Maik and Rhiannon Gibson live in Nairobi, Kenya, where Maik is a lecturer in Linguistics and Translation Studies at the Nairobi Evangelical Graduate School of Theology. On a brief visit home to the North-East (Maik’s dad, John Gibson, was curate and then vicar in Durham Diocese for over 40 years), I took the opportunity to ask a few questions:
You’ve been in Kenya a couple of years now, what are you doing?
“Rather than starting another Bible translation project, we decided it would be better to train others. That’s why we came to Kenya, training Africans not just to translate the Bible, but to lead others in doing so. The Nairobi Evangelical Graduate School of Theology (NEGST) serves to train Christian ministers from many denominations, including Anglicans. In the long run, I hope I too will be replaced by African colleagues. The more Africans involved in Bible translation, the more likely the vision for it will spread.”
How do your children cope?
“We have 3 children: Carys (8), Benjie (5) and Zebedee (2). They love living in Africa; they can play outside, climb trees, ride bikes most of the time, except in rain storms, as well as going to visit elephants or giraffes just a few minutes’ drive away. On a recent visit back home, Benjie mentioned that he preferred being in Kenya, mainly because it wasn’t cold! But they do miss seeing their grandparents.”
How did the recent unrest affect you (the recent elections results were contested)?
“We didn’t see anything ourselves, nor hear any gunfire, but many of our friends did. Every time we wanted to leave our local area, we’d check the news to see where there were problems: we did have to take very long circuitous routes on occasion. We also had to be ready to leave in case things got worse, and had essentials all together in a suitcase ready to go. However, Gladys, a lady who works for us, was being threatened as she belonged to the ‘wrong’ tribe, so had to move to another part of town: higher rent and new school uniforms for the kids. She could only do this because we could help out – not a chance most Kenyans in her situation had. So it was much more stressful for the locals than for us.”
With the unrest over Maik and his family are now back at NEGST.
However, a doctor could go to Munaypata, if Pete could take him in the truck. The doctor was received with some reserve in the village, but they allowed him to examine the 2 sick children. He was worried: the symptoms were consistent with an outbreak of bubonic plague, and he wanted the children hospitalised in Apolo. The families refused: the witch-doctor had already cured their children! They did not have the $4 needed to buy the antibiotics that the doctor brought. Pete offered to pay, and the parents accepted the antibiotics.
These words, written by an Interserve Partner serving in one of the most strongly Muslim countries in the Arabian peninsula, are representative of the way that God has used Interserve since its beginnings in British India in 1852: a concern for both physical and spiritual needs, and a determination to address both in the name of Jesus. This “wholistic” ministry, and this commitment to serve Jesus in some of the hardest countries in the world, have characterised the work of Interserve for over 150 years. Interserve now works in all the countries of Asia and the Arab World and has been working among Asian people groups across England and Wales for over 25 years. The countries in which Interserve works are the least evangelised on earth: several are effectively 100% Muslim, many have no indigenous church, and several are suffering from the effects of war, famine, and political turmoil. Christian outreach is often opposed, sometimes violently. Yet we feel that God has called us to this work in order to see “lives and communities transformed through encounter with Jesus Christ”.