OSCA
FIFTY YEARS A MISSIONARY IN WEST AFRICA
COURAGE AND PERSEVERANCE IN A HOSTILE ENVIRONMENT
TOP : THIS ARTICLE ABOUT ROSS APPEARED ON PAGE 9 OF THE MAY 1980 EDITION OF GREAT SCOT . ABOVE : ROSS JONES (’ 58 ) AT WORK ELICITING VOCABULARY FOR THE SHANGA LANGUAGE DICTIONARY IN 2011 .
From the age of 13 , Ross Jones (’ 58 ) had aspired to be a pharmacist . Hailing from Maffra , Ross was a boarder in Arthur Robinson House at Scotch from 1955 to 1958 , and after qualifying as a pharmaceutical chemist , he made a momentous decision – to abandon pharmacy and take up studies at the Melbourne Bible Institute .
Ross really had no idea where those studies would take him , but before long he felt called by God to serve in West Africa . After two intensive linguistic courses ( and later a PhD in Linguistics from Monash University ), and then spending nine months in France enhancing his schoolboy French , in 1969 Ross arrived in Dahomey ( now modern-day Benin , a French-speaking former colony of France ).
There he first lived among the Boko people , most of whom were subsistence farmers . Working with the Sudan Interior Mission , now called Serving in Mission , Ross began his ministry of evangelism , literacy and Bible translation among the Boko people .
Boko is spoken by approximately 150,000 people in Benin and Nigeria , and Ross led a Boko Bible translation team . The Boko language contains short words , and so the resulting Boko Bible is one of the shortest Bible texts in the world – it is only about two-thirds the length of an English Bible .
By 2020 there were more than 40 churches and 5000 Christians with an annual growth rate of 10 per cent , half biological and half conversions from the Muslim community . There are more than 40 pastors , a Bible school , bookshops , and regular radio programs .
But for Ross that was only the beginning . Completing his work in Benin , Ross started to adapt the Boko Bible to two related dialects in Nigeria , at the same time supporting local governments in vernacular literacy programs .
By the time he retired , Ross had spent 50 years as a missionary and a Bible translator in West Africa . In that time he remarkably analysed and wrote the grammar of six languages , translated the scriptures and compiled dictionaries for each of the languages . All of this was accomplished in the midst of an unfriendly Islamic environment .
Ross now lives in Melbourne and recently published an autobiography , Aspires to Lofty Heights , which tells the story of his perseverance and steadfast determination to bring the Gospel to the people of West Africa . Ross has also written two other books resulting from his Bible translation work : The Kingdom from God – Unlocking the Secrets , and Apocalyptic Terror and Millennial Glory . These books are available from Amazon , author : Ross McCallum Jones .
Ross married Mildred Joy ( Joy ) Horn in Murrumbeena Baptist Church on 5 February 1972 . Sadly , Joy died in 2009 after much suffering from severe rheumatoid arthritis . Ross has four boys , all of whom attended Scotch – Andrew (’ 90 ), Paul (’ 92 ), Matthew (’ 94 ) and Peter (’ 96 ) and 12 grandchildren . He praises God for giving him such an interesting , adventurous , and fulfilling life .
DAVID ASHTON (' 65 )
82 Great Scot Issue 163 – September 2021