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.)