Our Story  

We, Scott & Vicky Satre, are a Wycliffe couple that met during our SIL training in Dallas. Scott is from Minnesota and Vicky from western New York, but Dallas is our common home ground. That’s where Jessica (20 yrs.), our oldest child, was born.

We came to our most recent furlough (2009-10) after having worked in Cameroon for four terms now, first arriving in September 1992.  Our two younger children – Joel (16 yrs. on Oct. 28 '09) and Amanda (13 yrs.) – were both born in Yaounde, the capital of Cameroon. All three kids have lived most of their lives here, far from the US. To them, it is normal to speak more than one language and the tropics are not exotic, they’re just home.

Joys we seen along the way include our assignment and allocation to the Ngomba language project in the West Province of Cameroon. We first moved to the Ndaa village of Bamendjinda in May 1994. (FYI: Ndaa is the name of the people group that speaks the Ngomba language.) Scott had a great sense of accomplishment when, in 1998, he put into writing a proposal for writing Ngomba – alphabet, tone marks and even special punctuation. The Ngomba language committee finally approved it in March 2003. Along with homeschooling Jessica and then Joel, Vicky got involved in the women’s group at Mafofa Church and one summer put on a neighborhood VBS with their help.

In our lastest term, 2006-2009, partnering with CABTAL, we have seen more literacy materials published, a VCD of parables from Luke 15 produced and the publication and dedication (Dec. 2008) of Luke's gospel in Ngomba. Luke's gospel was the basis for the Jesus film script. The recording of Ngomba actors for dubbing the film into Ngomba was completed and we look forward to seeing fruit in the lives of the Ndaa people as the film is shown and the DVD sold.

On the negative side, we have experienced life-threatening bouts of malaria, car accidents, break-ins to our home that left us feeling violated and insecure for a while and many other minor, annoying inconveniences. November 2007 Scott was gravely ill with malaria, typhoid and a lung infection that kept him in bed for several weeks. God has faithfully seen us through them all - the joys and the sorrows. We consider the illnesses, the accidents, the break-ins, etc., all a part of the cost of following God’s will for our lives. And we believe, as the old chorus says, “it will be worth it all when we see Jesus.”

One of the hardest adjustments came in July 2002, when we moved into Yaounde, the location of SIL Cameroon’s headquarters. We did this to put Jessica into Rain Forest International School and Joel into the American School of Yaounde. We had lived in Bamendjinda for six years and it was a heart-wrenching experience to leave. Even so, we did not left the Ngomba project as Scott continued to “commute” to the Ndaa area (a 4 to 5 hour drive one way) an average of one week per month. The separation was tough but we managed to keep in touch by cell-phone. (This modern marvel came to Cameroon in the year 2000, while we were on furlough.)

When we moved into Yaounde, Scott was asked to work part-time in the Training Dept. He worked as a linguistic advisor for two languages – Tunen and Ngie – in the Foundations for Writing series of courses. These courses have been conceived in the spirit of Vision 2025, which has as a goal the starting of work in every language that needs Bible translation by the year 2025. This meant more travel for Scott to take part in courses in the Northwest Provincial capital Bamenda and to work with the Ngie there and in their major town, Andek. In other words, his time away from Yaounde was divided between working on Ngomba and working on Ngie. Some fruit has come from that work as orthography statements (alphabet proposals) for both languages have been drafted and test literacy materials have been produced. The 2006-09 term saw CABTAL take up the Tunen project and Scott moved on to mentoring the Tuki team through the grammar part of the foundations series and trips to their village in the Centre Region rather than the Northwest.

Vicky kept busy holding down the fort in Yaounde, homeschooling Amanda and keeping  the other two on track in their studies. She was also a branch hostess, making sure that vacated apartments got cleaned, their linens washed and that they were restocked with a few staples before the next tenants (our colleagues) move in. Drawing on her work experience at the library in Liverpool, NY, she also put in one afternoon a week in the Educational Resource Center (homeschoolers' library). For this most recent term Mandy was in the PRS (Parent-Run School) , so Vicky worked four days a week in the ERC and taught a couple subjects to the 2nd graders. And, like many of you, we also had to chauffeur our kids to various practices, lessons and events. This  task was made more difficult for Vicky when Scott was out of town on a trip with our vehicle!

The Ngomba project has been rough in that, while people are not ashamed of their language and some really want the Bible in it, community involvement in the project has been hard to come by. Economics may be one factor but the spiritual condition of the people is perhaps the major one. The Ndaa are a people steeped in ancestor worship and, frankly, most of them are indifferent to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Many probably still see Christ as “the white man’s God” and the Bible as a foreign book. The great spiritual need of the Ndaa stirs our hearts to pray, but not nearly as much as our Heavenly Father must long over them. This term, some translation has been done, though funds have been lacking to publish much. Lord willing, we will have the joy next term of beginning to draft the New Testament into Ngomba with a couple of Ndaa men who have been trained in translation principles. Please pray with us for the Ndaa, Tunen, Ngie and Tuki peoples. May the Lord grant that they hunger for His Word and that their hunger will be satisfied!