Our Story
Translating Social Justice Hymns is yet another hopeful, prayerful step on a painful journey to freedom for a small inclusive fellowship in Uganda. In a country where both Church and State persecute the LGBT community, God is raising a new nation to bring the gospel of Grace, Love, and Compassion to this oppressed people.
Brenda C Kayne, a Hymn writer from Florida and David Weiss, a Hymn writer from Minnesota, USA, have very kindly permitted me to translate their unique, creative social justice hymns into different languages spoken in Uganda. These will be used during praise and worship starting this Christmas!
This is an unprecedented project and whereas I do translation work fairly often, Translating Hymns adds a significant level of complexity because not only must the concepts be conveyed accurately in the target language,they must also match the musical structure and phrasing of the hymn.
Additionally, some idioms just don’t translate well or have equivalents in the target language! That’s why am not working alone. I have identified two like-minded linguists to work with in the first half of December to help make this project a reality. Our goal is to have the translations ready by Christmas!
The Impact
Freedom is a good thing but it doesn’t teach you anything. Deprivation does! You wake up and suddenly, you are not! The emptiness, the loneliness, the longing; to belong. Only experience can teach you that. But we want to change this experience. We want to create an opportunity for this community and others still under oppression to praise and worship God in a language of their own. But best of all, we will want to leave a different foot print. A legacy of love that our grand children will be proud to share in.
The money being raised will help cover research and translation costs, creating an online tool for sharing the finished resource, Facilitation for the two additional linguists during the translation period and acquiring a computer for long term translation work.
The funds should be able to cover this first phase of work and your generous help will be greatly, greatly appreciated. If we raise more than the target amount, that will allow us to do more to translate and promote “social Justice” Hymns and get them more quickly into alternative formats (Print and audio). The time window to raise the money is short, since I would like to get the Hymns finished in time for Christmas. So if you’re interested in helping fund “Translating Social Justice Hymns”, please don’t delay. And tell everyone you know!
What We Need & What You Get
Translation work largely requires fluency in both the original language and target language. Next resource up is time! We shall need many hours to research and discuss the material, the content and context of the content. To achieve this on a minimum budget, I will be doing the research by myself for the first one week of December before asking the two other linguists to join me in the second week of December for a one week residential work retreat.
We will primarily be using any money raised for facilitation, transportation and expenses where we shall hold this working retreat. We will benefit greatly from actually working in the same location in terms of holding discussions particularly regarding decisions on the equivalent words in a target language and the context in which words are used in the Hymns
When the resource is complete, we shall publish it on the internet using a free blogging platform to enable free and easy access
Here is an Estimate:
1. Hosting and facilitating two linguists (Lugisu) for 7 days $ US 1245
2. Facilitation for myself (Research, Transport, Printing, Phone credit, postage) $ US 870
3. One laptop computer $ US 430
4. Website domain $ US 10
This is the only fund-raising platform for this project. http://www.indiegogo.com/Translating-Social-Justice-Hymns?a=292803&i=addr Being that it’s the first phase, future undertakings will largely be determined by the success enjoyed at this juncture.
If we can’t raise the $ US 2555 target, we shall prioritize the expenditure basing on how much we are able to raise.
Should this project fall through for whatever reason (God forbid!), I commit myself to refund all backers/Contributors.
Take a look at the rewards on the right to find out what you can get for your donation
Other ways you can help
We are doing this translation for our inclusive LGBT fellowship and for every brave person who has been told time and time again; that they are worthless, that God doesn’t love them because of who they are! 1 Corinthians 15: 10 “…By God’s Grace, I am what I am…”
…and I have nothing to add to the scriptures!
As a social animal, I feel that it is not right to ostracize. As a human being I feel that only mercy enables me to transcend beyond a social animal. But most of all, as a Christian, I KNOW that only GRACE got me this far!
Let’s do this thing together!
If you can’t contribute financially right now, you can still help!
Here’s how:
1. Make sure to pass this page on to friends, family, co-workers, political representatives, church members, women’s clubs, neighbors, facebook, twitter, bloggers etc.
THANK YOU AND BLESSINGS…
Believer
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