April 2008 Studies on Paul to be Used to Train African Pastors by Nick Harris Albert Kathenya was the pastor of a large church in Nairobi when he was approached to translate the New Testament into the K-tharakan language, the language of his native people, the Tharakans. Rev. Kathenya resigned his post in Nairobi to pursue that vision. He moved to Mukothema, a small Tharakan village about three miles on the opposite side of the Thanantu River from our compound. In that small place, he has almost completed his work. The K-tharaka language is very difficult to speak and to learn and especially hard to translate, therefore very few printed works are available to the local pastors in that region. The words have markings above them that change their meanings and printers from the western world cannot print these markings; not until personal computers came around. Rev. Kathenya now has a computer that can insert the markings Recently, Rev. Kathenya was approached via e-mail by Cal McCarter telling him about Pastor Harris’ three volume study guide on the life of the Apostle Paul which he is now teaching in Loaves and Fishes, and Rev. Kathenya volunteered to translate this material into the K-tharakan language to help the pastors of the Tharaka region better understand this great man. In fact, Rev. Kathenya asked for as much material as Pastor can send, especially material on Christian apologetics, which is Pastor’s passion. The problem is this: Christian apologetics can get very complicated to interpret and to translate, so Pastor will spend the next few months making this material adaptable to the African cultural milieu. Slowly but surely, God is making it clear what He has for Ariel as we strive to influence our entire world for Christ. The people of Africa are not yet coming to us but we are going to them, training a new generation of African pastors in orthodox theology.