ever have if it just stayed within the SIL world! It
also means that more children and teachers can benefit from the use of their own
languages in their learning, without me having to manage, administrate and find funding
for all those schools and programs!
But it also can be frustrating, because ultimately, I have no control over what actually
happens in these programs! In some cases, I have put in many hours working on various
proposals, sometimes at odd hours of the day and night due to skype meetings with our
wider SIL team spread around the globe, only for the funder to say they’ve decided to go
in a different direction. Or I’ve supplied soft copies of basic materials, only to find the
organization decided to print different books than what the learners needed to begin with.
Or a meeting with an important person will end in verbal approval of a particular course
www.sil.org of action, only to find he changed his mind when it comes to actually signing the formal
www.wycliffe.ca letters and agreements.
In general, though, it has been amazing to see how God has been using the work that we
do in our small SIL office to have an impact beyond our SIL projects! I pray that He will
continue to open doors for me and to give me wisdom and creativity in how to maximize
the resources we have to transform the lives of South Sudanese through early education in
their own languages.

The Day to Day

I was able to spend a cold, snowy Christmas
in Alberta with my family! It was so nice to
see people and catch up with some of you in
person! I definitely enjoyed the break,
spending some time enjoying the Rockies
with my parents, walking in the snow with
my sister’s family, and enjoying treats like
chocolate milk, cheese and steak (not all in
one sitting though!). Since coming back to
Juba in January, it’s been hot - most days
have been hovering between 40 - 43C
(110F!), making it hard to feel very
productive in the afternoons! When I asked
a friend how she was feeling the other day,
she replied, “Crispy around the edges”… a
very descriptive and accurate assessment of
the situation!
But good things are still happening - projects
that I’m working with continue to develop
books and primers to teach reading. In 2017,
the three of us in the SIL literacy office
prepared and printed over 12,500 copies
of Primers, ABC Books, Easy Readers,
Folk Stories, Song books, Calendars and
other types of reading materials in 14
different languages!
This number does not include 12,000
copies of the New Testament in the
Didinga language, which is set to be
dedicated in a celebration in their home
area on March 3! I will be traveling on a
MAF plane to Chukudum for that
celebration in the coming week, so we are
all praying for good weather and a good
turn out from the community for that
celebration. Please pray that the Word
will really soak into that community, as
the church is not yet very strong in that
area.
Until then, though, I’ll keep busy
with updating the language websites,
working with the Gbaya team as
they start a new literacy class in Juba,
helping the M team sort out their
materials for an upcoming teacher
training workshop, and follow up
with some other partners about
some future projects.
As usual, though, I want to thank
you all for your prayers and support
of my work! Thank you for your
faithfulness in your part of what
God is doing
here!
Peace, Tanya
Above: Clockwise - Janet working with the Laarim team on a “Transition Primer” to help those who have some English literacy
skills to learn how to read in their Mother Tongue, Laarim; Toposa team working on developing stories for a Grade 3 Literacy
Assessment that a partner organization is implementing; group of participants from that same story writing workshop in front of our
SIL training room; a photo of a Nuer literacy class which is supported by a partner organization. We supplied them with Nuer
materials and training (photo credit to Julu Charles)

In October, I took a short

break to see a friend in
Uganda; ; you have to step
over Zane and his buddy,
Ginger on a bridge to get to
my house - I live in the
building on the left; Beth
Moore often shows up in my
living room for our weekly
Women’s Bible Study