Motorcycle Mama

Nana Roberta went to Ghana in 1973 - 74 to be a teacher to missionary children. She was 58 years old. For three months she lived in a village with Dr. Norman and Barbara Price to tutor their children. She also helped at the Tamcliffe school where she taught two of the Bakker children. She had no problems hopping on a motor scooter and riding around the village. She was spunky, to say the least.

Dr Mike Cahill said . . .

A saint has truly passed to glory. I'd like to share a few stories that illustrate Roberta's servant heart. And I would definitely be interested in getting a copy of these compilations.

ONE

After our first dry season in our village assignment in Ghana (June 1987), Ginia and I were physically and emotionally wiped out, ready for a vacation. With our year and a half year old Deborah, we started out from Tamale early in the morning in our pickup truck, heading for the capital of Accra. Just a couple miles out of Tamale, a tractor swerved in front of us as we were barreling down the highway, and with no time to react, we hit it head on. We came to rest against a tree by the side of the road, with me spitting out teeth fragments, and Ginia semi-conscious and bleeding from a head wound. (As for Deborah, we had been feeding her in the front and had less than 10 seconds before the collision, strapped her in her seat in the back. She was unhurt.) A passing truck took us to the Tamale hospital, where we got sewed up and ensconced in a hospital room.

The hospital did not provide food or water or sheets or pillows on the beds. Not too much later, Roberta showed up with some food and brand new bed sheets, still in the package! Blue for me, pink for Ginia! She washed the blood off Ginia's head and helped her get up when needed (Ginia was so severely bruised that she could barely move, and I wasn't in much better shape). Then she rolled out her sleeping mat and announced she would sleep on our hospital room floor that night, so if we needed anything, she'd be there. When we protested that she wouldn't get any sleep under those circumstances, she gruffly replied "Oh, I can sleep tomorrow!" So she stayed with us throughout that first painful night after our accident -- and took care of us.

TWO

In 1990, Ginia and I had been taking care of some other GILLBT folks with hepatitis, and we got it too. But we were scheduled to fly out to the USA for furlough, and when flight time came, we were still pretty weak, not really in shape to handle our mentally-retarded, 2-year-old second daughter Laura, on a long plane trip. Roberta was in Accra at the time, and announced she would fly with us the first leg of the flight to Switzerland, and take care of Laura on the way so we could get some rest. "I've got to visit some friends in Switzerland anyway," she added. So she did. And that extra rest we got helped fortify us to go the second leg of the trip to the USA.

THREE

The hardest academic exercise I did in Ghana was to put together the first-ever Koma primer, in about 1992. I struggled! Without Roberta, it would have dragged on forever. As a literacy consultant, she had a much better grasp of how the primer was to be laid out. I knew Koma, but she knew what questions to ask to draw out the relevant knowledge I had. And so the Koma people got a start on reading their language for the first time.

(Dr. Mike and Ginia Cahill worked on a translation in Ghana but before it was completed needed to return to the states due to heath issues of one of their children. The Koma New Testament was completed by a Ghanaian translator and was recently dedicated. Mike is now the SIL International Linguistics Coordinator based in Dallas.)

Alexander Dotse said . . .

Greetings from Ghana! I have read with much 'joy' the home call of our dear mother. She is gone home! She has played her part in building the Kingdom of God, so she must definitely go home to rest. I have no shade of doubt in my mind that she is with the Lord hence my use of the word 'joy'.

Nana Roberta Hampton has left her footprints in the historical soils of GILLBT. Her sacrifice and work has brought light in the dark lives of many people in Ghana. These souls will be among her jewels in heaven. I have worked very closely with Nana Roberta for only four weeks but she succeeded in infesting' me with so much zeal and commitment that I will forever be encouraged to do any work without complaining.

I worked with her, living in the same Hotel at Kumasi, to develop three primers for the Esahie Language Group of Ghana. By then I was a literacy-specialist-in-training with GILLBT. As a result of her training, I became the GILLBT representative on a Bible Society team that gave a trainer-of-trainers course to Esahie (Sewhi) language staff who were being prepared for an adult literacy program among their people. Today the Esahie people have a New Testament and literacy classes are being held throughout the language community to enable them read the Gospel.

Nana Roberta's contribution to this has been immense. She developed the Primers (Understanding With your Eyes) that are being used. Surely, hers was a life profitably lived helping others to be liberated from darkness and ignorance into the light of Our dear Lord, Jesus Christ!

She is resting in peace, awaiting the day of the greatest reunion of homecoming of all the saints.

Celebrating the useful life of a saint!

(Alexander Dotse, a Ghanaian, is the Church Relations Officer for GILLBT.)

Dr Andy Ring said . . .

I spent many wonderful weeks with Roberta Hampton being trained and using her literacy methods to train others during her twenty-two years in Ghana.

We owe our Lelemi Literacy materials to Nana Roberta.

While I was Director of the Ghana Institute of Linguistics, Literacy and Bible Translation (GILLBT) in the latter half of the 1980s, Roberta helped me develop and lead a series of courses for developing an editorial awareness among mother tongue language workers. We worked with 19 languages in Ghana in the space of three years.

Roberta was the guiding force behind the development of literacy primers in 22 languages of Ghana. I've documented this earlier, but it was her push to enable local teachers to use these materials effectively that led to her producing a locally comprehensible theory of reading that underpinned her series of guide books known as “Understanding with Your Eyes”. These have been used for the last 30 years in training literacy facilitators for GILLBT's literacy program among 35 of Ghana's 60 languages.

GILLBT's literacy program was given UNESCO's highest award for Literature Development in African languages, the Nessim-Habif Award of . This is an award given every eight years, since the mid-50s, which for the first time was given to a non-governmental organization, GILLBT. I can say confidently that Nana Roberta, in her 22 years of "retirement" service to Ghana - from age 63 to 85, played a big part in bringing GILLBT's many thousands of pieces of literature to Ghana's newly trained readers.

We knew Nana Roberta as the sparkling voice that responded to “How are you?” with, "I'm PRAISING THE LORD!" Whenever she talked, she flashed her megawatt smile. In front of a class of Ghanaian literacy workers she was the patient and meticulous instructor requiring people to come to the blackboard and demonstrate it themselves.

How we loved her and welcomed her to our language projects. Her crown of silver hair was a marvel to our Ghanaian colleagues, an open door—even as a woman—to speak before chiefs. Our children loved her cheerfulness as she lived with us and joined in our singing grace at mealtimes during the training sessions.

Independent, no—God-dependant to the end, Roberta kept coming back to Ghana, out of retirement, whenever we called for a literacy specialist. Her last assignment was to help produce the Sefwi Literacy Primers, for a language community of nearly half a million people, who’s New Testament was being completed by a fraternal Bible translation organization, but who had no literacy underway to help the community learn to read their new Scriptures. Roberta came back at our invitation in her 85th year to work with our literacy specialist-in-training, Alex Dotse, to meet this need over a period of four months.

How we love your memory dear, Nana Roberta. You have fought the good fight, and now you have entered your rest. You lived and showed that, "This world is not my home." We look forward to joining you in the heavenly choir on which you seemed to always have your eye set. May God bring us together again, for we know - His time is the best!

Your admirer,

(Dr. Andy and Kate Ring did a NT translation in Ghana and now live in Lancaster, PA. Andy takes two or three trips to Ghana each year to help facilitate a multiple language projects.)

Rod Casali said . . .

Nana Roberta was an amazing person and tremendous example to all of us in Ghana. One of the things that impressed me most about her, which I will always remember, is how she would bring concerns to the Lord in prayer. I can remember talking to her in her office in Tamale about some language project issue, probably something to do with orthography / phonology, and before I realized what was happening she' be praying aloud about it. It took me a moment before I even realized that she was talking to the Lord and not me! She really believed in the power of prayer; for her it was always a first resort in dealing with needs / problems, and not a last resort.

(Rod and Ellen Casali worked in Ghana as translators. Rod is currently teaching linguistics at our Canada Institute of Linguistics Vancouver BC.)

Dr Jean Young said . . .

My favorite Nana Roberta story occurred during the gathering for her 80th birthday and Thanksgiving at the end of November 1994 at GILLBT Guest House in Tamale. As is common at such gatherings, someone was consulting me and this time it was Nana Roberta.

Nana Roberta was complaining that she had been fighting a sinus infection for the previous two weeks. She couldn't understand why.

In the previous 2 weeks she had been on trek. First someone sent her to a village in a ‘lorry’ (a public bus/van traveling between villages), then someone else sent her to the riverside on a ‘moto’ (motorcycle) , then she crossed a river by canoe, then someone else picked her on either a ‘moto’ or a bicycle on the other side. She did her literacy work, stayed in the village for a few days, and then reversed the process to return to Tamale. Ralph Von Qualen, a Lutheran agric missionary from Nasawan, listened to this recital and then confided in me afterwards that listening to Nana Roberta made him feel like a missionary wimp.

Ralph was nearly killed by gun-toting Burkinabe bandits who attacked his compound in 1990. Only his wife's quick driving and the presence of an experienced trauma surgeon at Nalerigu saved Ralph's life. Even after that, the Von Qualens still returned to Ghana. So for Ralph to say that Nana Roberta made him feel wimpy was really quite something.

One of the most delightful things about Nana Roberta's messages was that she always closed them "rejoicing in Jesus!" and she would assure us that she would pray for us "shelli kam za." (Dagbani for "forever and ever.") We rejoice that she has been released, and we are certain that she IS praying for us forever and ever.

Give the family our love and tell them that Konkombas are mourning with them.

(Jean is a medical doctor in Ghana along with her husband Bob (he is not a doctor). They are not with Wycliffe but Jean has helped many of our Wycliffe members.)