Personally I am fascinated by how a living language is in a state of constant development. For Christians the greatest language challenge is to keep the bible - a collection of books written 35 to 19 centuries ago in the everyday language of the time - ready at hand in a modern everyday language. Because language is a living thing a old translation of the Bible can actually become more inaccurate sitting in your bookshelf. Weird, is it not?
The most fascinating aspect of language, in my opinion, is when slang terms becomes official language. That happened to the slang expression "Need Greater". In the first article of the study edition of the Watchtower for January it was used for the first time in any official magazine. It was a really great article about a group of people from Europe now living in Togo and Benin using there time to teach others about the Bible. Many of them are from Denmark, my native country. And they went to Togo, I live close to its border. Alas I have not meet any of them. But I really liked the article about Need Greaters that are going to a foreign country to settle down for years, living a simple life using their savings or going back home to work for a few months of the year.
Even though I haven't meet those mentioned in the article, I have meet such need greaters in Togo. Among them a group of German sisters that have been in Togo for a decade now. They are travelling home to Germany every year to see the family and work for a few months. I don't know if I could do that, but it is very inspiring to meet such self-sacrificing brothers and sisters.
Need Greater is a very fitting term for such people. But what does the expression cover? My friend Albert who moved about 400 km across Ghana to a small village - is he a need greater? Or what about my elder brother and his wife when they some years ago moved more to Greenland in the Arctic more than 3.000 km from their home. Since they also moved to a place in the same country (the kingdom of Denmark) can we say they were need greaters? How this new word will be used in the future will give us the answers.
But I like to coin another slang term: Holiday Need Greater. Such Jehovahs Witnesses are doing the opposite of most Need Greaters. Instead of living in a foreign country and using a few months back home working, Holiday Need Greaters live in their own country but uses their holiday each year to serve in a country with a greater need for Bible Teachers.
Of course only being in an area for a few months does limited what they can do. From personal experience I would say that 5 years is a minimum if you want to have any impact in a congregation. To help individuals in your adopted town can of course be done quicker. But to complete a full Bible Course and help your student to become close to God more than a year is needed.
So does Holiday Need Greaters serve any purpose at all? Yes they do. Most real Need Greaters have started out visiting their adopted country as Holiday Need Greaters to see if such a life is something they would like. But we also benefit from such friends, that sacrifice their holidays year after year. To show you what they can do I would like to introduce Johannes and Susanne Rasmussen from Denmark. They have been coming to my congregation for the last 4 years. They bring different danish brothers and sisters with them every year to make a travelling party of 6 publishers. I call them Team Rasmussen. You can see the pictures of the last two teams below.
This year brother Rasmussen had a nice experience visiting a Kingdom Hall construction site. The experience highlights very well what Holiday Need Greaters can bring to a country as Ghana:
Some experiences are stronger than others and take up a great portion of the mind. I had such an experience last week helping out at a Kingdom Hall Construction in a village.
"One evening a very large brother came to visit me and he told me his life story. He had belonged to many different churches and had finally ended up in the Pentecostal Church, where he father was an elder and his mother a deacon. After studying the Bible with the brothers he couldn't keep his new found knowledge to himself so he went to his father and asked him: "Why don't we start to preach what is said in the Bible?" Understandably the father needed him to explain why he asked such a question, but in the end the whole family found the truth about the bible.
A turning point for this family was the International Convention in Accra in 2009. "Attending the convention", the brother explained, "it was the first church he had visited where foreigners and local Ghanaians mixed freely." Ending his story he said that the reason he came was simply to say thank you.
"For what?" I asked.
"I was not the first white man to visit one of the churches in the village. But I was the first white man to physically work side by side black men", he said, "Now they really fell that they are a part of an international brotherhood. We will never travel, so It have to come to us!" Then he gave me a great hug.
The other members of Team Rasmussen have also promised to write their impressions from two months as Holiday Need Greaters. But I think they have been all to busy to do it yet. This week they will be going home and we will not see them before next year. But I hope they will email me their experiences and if so I will share them with you.
Team Rasmussen 2013
Team Rasmussen 2014
Hvordan et levende sprog er i en tilstand af konstant udvikling fascinere mig. For kristne den største sproglige udfordring er at havde en Bibel - en samling af bøger skrevet for 35 til 19 århundreder siden på tidens dagligdags sprog - lige ved hånden i en moderne "up to date" udgave. Fordi sproget er en levende ting kan en gammel oversættelse af Bibelen faktisk kan blive mere og mere unøjagtig mens den samler støv i din bogreol. Mærkeligt ikkesandt?
Det mest fascinerende aspekt af sproget, efter min mening, er når slang udtryk bliver til officielt sprog. Det er lige sket for slang udtrykket "Need Greater". Det blev brugt første gang i en trykt udgivelse i den første artikel i studietudgaven af Vagttårnet for januar. Det var en meget rørende artikel om en gruppe mennesker fra Europa som nu lever i Togo og Benin hvor de underviser andre om Bibelen. Jeg er blevet spurgt om jeg kender dem, da mange af dem er fra Danmark og fordi de bor i Togo, Ghanas naboland. Desværre må jeg skuffe, jeg har aldrig så meget som mødt en eneste af dem. Men artiklen om Need Greaters der kommer til et fremmed land for at slå sig ned i årevis, hvor de lever et simpelt liv ved hjælp af deres opsparing eller tager hjem for at arbejde for et par måneder af året. Den var virkelig god.
Selvom om jeg ikke har mødt nogle af dem fra artiklen så har jeg mødt lignende Need Greaters i Togo. Blandt dem en gruppe tyske søstre der har været i Togo i mere end et årti. De rejser hjem til Tyskland hvert år for at se familien og for at arbejde et par måneder. Jeg ved ikke, om jeg kunne gøre det samme, men det er meget inspirerende at møde sådanne selvopofrende brødre og søstre.
Need Greater er et meget passende udtryk for disse mennesker. Men hvad dækker udtrykket ellers over? Min ven Albert, der flyttede 400 km tværs over Ghana til en lille landsby - er han Need Greater? Eller hvad med min storebror og svigerinde, for nogle år siden flyttede de til Grønland mere end 3.000 km fra Danmark. Men det er jo stadigt i samme Kongerige, så kan vi sige at de var Need Greaters? Hvilke betydninger dette nye ord vil få må vi vente med at se.
Men jeg vil gerne introducere et nyt slang udtryk: Holiday Need Greater. Det er Jehovas Vidnder der gør det modsatte af det Need Greaters gør. I stedet for at leve i et fremmed land og bruge et par måneder derhjemme på at tjene penge så lever Holiday Need Greaters i deres eget land, men bruger deres ferie hvert år til at tjene i et land med et større behov for Bibel Underviserer.
Naturligvis er det begrænset hvad man kan udrette når man kun er i et område et par måneder. Min personlig erfaring er at det tager minimum 5 år, hvis du ønsker at have nogen indvirkning i en menighed. Det tager kortere tid at hjælpe enkeltpersoner hvor du end er. Men der er nødvendigt med mere end et år hvis vil taler om at fuldføre et helt Bibel Kursus og hjælpe en elev til at få et tættere forhold til Gud.
Så gør Holiday Need Greaters overhovedet nogen forskel? Ja, de gør. De fleste "rigtige" Need Greaters har startet ud med besøger deres nye land som Holiday Need Greaters for at se om sådant et liv er noget for dem. Men vi har også gavn af disse venner, der ofrer deres ferie år efter år.
For at vise hvad de kan udrette, vil jeg gerne præsentere Johannes og Susanne Rasmussen fra Fyn. De har kommer til min menighed i de sidste 4 år. Hvert år tager de forskellige danske brødre og søstre så de er et rejseselskab på 6 forkyndere. Jeg kalder dem Team Rasmussen. Du kan se billeder af de sidste to hold ovenfor, det er dem jeg har haft mulighed for at møde.
I sidste uge havde Johannes Rasmussen en dejlig oplevelse som meget godt fremhæver hvad Holiday Need Greaters kan give her i Ghana :
Nogle oplevelser er meget stærke og fylder meget i ens sind således også det at være på byggeri en hel uge.
En meget stor broder kom og besøgte mig en aften efter arbejde, hvor han fortalte sin historie:
Han havde været i mange forskellige kirker og var endt i pinsekirken hvor hans far var ældste og hans moren var diakon. Han kom så i kontakt med brødrene og lærte hvad bibelen siger. Det kunne han jo ikke holde for sig selv, så han sagde til sin far: "skal vi ikke forkynde det der står i bibelen? Det vil hans far godt lige have en forklaring på, men som sagt så gjort - Det endte med at hele familien kom med i sandheden.
Det der gjorde udslaget for dem var det internationalt stævne i Ghana i 2009, det var første gang han havde set mennesker fra fremmede lande sammen med sorte uanset hvilket trossamfund han havde
været i. Men det han vil frem til var grunden til han kom var at sige tak.
Jeg sagde: "for hvad da?"
"jeg var ikke den første hvide der havde besøgte et kirke samfund i byen, men jeg var den første
de nogensinde havde set arbejde fysisk side om side med sorte og nu følte de at de var et internationalt samfund", for som han sagde, "Vi kommer aldrig ud og ser det, det er nød til at komme til os." Og så fik jeg en kæmpe krammer.
De øvrige medlemmer af Team Rasmussen har også lovet at skrive deres indtryk fra to måneder som Holiday Need Greaters . Men jeg tror, de har haft alt for travlt til at få det gjort. Sidst i denne uge rejser de hjem og så ser vi dem ikke før næste år. Men jeg håber at de vil emaile mig deres erfaringer. Og hvis de gør så skal jeg nok dele dem med jer.
De har skrevet en dagbog mens de har været hernede. En blog de alle sammen har bidraget til. Hvis I har lyst til at se den kan i gå ind på Ghana14.blogspot.dk
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