Recording Starts on Tuesday

Almost ten years have passed since we began our translation of the Enga New Testament on October 18, 2013. We are now ready to begin the recording process, starting on Tuesday, February 7. It has been a long road, but God is faithful and has seen us through many challenges and difficult times. Even now the translators are facing trying times. On January 24, fighting broke out again in Enga, and one of the Enga translators (Frank) decided to flee his home since the fighting was in the next village over. The translators had been planning to travel to Ukarumpa for the recording via public transportation, but instead I had to charter a flight for them because it is not safe for them to be in town waiting for a public bus. The translators and I are all in agreement that we cannot let this fighting or anything else hinder us from completing the work that God has called us to do. Nevertheless, please pray for the safety of the translators, and especially for their families, whom they are leaving behind in Enga as they come to Ukarumpa to complete the recording of the Enga New Testament. The recording should take two to three months. It will be an exciting but exhausting time, so please pray for strength and energy for the translation team and for my family and me. Pray also that we will be careful listeners during the recording sessions so that we can make any necessary last minute adjustments to the translation for the sake of naturalness. Once the recording is completed the translation will also be complete. Then we will focus on finishing the typesetting process so that we can send the Enga New Testament off for print. Thank you for your prayers. This is a very important time, so please continue to pray.

Indirect Communication

On our most recent trip to the village, we decided to fly instead of drive. As a result, when we would go to town, we would take a PMV (public motor vehicle) instead of driving our own truck. One morning as Martha, the kids, and I were getting on a PMV to go to town, the PMV driver invited me to sit down in the front passenger seat. So I got in, shut the door, and sat down. The PMV driver greeted me by shaking my hand. Then he said to me, “You are a strong man.” Now, I know enough about myself to realize that I am not in danger of winning any World’s Strongest Man competitions, so I began wondering why the driver said this to me.

As we got into town, the man sitting in the front middle seat wanted to get out of the PMV. So the driver stopped, and I got out of my seat to let the man in the middle seat get out. Then I got back into the PMV and shut the door. Again the PMV driver said to me, “You are a strong man.” Now I was really confused because I know that I am not very strong, and so why would the driver make this same statement to me a second time?

Finally, we got to our stop in town. As I got out of the PMV and was about to shut the door, the driver said to me, “The door does not work well; please close it gently.” Then it dawned on me! When the driver had said, “You are a strong man,” what he meant was, “You are shutting the door of the PMV too hard; please shut it more gently so that it does not break.”

This is a perfect example of how Papua New Guineans communicate in an indirect manner. I am sure that there have been many times when people tried to communicate something to me that I totally missed because I did not grasp the hidden meaning. And I am sure there have been times when I inadvertently communicated something I had not intended to communicate because people were looking for some hidden meaning lying beneath what I had actually said. Cross-cultural communication can be so difficult sometimes!

A PMV driver in Papua New Guinea

Translation Progress
We will be finishing up our final edits this month in preparation for recording the Enga New Testament beginning in February. The recording process will probably take two to three months to complete. Inevitably we will make more minor changes as we make the recording. Once the recording is finished, we will finalize the typesetting for the New Testament. Our plan is to produce two editions: an Enga-English New Testament and an Enga-only New Testament. Please pray for us as we finish our final edits and begin the recording process.

A picture of my dad and me from 2015

My Dad
Last month I shared the news that my dad had been diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. On December 6, we found out that he only had a week to a month to live. I had been planning on flying to my parents’ house on Friday, December 16, but when I learned more about my dad’s prognosis, I changed my flights to leave a week earlier on Friday, December 9. After a long trip, I was able to get to my parents’ house on Saturday, December 10, very early in the morning. It was the first time it was only my mom, my dad, my sisters, and me in over twenty years. Although my dad was very weak and could only make very short statements, we enjoyed a beautiful morning together as a family. I was able to sit by my dad’s side, hold his hand in mine, and then pray with him along with my mom and sisters. I was also able to lean over and hug him, and he still had the strength to squeeze my hand and say, “It will be OK.” About 3:30 that afternoon he went upstairs to his room because he was so exhausted. We took turns sitting with him and doing our best to help him and make him comfortable. Although my dad’s body was failing, his mind was still very sharp. The next day was very difficult as my dad was becoming too weak to do anything at all. My sister Brook and I slept in his room that night, waking up every 15 to 20 minutes to help my dad with whatever he needed. Each time I would lie down again, I would pray to God to take my dad home because I knew how difficult it was for him and how uncomfortable he was. The next day God took my dad home. He is now at peace. No more pain. No more suffering. No more cancer. We had his memorial service on Monday, December 19, which you can view at tinyurl.com/ypuav6cx. I am scheduled to depart for Papua New Guinea on January 3. Thank you for your prayers!

A Look Back

Ten years ago we officially allocated to work with the Enga Bible translation project. Now we are on the brink of finishing the Enga New Testament as the Enga translators finish their final edits in preparation to make an audio recording of the Enga New Testament beginning in February. Earlier this month I was asked by a church to produce a video for their missions conference. I felt inspired to use the opportunity to take a look back at the past ten years, which turned out to be a very emotional experience as I saw our children grow from toddlers to teenagers and remembered all the relationships we have built along the way. I would like to share our experience with you, so please watch the video below. 

Pray For My Dad
Today we learned that my (Adam's) dad has been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. As I write this, my dad (Bob) is still in the hospital, where he is being treated for the blood clots that had sprung up due to the cancer. He is in stable condition and doing well, all things considered, and is scheduled to go home tomorrow. However, we ask for your prayers for him and for my mother (Heather). Please pray for healing for my dad, and for the peace that surpasses understanding for both of my parents. Pray that we would all remember that God is with us and will never leave us or forsake us. Pray that the love of God would be a present reality in our lives and that we would learn to trust Him in the face of uncertainty. Thank you for your prayers! If you would like to keep up with how Bob is doing, you can visit his CaringBridge site.(Please note that the donation button on the site is for general donations to the CaringBridge organization. We are not asking for donations for Bob's health situation.)

Quick Village Trip

Between COVID and violence surrounding the recent national election, it has been hard to make it out to the village lately. Although we had only an eight-day window between term 1 and term 2 at the kids' school, and despite the fact that repairs were still being made to our house after the recent earthquake, we decided that we needed to make the trip to strengthen our relationships in the village and also to visit and encourage the Enga translators. We also knew that this was likely the last trip Jacob would be able to make to the village before graduating in June. Our time in the village was unlike past trips as I (Adam) was not traveling into town each day for work. (Due to the political turmoil, the translators were not able to meet together as a team anyway.) Our agenda was simply to spend time with people and strengthen relationships after a long time away, and also to enjoy time together as a family away from our normal routine.

Jacob with his village brothers Lami and Sani

 Although we had no official work agenda, the Lord's timing was such that we were able to be a part of a meeting to discuss a new preschool that will teach young children how to read in the Enga language. Just this morning Martha and I had another follow-up meeting about how we can provide resources to assist this new school, such as producing basic children's books in the Enga language. I was also approached by Tiusa, a member of the church we attend in the village, who shared his dream of teaching adults how to read in the Enga language, and so I was able to encourage him and discuss ways that we could be of assistance. Later I also had the opportunity to spend time with the pastor of the church, Wilson Linu, and encourage him in his ministry, reminding him of the treasures that await us in God's kingdom.

Adam with Tiusa and Pastor Wilson at the church we attend

During our time in the village, we were able to experience God's wonderful provision. One of the things that we had to do during this trip was change out the batteries in our solar-powered electrical system. Because I am not a handyman and have very little knowledge about such things, I was a bit nervous about whether or not I could successfully change out the batteries and have the electrical system back up and running without any problems. On the way to the village, I decided to stop worrying about it and simply trust the Lord. As soon as we arrived, I found out that the son of a former missionary was on a short visit to Enga. He was there installing solar-powered electrical systems! Within minutes of us arriving at our house, he was there to assist me with installing the batteries. God is good! We were also greatly encouraged as we walked down the road after church to see a new health center that was being built. After walking around the new building, we greeted some of the people from the church located on the same piece of property where the health center was. One man at the church told us that he had heard our translation of the book of Matthew, and he just kept going on and on about how good the translation was and what a blessing it was. In fact, multiple people were asking us when the translation would be available. It was encouraging to see that the people were hungry to begin reading our translation of the Enga New Testament.

The church that oversees the health center we visited

Another highlight for us was being able to visit translator William Walewale and his family in their village. Due to problems from the recent election, William has not been able to travel to town and has basically been stuck in his village. As we arrived to visit him, we got a call from Maniosa Yakasa, our lead translator, who in many ways has been like a father to us during our time in Enga. Fighting in his area also made it not entirely safe for him to be traveling around, but he had decided to come visit us anyway. When he didn't find us at home, he called me and was then able to join us in William's village for a nice meal together. We were all encouraged by the opportunity to see each other again.
 

With Maniosa and William

This trip was a great reminder for me that our work is bigger than simply translating a book. Yes, our translation of the Enga New Testament will be a great blessing to many people, helping them to understand who Jesus is and how to follow him. However, our ministry is about more than translation. It is about relationships, sharing God's love with others, and encouraging others in their faith. This trip was also a reminder of how God is in control of things. So many things happened in just a short eight-day trip that I could not have anticipated or predicted. Serving the Lord is often just about making yourself available to him so that he can work through you in unexpected ways. We are thankful that we get to be small participants in God's great big plan for the world.

Earthquake

It was 9:47 a.m. on September 11th of all days. Martha was at a women’s retreat, and the kids and I were outside on the basketball court of the primary school campus for the Sunday morning Tok Pisin worship service. After starting the service forty-five minutes late due to some technical difficulties in the sound set up, we finally began worshiping. Midway through the first song, the ground began to shake. We are used to earthquakes in Papua New Guinea, and so nobody was all that concerned when the quake started. However, it did not subside, but kept getting stronger. Eventually I ran to one of the speakers that was propped up on a wood box to hold it in place. Another man ran up and helped me. As the quake really started hitting hard, everyone else ran out from under the roof, fearing it might collapse on them. I was standing right next to a huge I-beam that was holding up the roof. It was wobbling back and forth as though it were nothing but a straw. The quake, which lasted for seventy seconds, seemed to go on forever. Eventually it subsided and we began worshiping again (although now without any electricity). As the reality of what had happened began to sink in, the congregation dwindled in size as representatives from each family went home to survey the damage. Since I was scheduled to preach that day, I sent Jacob home to check on our house. He quickly came back saying that our hot water tank and solar panels were about to slide off the edge of our roof. So I called Martha and asked her to leave the women’s retreat and go home to turn off the water. I asked Jacob to go help her. They also discovered a gas leak, and so they turned off the gas as well. When they went inside the kitchen floor was covered with shattered dishes, and food from the pantry was scattered everywhere. A neighbor surveyed the house with them and found that the main plumbing pipe to the septic system had snapped in two and that many of the wooden posts supporting the house had shifted. Our neighbor wondered if our house would be condemned as unsafe to live in.

Our hot water tank and solar panels hanging off the roof

Meanwhile, I still had to preach. Knowing that everyone’s minds were on the earthquake, I knew I couldn’t preach the message I had prepared. I asked the Lord what I should say, and he laid on my heart Hebrews 12:25-27. I shared that God would one day shake the heavens and the earth, and the only thing that would remain would be his kingdom, and so we should put our focus on that. I kept the message short because I knew people wanted to get home. After preaching, I went home and surveyed the damage. We were blessed to have some teens come and help us clean up the kitchen, and before long some men and teenage boys volunteered to help us to move our hot water tank and solar panels back into place and secure them, which they did successfully.

We thought we would have to sleep at a neighbor’s house that night due to the posts shifting and the more practical problem of not being able to use our toilets. But I was able to jerry-rig the plumbing pipe back together with tie wire and duct tape, and we decided to sleep in our house (although the kids slept downstairs to be safe). Thankfully, there were no aftershocks that night. They next day repairs began, and some volunteers and employees were able to add bracing to the weakest areas under the house. That same day the plumbing pipe was also replaced. For the next nine days we had to shower at a friend’s house, but eventually the leaks in our hot water tank were fixed. During the midst of this, we were also enduring a severe drought. So everyone’s water tanks were extremely low, and even the backup river water system was extremely low and constantly being drained due to leaks everywhere. Not only that, but the fiber internet cable that gives high speed internet to the country was broken in three places in the ocean, so our internet has been extremely limited. Estimates are that it will take at least two months to repair the cable.

The main plumbing pipe leading to our septic system

But God is good, and we immediately receive more than enough donations to help us make repairs. God also sent a large rainstorm that gave us some relief from the severe water shortage we were facing. Thank you for your prayers! By the way, the high school shop teacher shared this security video of the wood shop that captured the earthquake.

From Enga to Spanish

Last month I (Adam) reported that we had to postpone the recording of the Enga New Testament because of problems related to the national election. Not long after that, we found out that our high school's Spanish teacher would be out for a number of weeks due to a severe infection she contracted while completing the village-living portion of her Papua New Guinea Orientation Course. Because the recording was delayed and my schedule was more open than normal, Martha encouraged me to volunteer to fill in as a substitute teacher until the regular Spanish teacher could return. This is now the third week that I have been teaching. Although it has been a long time since I have used Spanish regularly, I have been able to remember enough of it to teach Spanish 1 and Spanish 2. In total, I am teaching three class periods: two periods of Spanish 2 (with Bella in one of those classes), and one period of Spanish 1. It was exhausting the first week as I dove into lesson planning, but it became easier last week and this week as I got a better handle on what I am doing. Thankfully, the regular Spanish teacher is recovering well and is planning on returning next week. And Martha is thankful that I now have a greater appreciation for all that she does as a teacher!

Teaching Bella's Spanish 2 class

Although I have been focused on teaching Spanish for the past three weeks, the Enga translation team has continued working on their final review of the Enga New Testament. While they are making many good suggestions for minor changes to improve the flow and naturalness of the translation, they are not finding any major changes that need to be made.

We are hoping to make a very quick trip to Enga during the short school break coming up at the end of September and beginning of October. Please pray that all of our travel plans would come together and that the tensions surrounding the recent election would ease.

Does God Make Realizations?

In prior newsletters I have mentioned the fact that Enga uses suffixes to indicate the source of information for a statement. For example, if I were to say, “It is raining,” I would use one suffix if I saw that it was raining, but I would use another suffix if I only heard the rain hitting the roof (but didn’t actually see it). These suffixes are called evidentials, and they are also used to classify realizations that people make or conclusions that people draw. For example, just this week I told the Enga translation team that there are not many notes for them to check in the book of Revelation. I also told them that the chapters in Revelation were short, and so they should be able to finish checking the book of Revelation quickly. They responded by saying, “Dopa-tamo doko, yapa pyoo etalamane-lumu,” which means, “If that is the case, we will seemingly finish quickly. The word seemingly is about the closest I can come to translating the suffix -lumu. By using the suffix -lumu, the team was indicating that their conclusion was based on the information that they heard from me. A similar suffix is -lamo, which indicates a conclusion drawn from visual evidence. For example, if the team had glanced through Revelation and seen that there are not many notes and that the chapters are short, they could have reached the same conclusion based on visual evidence.

Until recently, we were using the suffixes -lumu and -lamo with some statements in the New Testament made by God and Jesus. The more we thought about it, however, the more we realized that neither God nor Jesus would     use such evidentials. Because God is omniscient (all-knowing), it is not generally proper to portray God as making a realization or coming to a conclusion at a particular point in time. Doing so would seem to suggest that God did not know that particular fact before that point in time. But because God is all-knowing, he knows everything from before the foundation of the world.

God already knows everything!

Translation Progress
It is with great joy that I announce that I have completed my final read through of the Enga New Testament. Not only that, but the Enga translators are now working through my final notes in the book of Revelation, a task they will probably finish this week or early next week. At that point, my work of checking and editing the Enga New Testament will basically be complete. On August 1, the team will begin making the audio recording the Enga New Testament. Our goal is to record five chapters a day, and so we anticipate this process lasting about ten weeks, finishing in mid-October. From there, we will move on to typesetting, which means preparing the files for print. Typesetting generally takes two to three months, so we are hoping to be able to send the Enga New Testament off to the printers in early 2023. Printing is usually done overseas, so we will probably not have copies of the printed New Testament in hand until the summer or fall of 2023.  

Jacob visiting a remote village by motorbike

Life in PNG
June is always a sad month in Ukarumpa as some families leave to go on furlough, while other families finish their time in Papua New Guinea and return to their home countries permanently. This year we had to say goodbye to our next-door neighbors and another family we had grown close to as they left Papua New Guinea permanently. Not only that, but many of the kids' close friends have gone on furlough. Such is life on the mission field. We are now in the midst of a seven-week-long school break. After a very busy end of the school year and an emotional week of saying goodbyes, the kids are enjoying some downtime.

Jacob has been able to do a couple of motorcycle rides out into the surrounding villages. These are tough rides along muddy dirt paths filled with deep ruts. Not only that, but there are some very narrow bridges made out of tree trunks that the riders have to push their bikes across since the streams are ten to fifteen feet below the bridges. But the farther they ride out into the countryside, the more excited the people are to see them (as you can see in the picture above with Jacob in the way back wearing jeans and a black and white helmet). On the ride pictured above, Jacob was out for five hours with a friend his age and three men from the community. I am thankful he has these unique opportunities to explore the countryside, and I am also thankful that there are other men in the community willing to take him on these rides (since it is not my cup of tea).