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“Why are you studying?”

The last few months have been full of excitement for us. We spent a couple weeks in Nairobi in January for meetings. Our team is partnering with the United Bible Societies in a series of literacy projects in Africa, so team members from five countries met to share reports and make plans for this year. We were encouraged to hear how the literacy classes had affected one of the participants, who said:
“I am so happy I can attend the literacy classes. I used to feel left out when others could read and write. I felt that I was worthless. When literacy classes started, people laughed at me: ‘You are an adult, you have children and you are married. Why are you studying?’

"I told them, ‘Because I want this with all my heart. I am learning now, and one day I will help you to learn.’”
Over two days, Megan (reflected in the whiteboard) and Alex taught Bible Society leaders to make simple books using Bloom software, discussed issues of technology for minority language communities, and concluded with a Lightning Decision Jam, a group exercise that helped the Bible societies identify how they wanted to strengthen the literacy programs. Photo by Alex.

We’re excited to be expanding the literacy programs to two new languages, the Dhimba in Namibia and the Lomwe of Malawi. Megan is conducting research to prepare for both languages, which is part of the process for setting up high-quality literacy programs that will help many women learn to read. She's also working on a research project comparing how people have made textbooks in minority languages, which will help other people who are working on similar projects.

Megan presents recent research to our colleagues in Nairobi, Kenya. Photo by Alex.

Alex's Software Design

Alex followed our two weeks of meetings in Nairobi with two weeks of meetings with the Wycliffe software team, bringing together people who are working on all kinds of Bible translation, language, and literacy software. Over our long history, our co-workers have adopted the fierce independence necessary to live in hard-to-reach places, but it means we tend not to prioritize working together. To help our developers collaborate more, Alex has been writing, persuading, networking, and building community – and it's working!   Here are some outcomes of his work:

  • Released SIL Transcriber, a desktop app that helps oral translation teams take advantage of print-oriented quality assurance tools;
  • Improved FieldWorks Language Explorer, a massive app for analyzing languages and
  • Bloom, an app for making simple books;
  • Created a community for mentoring upcoming designers in SIL; and
  • Created a design system which will be adopted by at least four apps going forward. When Alex first pitched this two years ago, his boss said it would take 10 years to make this happen!

You can pray for some of his upcoming projects:

Partnering with us

Many of you have been giving faithfully to support this ministry we get to do. Thank you!

Remaining need: $850 per month

Alex is looking to take on more responsibility in a new design position, and Wycliffe requires us to be receiving 100% of our budget in order to take a new role. We still need $850 dollars per month to get there. Would you consider donating regularly to our Wycliffe ministry? To help, you can start giving for the first time or increase what you've already been giving.

Give to our Wycliffe Ministry
Alex (second from left) and Megan (bottom left) helped United Bible Societies consider how they could apply technology to their literacy work. Photo by Alex.

True peace and flourishing for all people,

Alex and Megan

Website
Website
Email
Email
Alex
Alex
Twitter
Twitter
Megan
Megan

Alex Mercado

alex@gomercado.org
Software Design

Megan Mercado

megan@gomercado.org
Literacy and Education

Megan and Alex are donation-funded missionaries who promote and resource minority languages across Africa and worldwide. They work for SIL International and Wycliffe Bible Translators from Dallas, Texas.

ministry@gomercado.org

The photo of wildebeest was taken by Alex Mercado at Maanzoni Lodge in Machakos County, Kenya. 2019.

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