LuKonjo
The luKonjo language also called Lhukonzo, oluKonjo and Konzo is spoken mainly in Uganda.
Gospel of Mark
Walter Edwin Owen (1879-1945) translated the Gospel of Mark as: “Enjiri Nkokuyahandikawa Marako”. This is the first Scripture in oluKonjo. It was published by the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS) in 1914.
Walter Edwin Owen
Walter Edwin Owen was born in Birmingham in 1879 but grew up in Belfast. In 1903, he joined the Anglican Church Missionary Society (CMS) at their office in Belfast.
In 1904, he was ordained as a deacon in the Church of England, and was sent to Africa to work under Bishop Alfred Tucker in Uganda. In 1905, he was ordained as a priest by the Bishop of Uganda. In 1907, he married Isobel Barnes, who died in England in 1910.
In 1910, he went to work in Toro in westen Uganda, where he met fellow missionary Lucy Olive Walton, who he married in 1911. Here he mearnt the oluKonjo languange and translated the Gospel of Mark.
In 1918, Owen was appointed Anglican Archdeacon of Kavirondo in western Kenya, which was then part of the diocese of Uganda.
He died in 1945 aged 66, and is buried in Kenya. Archdeacon Owen was a sympathetic man who stood up for the rights of Africans in Kenya. After he died a pillar was erected in his memory in Kisumu, western Kenya, with a plaque which reads: “He devoted his life fearlessly to the fight for justice for all and to the care of the sick and th needy”.
Digital Edition
The oluKonjo Gospel of Mark was digitised with the help of MissionAssist, for the Bible Society of Uganda in 2024. It was digitised using an orginal copy at the Foreign Bible Society (BFBS) archives at Cambridge University in England.
