Give to the Max Day! CATA: Anyi Literacy, Translation, & Training

The wall and outside the CATA Center

CATA:  Anyi Literacy, Translation, & Training is a Minnesota non-profit corporation dedicated to literacy, translation, and discipleship training.  The translation work has been done by a Minnesota Ivorian, Dr. Ettien Koffi, while the literacy and training take place at the CATA Ivory Coast Center, which is located in a small village in the Ivory Coast.  

Our nonprofit serves three major areas in the central eastern region of the Ivory Coast in West Africa. There are nearly One Million people who speak Anyi and our literacy classes are in nearly 100 villages.  In 2017, the New Testament was completed and dedicated to the Christian communities in the same areas where our literacy programs are active.

CATA:  ALTT raises funds to support the three major legs of our nonprofit:

1. Literacy programs teach people in the Anyi speaking areas of the Ivory Coast how to read and write in the Anyi language. 
2. Translators produce materials in the Anyi Language to use for teaching and training. 
3. We train lay preachers and local leaders in Christian living principles, public health, social, economic, and environmental developmental practices that will benefit the Anyi communities in rural areas.

Anyi language teachers, local village church pastors, and church lay people come to the CATA Center for teacher training and Christian Discipleship Training Seminars.  They stay for free and are provided with meals.  However, with only room for two women, we need more space.  People come from long distances and when they cannot stay at CATA, it is very difficult for them to attend trainings.  One of our major fundraising project is to provide that room for women leaders.

Two of the CATA Center buildings

In addition, it costs about $1,000 for a single classroom to operate for one year and less than $20 per year to support one person in the CATA:  ALTT program to learn to read and write.  We have more than 4,000 people enrolled in nearly 100 literacy classrooms in three counties in the Ivory Coast.

Please consider joining with us to make these opportunities a reality for the Anyi people of the Ivory Coast by giving through Give to the Max Day!  Our Matching Grant has gained momentum! 

To contribute to CATA:  ALTT's Matching Grant go to https://www.givemn.org/organization/Cata.

Ivory Coast Mission Trip Prayer Requets

Dr. Ettien Koffi is a professor of linguistics at St. Cloud State University.  Until Ettien began, the language for the Anyi people in Cote d’Ivoire was an oral language only and was unwritten.  Ettien created a written language, and he began the translation of the New Testament into Anyi in 1991.  Translation with final edits was complete in 2016!  Since 1997, Ettien’s brother, Yable, has been on the Cote d’Ivoire end of the Anyi Literacy Project running the literacy center and coordinating the learning and teaching of adults to read in Anyi.  Currently, there are 27 villages with classrooms, with over three thousand adults learning to read!  The more advanced adult students have been reading the Parables of Jesus and various health-related brochures that have been translated into Anyi.  (For more information on the Anyi Literacy Project, please go here.)

For this mission trip, we will be leaving Tuesday evening, June 13th, and flying from Minneapolis to Paris to Abidjan (Cote d’Ivoire), arriving Wednesday evening, June 14th.  We will be in Cote d’Ivoire until Monday night, June 26th, a total of 12 days in Cote d’Ivoire.  While we are there, we will have three main outreach and ministry opportunities:  New Testament dedication ceremonies, youth basketball camp, and painting the literacy center.

Prayer Requests:

First, the printed New Testaments have shipped from South Korea, and the Bibles are estimated to arrive in Cote d’Ivoire April 24th!  Please pray for the logistics around the shipping itself, as well as the import of goods at the port in Abidjan, meeting local codes, and successful applications to clear the goods. 

Second, Yable, Jules (friend of Ettien and father of one of our group going on the trip), and committees of the church leaders and teachers in each area are coordinating the dedication ceremonies.  There will be three ceremonies taking place in three counties where the largest numbers of villages with classrooms are located.  Please pray for the coordination of those events. 

In addition, another brother of Ettien’s is a pastor in Paris, and he will be coming to lead the dedication ceremonies.  It will be an evangelical outreach event, and they are planning to expect between 3,000 and 5,000 people to attend each ceremony, including government officials.  Please pray for Ettien’s brother, as well as those who will be attending, that the word of God will be clear and hearts will be changed. 

Third, Jeremy Koffi, a junior at St. Cloud State University, is planning and organizing the basketball camp.  We are expecting 100 kids to participate in the camp, around the age of 14.  In addition, the local high school has two basketball teams that will also be getting some “tips” on improving their game.  Some of the more sports-gifted individuals will be doing the “teaching” or leading of the camp, and the rest of us will be taking photos, organizing equipment, and providing and organizing food and beverages.  Pleas pray for the kids that come to the camp and the high school basketball teams, that they would improve their game, have fun, but also clearly hear and see the love of God.

Fourth, one of Ettien’s distant cousins will be our lead on our service project to paint the Literacy Center.  Please pray that the paint and tools will be ready and available and that the job we do will help to continue to maintain the Literacy building.

Finally, Ettien, Yable, and Jules are working through the rest of the details for our transportation and stay.  Please pray for their efforts, as well as for our safety while we are in Cote d’Ivoire.

Thanks so much!

Merry Christmas

"The Son of God became man to enable men to become the sons of God."

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity