A Surprise Encounter with A Ghanaian Discovery Alumnus

When Jacques mentioned to a Bible translator in the Saxwe project that a Discovery team was coming to observe his project this year, he was told: "Oh, Discovery is a dangerous program!" Jacques was a bit taken aback and asked him to explain:

It turns out that when Josh Ham was in college, he planned to become a biologist…but after his school awarded him a $2000 scholarship to travel abroad, a few of his friends, themselves alumni of Discovery, told him about the program.  Josh decided to join the 1995 team to Ghana  (this was before we began leading Discovery trips there) and was the only male participant on the team.  Because of this, he partnered with his Discovery leader Lorin Zechiel for his 18 day village ministry assignment, and it was there in the village of Lingbinsi that God started speaking to him clearly as he interacted with a Ghanaian pastor, the literacy leader and his Discovery leader/partner.

Long story short: Josh and his family have been on the field in Benin since 2002 serving as Bible translators in 2 different projects. The Benin 2013 team enjoyed a historic moment during our  trip when Josh was one of our guest speakers during debrief: the first time a Discovery alumnus now serving in Wycliffe had not only hosted Discovery students in their Bible translation project but also addressed the whole team.  It was an inspiring time, especially since one of our 2013 Discoverers is studying biology and was challenged to consider Bible translation! 

Here's a link to a bit of Saxwe language data for anyone interested:-) http://lingweb.eva.mpg.de/numeral/Saxwe-Gbe.htm