Translator Training

Greetings from the town of Wabag, where just yesterday we officially launched the Enga Bible translation project (more about that next month)!

Over the past five weeks, we have been working with nine Enga speakers from five different denominations to learn about translation methods and principles. In practice work, we encountered challenges like how to translate 'the sea was rough' and 'he paddled a canoe'. These are foreign concepts since the Enga people live nowhere near the ocean and rarely ever see a canoe. After long discussions, we settled on 'the sea flopped around' (the same verb is used to describe what a fish out of water does) and 'he drove (literally: rope held) a ship'. The latter translation is based on the Engan practice of tying a rope to a fallen tree to drag (or drive) it to another location. The person holding the rope is the one who is 'driving' or 'steering' the tree. Enga people use the borrowed word 'ship' for any form of water transportation.

The Engan trainees enjoyed discovering their own language. While they are masters of speaking their own language, they have never really studied it before to determine what all of the little bits and pieces of their language mean. As they began considering the literal English translations of their language, they would laugh. They never realized just how different Enga is from English. Consider for example, the Enga translation of Genesis 22:2. The NIV Bible reads:

Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.”

The literal word-for-word Enga translation reads:

That after God speaking sitting, "Your son one only, Isaac, you love feeling that one taking Moriah land the to go. Having gone he sacrifice becoming burning let him be consumed by fire saying mountain a I show will do the on cook," said.

Or to put it in standard English grammar (which still sounds awkward):

After that, God while (literally: sitting) speaking said, "Taking your one [and] only son Isaac, that one, go to the land [of] Moriah. Having gone, [on] a mountain I will show [you], at that [place], cook [him] saying, 'burning [and] becoming [a] sacrifice, let him be consumed by fire."

As you can see, translation work is not easy! Please pray for us as we begin work on the Enga New Testament over the coming months, and praise God that the Enga Bible translation project is now officially underway!

To view a video of some highlights of the five-week Translators' Training Course, please click here.

Can Anything Good Come From Immi?

In the book of John, when Nathanael heard where Jesus was from he asked, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” The Lord laid a similar question on our hearts during our time in the village of Immi.

"Can anything good come from Immi?” That is the question the Lord laid on my (Adam’s) heart one Sunday afternoon during our time in the village. Nathanael had asked a similar question when he heard where Jesus was from. “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” he asked. Surely the Messiah should come from a better place than that!

Immi is considered to be one of the worst villages in Enga Province, and the Engan people are one of the most feared and disliked people groups in all of Papua New Guinea. So there is not much of an expectation that anything good would ever come out of Immi. In Tok Pisin they would call it a ‘rubis ples’, which means ‘rubbish place’.

Yet the Lord gave me an opportunity to speak in the Immi Assembly of God Church on two occasions and share what He had laid on my heart to encourage them. I told the people that, just like Immi, Nazareth was considered a ‘rubbish place’, where nothing good ever happened. Yet just as God brought up the Savior of the world from Nazareth, God wants to bring up pastors and Christian leaders from Immi. I told the people that God wants to change Immi from a place where nothing good ever happens to a model village, where people live lives of love and forgiveness based on God’s Word.

On the occasions I had to preach in Immi and in Wabag town, we saw seven people respond to an invitation to give their lives to Christ, and I believe many more felt the tug of the Holy Spirit upon their hearts. And when the people have access to God’s Word in Enga, I know that God is going to continue to transform Immi, and all of Enga, into a place where good things happen!



A look at what we have been doing since our time in the village of Immi...

Language Learning

During our time in the village of Immi, we didn’t have any formal language learning sessions, yet we were learning all the time. In particular, a man named Sai came almost everyday to just sit and talk with us, and he almost always spoke to us in Enga. By the end of our five weeks, I (Adam) could understand most of what Sai said because he very patiently spoke slowly and clearly for me. Since returning to Ukarumpa, I have been able to build upon my informal learning from the village and make substantial progress toward understanding how Enga verbs are conjugated and how the syntax (or sentence structure) works.

Lae Regional Center Managers

Because we are new members of Wycliffe/SIL in Papua New Guinea, we were not able to vote at the biannual conference held in March. Instead, we managed the regional center in the coastal city of Lae for three weeks during the conference. As temporary managers we did not have a lot of duties, and so most of Adam’s time was spent on language learning. We enjoyed being in a bigger city where we could actually go to a sit-down restaurant and buy all sorts of western items at the grocery store! Yet on the trip back home, one of our greatest fears was realized when the Lae center pickup truck that we were driving back to Ukarumpa broke down in the middle of nowhere. We were stranded on the side of the road for three and a half hours before missionaries from the Ukarumpa Auto Shop came to rescue us. Praise God that a local man who sold diesel in a little roadside hut took care of us and even provided us some fresh coconuts so that we could stay hydrated in a very hot place!

Translators’ Training Course

We are now in the second week of the five-week long Translators’ Training Course (TTC). We have a team of nine Enga speakers participating in this training, where they are acquiring the basic tools and skills they need to translate the Bible. It is one of the largest groups ever to complete TTC. Adam is mentoring half of the group while Martha and Maniosa Yakasa (the lead Enga translator) are mentoring the other half. Please pray that the the trainees will be well-equipped to translate the Word of God into the Enga language.

Choosing Forgiveness

"I was just a little boy when they killed my father," Max told me during our five-week stay in the village of Immi. When I asked Max how old he was when his father was killed, he said that he wasn't sure. He doesn't know the date of his birth. All he knows is that he was about the age of our oldest son Jacob (who is seven) when his father was killed in 2000 during tribal fighting. That would mean that Max is now about 20 years old. According to traditional customs, Max now has the "right" to exact revenge upon the tribe who killed his father, and because he is such a big, strong, young man, those people are very much afraid of him.

Max, however, is a Christian. And as a Christian, he has forfeited his "right" to get revenge upon the people who killed his father. Instead, when he has seen people from that tribe out in the marketplace he has given them food as a way to let them know that he is not going to pay them back for what they did to his father. In Papua New Guinea, and especially among the Engan people, payback killings are a way of life, and so it is extremely rare for a person to forgive rather than to get revenge. But Max understands that revenge is not a "right" but a sin, and that it is his duty as a Christian to love and pray for his enemies.

Max became one of our closest friends during our five weeks in Immi. We saw him nearly every day, and we shared life together eating sweet potato, learning Enga, going on walks, and even going spear fishing. Max felt personally responsible for ensuring that we were safe during our time in Immi and would sometimes sleep outside of our house at night to make sure nothing happened.

Max is one of the few people in Immi who has had the opportunity to go to school and learn English. He dreams of one day becoming a pastor, and is trusting God to provide finances for him to finish his education. And so on our last Sunday in Immi, we were able to honor Max in front of the Immi Assembly of God Church and present him with an English Bible. It will be a challenge for him to understand it well because English is not his first language, but it is a start. I look forward to the day when I can present him with the Enga New Testament!

If you would like to hear Max sing an Enga worship song that he wrote, please click here. It is called Jisasa Epea, which means Jesus Came.

Warrior Turned Preacher

During our five weeks in the village of Immi, we met a man whose story helped us understand just how desperately the people of Enga need the Word of God in their own language. (For a lighter video of our five weeks in Immi, please click here.

I liked Joseph (not his real name) as soon as I met him. He came across as kind, quiet, gentle, respectful, and polite. Anytime we needed anything, he was always ready to help us. He quickly became one of our friends, and he always spoke to us in Enga. Yet he spoke slowly so that we could understand, and he always patiently listened and helped me (Adam) as I responded to him in my broken Enga.

Because of Joseph's personality, I was a bit shocked one day as we rode a bus into town and he pointed out to me villages in neighboring tribes that he had burned to the ground. From 1972 until 2005, Immi had been plagued by tribal fighting, and we came to discover that Joseph was their best warrior who had killed many people among their enemies. In Engan terms, he was "a cassowary" who always went to the "teeth of the fight" (or a hero who always fought on the front lines). He was even hired out across the province as a mercenary to fight battles for other tribes. Somehow during all of those years of fighting, Joseph was one of the few men from Immi who was not killed.

Then three years ago, when Darren Terros came to pastor the Assembly of God Church in Immi, Joseph began turning his life over to Christ. Pastor Darren is a well-educated man who could have chosen many more desirable church locations to become a pastor. But he felt the Lord leading him to Immi. On his first Sunday as pastor, there was only a small handful of people in attendance and the total offering was just eight toea (forty cents). Nevertheless, Pastor Darren served where he felt the Lord was calling him and began reaching out to people like Joseph. Now Joseph is one of the leaders of the Immi Assembly of God Church and is currently serving as the Assistant Pastor.

On our last Sunday in Immi, I had the privilege of presenting gifts to three of the men who had helped us, looked out for us, and become our good friends. Joseph was one of the three. I presented each one of them an axe or machete and a Bible. First I asked them to hold up the axe or machete. Then I addressed the entire congregation and said, "Before, your lives were based on weapons like these and you used them to kill and destroy." Then I had the three men hold up their Bibles and I said to the congregation, "Now your lives are based on the Word of God, and these axes and machetes that you used to use to kill and destroy will now be used to build new houses and build a new life based on the Word of God."

Joseph had never owned a Bible before. Because there is no Enga Bible yet, I gave him a Tok Pisin Bible instead. He can barely read it. He reads one word at a time with a long pause between each word as he tries to make out the next word. What he really needs is an audio recording of the Bible in Enga, which of course does not exist yet. Nevertheless, after the presentation he went to the pulpit to say a few words. As he tried to speak, tears came streaming down his face as he clutched his Bible and kept staring down at it. He had difficulty speaking because of the emotion he felt. It was evident that God was truly at work in his life. I felt incredibly privileged to be able to encourage him and to witness this moment in his life.

On the last day of our five weeks in Immi, Joseph accompanied us to the Wapenamanda airstrip to say goodbye. As we were riding in the car, he and some of the other men pointed out places along the road where fighting had happened and where people had been killed. Then as we passed a prominent Christian international school, Joseph told us that he had once burned down the school's administrative offices and had also at that time been planning on killing a couple of American students at the school.

I turned my head away and pretended not to understand what I was hearing. I felt anger welling up inside of me. It's one thing to burn down the houses of your enemies, but why in the world would you burn down the office complex of one of the best schools in the province and try to kill innocent children. I had heard on our previous trip to Enga about the school's offices being burned down. It was a very big deal when it happened. I couldn't believe that the man who did it was sitting in the car with me and had become one of my good friends. I wanted to lash out and say, "What did that school ever do to you that made you want to burn it down?" but I held my tongue and sought wisdom from the Lord as to how to respond.

Before long Pastor Darren, who was also in the car (and who was also very angry to learn about this), tried to help me understand the mindset of people like Joseph before he knew Christ. They knew nothing about God, and they had been around fighting all of their lives. They viewed tribal fighting much in the same way that Americans view war. In a war, you destroy any resources of the enemy that provide aid to the enemy. The school provided jobs for the neighboring tribe, including income that could be used to buy guns and bullets. Plus the school brought prestige to the tribe and the possibility of other development projects in the future. So in the pre-Christian Enga mindset, the obvious thing to do if you are at war is to burn down that resource so that it can no longer aid the enemy.

It was easy for me to overlook Joseph's past wrongs when I thought he was just burning down the bush houses of his enemies, but now I was truly conflicted in my spirit about how I should respond. But I slowly realized that when Christ died on the cross, he died for ALL of our sins, even the most heinous crimes, and that I too must forgive Joseph and embrace him as the brother in Christ that he had now become. So as we said our final goodbyes, I gave Joseph a hug as a way to let him (and myself) know that I cared for him and accepted him despite anything he had done in his past.

But Joseph is just one man among the more than 300,000 people in Enga province. How many more are out there who still know nothing about God and who continue to fight because it is the only way they know? How many more like Joseph struggle to read and understand God's Word in Tok Pisin? How many more lives would be changed if everyone had access to an audio recording of the Word of God in Enga? The need for the Word of God in Enga cannot be understated!

Seven Ways to Say 'Is'

The Enga language is very challenging for English speakers to learn. One of the biggest challenges is figuring out which of the seven words for ‘is’ to use in any given situation.

Greetings from the village of Immi in Enga Province, Papua New Guinea! We are nearing the end of our five-week stay here, and we have enjoyed the opportunity to really dive in to learning the language and culture of Enga.

One of the most challenging aspects of the Enga language to master has been the word ‘is’. You would think such a basic word would be easy, but we have discovered that there are seven ways to say ‘is’, which is based on how Engan people perceive different beings and things.

For example, if you want to say, “A man is outside,” you must say, “A man standsoutside.” But if you want to say, “A woman is outside,” you must say, “A woman sitsoutside.” That is because in Engan culture men are usually standing and women are usually sitting. If you want to say, “A baby is outside,” you must say, “A baby liesoutside.” Of course babies are usually lying down.

If you want to say, “There is a river,” you must say, “A river comes.” To say, “There are mushrooms in the forest,” you would say, “Mushrooms hang in the forest.” To say, “There are clouds in the sky,” you use the same Enga word that means ‘to hear’. (I haven’t figured that one out yet!) Finally, to describe the existence of body parts, you use the word that means ‘to carry’.

Now to make matters worse, if you want to say, “There is a woman,” and you see that she is actually standing and not sitting, then you can’t say, “A woman sits.” You must say, “A woman stands.”

It is clear that the Engan people perceive the world differently than we do, but we rejoice that God can use those differences to make His Word become alive for all!

I have encountered similar reactions all over town whenever I speak in Enga. When I stop to speak with someone in town, I soon have a crowd of people around me who are fascinated to hear a ‘kone’ speaking Enga! People have literally squealed with joy at hearing me speak Enga!

The reactions are not the same when we speak in Tok Pisin, which is the main trade language of Papua New Guinea. Many foreigners can speak Tok Pisin. But there are few foreigners that take the time to learn Enga!

Now, if people get that excited to hear a ‘kone’ speaking a few words of broken Enga, imagine how excited they will be to hear the very word of God in Enga! Learning someone’s language tells them that you value them, and I believe that when people hear the Word of God in their own language, they will experience the love of God in a unique and powerful way!


A look at some other ways in which the Enga language differs significantly from English...

Sensing
I (Adam) was sitting with Ruben, my language guide, one day when I heard pigs squealing. So I said, “Mena dupa kaa lelyamino” (The pigs are squealing). I was surprised when he corrected me and said, “Mena dupa kaa lalumino” (I sense that the pigs are squealing). Because I could not actually see the pigs, I could not plainly state that pigs were squealing. Rather, I had to use a form of the verb indicating that I sensed (in this case by hearing) that pigs were squealing. Engan culture must value the difference between eye-witness testimony and hearsay!

Wanting
There is no single word in Enga for the English word ‘want’. In order to say, “I want to go home,” you would say, “Namba andaka patoo lao masilyo,” which literally means, “I am thinking, saying, ‘Let me go home.’” Now if you want to say, “He wants to go home,” you would not say, “He is thinking, saying, ‘Let him go home.’” Instead you would say, “He is thinking, saying, ‘Let me go home.’” So it is like you are describing the thoughts that he is saying to himself in his mind.

Tenses
We commonly think of the English language as having three tenses: past, present, and future. Enga has six tenses: far past, near past, immediate past, present, immediate future, and far future. So if you wanted to say, “I went home,” the verb form you would use would depend on whether you went home earlier that same day, the day before, or two days before. Similarly, if you wanted to say, “I will go home,” the verb form you would use would depend on whether you were going home that same day or the next day.

What's next?
We return to Ukarumpa in the Eastern Highlands Province on February 12. After three weeks in Ukarumpa, we will spend three weeks in Lae fulfilling a group service requirement. After returning to Ukarumpa again in April, we will mentor a team of Engans who will spend five weeks completing the annual Translators’ Training Course (thanks to a generous donation from Newbreak Church in San Diego). Following this training, we will begin translating the New Testament into the central dialect of Enga, beginning (most likely) with the book of Mark!

A Year in Papua New Guinea

"We just have to make it through the first year, and then everything will be better," I kept telling myself and Martha throughout this past year. Despite all of the excitement of traveling to a distant land, discovering new cultures, and being right in the center of God's will for our lives, there have been many times when we have struggled with culture shock and the reality of being so far away from our friends and family. I (Adam) remember, shortly after arriving in Ukarumpa in May, having a severe panic attack as the reality of a long-term commitment thousands of miles from home finally began to sink in. There were a few days when it was hard to even get out of bed. The reality hit Martha earlier while we were still in Madang completing our training. She was devastated by the fact that she had missed seeing the birth of her niece by just a few weeks. During that time, all she could do was think about when we could leave Papua New Guinea and escape on a family vacation somewhere else. Sometimes it felt as if we had died and would never see or talk to anyone back home ever again.

At my lowest point, I (Adam) had to go to a graduation ceremony for the translation training I was helping with at the time. The emotional pain I felt at that time was so severe that I could barely hold in my tears as I was sitting through the ceremony. But then a man began leading worship in Tok Pisin. We sang simple songs of praise, and God allowed the tears to flow. They were good tears, and God reminded me of why I was in Papua New Guinea to begin with. From that point forward, God slowly brought healing to my heart and helped me overcome the emotional challenges of leaving everything we had and everything we knew and coming to a completely foreign country and culture.

But God has not worked alone, He has used all of you. We have been amazed at the outpouring of love and encouragement from our friends and family! Knowing that we are not alone and that there are people back home praying for us every day, sending us notes of encouragement, putting together care packages, sending pictures, and supporting our work has made all of the difference in the world! God has used and continues to use all of you to help us, especially when we go through times of difficulty.


It is easy to praise God for the many exciting and wonderful things that have happened over the past year. It is more difficult to be thankful in the midst of the loss and suffering we have felt at times. But God has proven faithful. He has seen us through our first year in Papua New Guinea, and we are overjoyed about the bright prospects that lie ahead for helping people receive the Word of God in Enga. We are committed to this work. In fact, knowing we are committed for the long-term is what makes it so hard sometimes because we know we can't just back out if things are difficult or if we are feeling homesick.

After a year in Papua New Guinea, we are actually doing quite well. We miss our friends and family in America, but we are also beginning to feel like this is our home too. We dream about going home on furlough one day, but we appreciate many things here that we don't have in America. In short, we are adjusting to and accepting life here, realizing that there are many things we enjoy about Papua New Guinea even while there are things we miss from home. And that is OK!

"So we don't look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever."

- 2 Corinthians 4:18 (NLT)

To view a short video of pictures from our first year in Papua New Guinea please click here.

I've Only Learned How To Fight

"I never went to school. I never learned how to read. I never learned how to speak English or Tok Pisin. The only thing I ever learned how to do was fight." As I heard these words, I was standing in front of the congregation of the Assembly of God Church in Immi, Enga Province, Papua New Guinea. I was immediately struck by just how desperately the Engan people need the Word of God in their own language. Sai Mata, the man who spoke these words, was one of the leaders of the Immi congregation. In fact, he was one of the few men left in the village because so many of the other men had been killed over the years in tribal fighting. The church itself had been burned to the ground multiple times, and the church that is there now had been rebuilt just a couple of years ago.

I had been asked by Pastor Darren Terros, one of the men who will be a part of the Enga Bible translation team, to come speak at the church in Immi. We were given a wonderful reception by the church. As we walked across the field to the church building, the entire congregation was outside singing worship songs, and as we reached the church grounds, they put a flower necklace around each one of our necks (including the children). As the singing finished, they stood in line waiting to greet us and shake our hands. It was the best welcome we have received during our time in Papua New Guinea!

I had prepared to share a message in Tok Pisin, the main trade language of Papua New Guinea, thinking that the congregation would be able to understand me. Pastor Darren, however, translated the entire sermon into Enga because many of the people did not know Tok Pisin. What we didn't know is that when Pastor Darren had started pastoring this church two years prior, he told the congregation that one day they would have a "white man" speak at their church. Since they were just a small, village church, it seemed unlikely that a "white man" would ever come, but we were humbled to know that God used us to fulfill Pastor Darren's prediction. Many non-believers came to the service that day to hear the "white man" speak, and so it seemed appropriate to give an altar call at the conclusion of the service and give people a chance to receive Jesus as their Lord and Savior. It was difficult to gauge how many people responded because Engans are more reluctant to raise their hands than people in America are, but I did see some hands slightly raised, and I know God was working on people's hearts.

After praying for people to receive Jesus Christ, I then told people how important it was to read their Bibles. And as the words were coming out of my mouth, it struck me. Nobody in Immi has a Bible! And even if they did have a Bible, almost nobody in Immi knows how to read! I realized in that moment, just how important it was not only to have a good translation of the Bible in the Enga language, but to have an audio recording of the Bible so that people who will likely never learn how to read can hear the Word of God in the only language that they really understand! That is why one of our first and primary goals is to make a translation of the Enga New Testament available on something called an Audibible, which is a small, hand-held, solar-powered audio player that allows people to hear the Word of God in their own language. Please pray with us as we direct our translation efforts towards this goal. And please pray that the people of Immi will experience a long-lasting peace from tribal fighting.

If you would like to see a video of our welcome at the church of Immi, please click here. Please note that our oldest son, Jacob, was holding the camera as we approached the church, so it is a bit shaky, but you will nevertheless get a glimpse of how it felt to be welcomed the way we were in Immi. Sai Mata, the man mentioned in this update, is wearing a light green shirt, and in the video he is standing next to Pastor Darren Terros, the man who is wearing a white shirt and a tie.