Home Sweet Home!

Greetings from Immi village in Enga Province! We’ve been in our new house here in Immi for three weeks now. What a thrill it was to see the kids excitedly run through their new home and finally be in the place we’ve been talking about for years.

The trip here was long and difficult, as the rainy season has wreaked havoc on the roads. We are extremely grateful for our friends, Matt Taylor and David Smith, who braved the difficult roads and caravanned with us, driving an additional truck filled with our furniture. They helped put our futons and bunkbeds together and didn’t complain about the fact that we did not have a real meal for forty-eight hours. The refrigerator we had purchased didn’t work, so we had to drive it back to Mt. Hagen (two hours away) to get it repaired. When we came back, it still didn’t work, so the store delivered a new fridge the next day. We’ve never been so happy to have cold food!

Because of things like that, it took awhile for us to settle in, and we still have lots of little projects to do to fully turn this house into a home, but we are thoroughly enjoying all the amazing comforts of having a washing machine, constant electricity, and plenty of water that never gets shut off unexpectedly. The kids continue to marvel that we have an oven that we can turn on without a match and that also has a light, fan, and timer. We still don’t have a bathroom mirror, but I (Martha) am rather enjoying having no idea what I look like for days on end.

Jacob is enjoying teaching the local kids how to play baseball, while Bella and Asher make new friends and play under the house in the mud. While Adam is away at work during the day, I have been busy homeschooling, cooking, and trying to keep the mud off the walls and floor. Nevertheless, I have still found time to make and share lots of banana bread with our neighbors from their generous donations of bananas. It is good to be in a place that we can truly call home.

Jacob and his friend Lami playing Wiffle Ball behind our house

Translation Progress
Since arriving in Enga last month, we have completely finished checking the book of Luke so that it is now ready for recording, which will begin at the end of this month. We have also completed our read-through of the book of John, which I (Adam) am now translating back into English to be checked by a consultant. We are also drafting 1 Timothy, which we expect to complete in the next week or two. It is encouraging to see continued progress in our work and to see the Word come alive in the Enga language. I know many Enga people are eagerly awaiting each new book as we translate. Just last week, a man came to the place where we translate to see if the book of Luke was ready for release yet. The translation team informed me that many others are also asking when the next book will be released.

The kids are excited about the new house

Enga Literacy
Last month I was delightfully surprised when Nete Talian, one of the Enga translators, told me that his church was now doing literacy training in the Enga language using our translation of the Bible. One of the largest barriers to people actually reading the Scriptures in their own language (and not just listening to recordings of them) is the low literacy level most Papua New Guineans have in their vernacular language. If they go to school, they are taught to read English, but they are often not taught how to read their own language. And because people are not trained to read their own language, they are often intimidated to try. I then found out that Benjamin and his wife Martha, the couple who donated land for us to build a house, wanted to attend that literacy course, but they didn’t have the funds to do so. As a result, we have decided to start our own Enga literacy course for the people of Immi village. Please pray for guidance as we have never taught adult literacy before, and pray that the people in Immi village will develop a hunger to read the Word of God in their own language.

Election Season
We are now in the midst of election season in Papua New Guinea. Here, instead of non-stop television advertisements, there are non-stop caravans of vehicles campaigning for the various candidates, which involve incessant megaphone announcements and parades through town. All the noise makes it hard to concentrate on translation work, so please pray for added focus as well as for a peaceful election process.

It Is Well

Through it all, through it all
My eyes are on You
And it is well with me

Those words from the Kristene DiMarco song, "It Is Well", captured the theme of our biennial conference last month. Translators and support workers from all over Papua New Guinea gathered together to remember that when we keep our eyes on God, it is truly well with our souls.

I (Adam) was asked to share a testimony on the first morning of the conference relating to the theme of "It Is Well". So I shared about the accident that occurred on January 30th when we were transporting our building materials to Enga. I shared about this accident in our last newsletter, so I won't go into the details again. But there was one part of the story I didn't share with you, and it was this part of the story that the Lord prompted me to share at the conference. This is [in part] what I shared:

As the initial chaos [revolving around the accident] settled down, I looked up and saw the driver of the truck sitting on top of the truck with his face in his hands. He looked devastated. And I felt the Lord prompting me to go encourage him. So I climbed up on the truck, put my arm around him and said, "What happened is not your fault. You are new to this country, but we have been here for a few years now, and let me tell you that these things happen. Trucks turn over all the time on the Highlands Highway. This is not the end of the world. What is in the back of the truck is just stuff, but we can praise God that nobody was seriously injured. We'll get this figured out and we'll get the truck fixed. It will be okay." Then I prayed for him.

And you know what, despite everything that had happened, I had a peace from the Lord that it truly was going to be ok. Even if we had to scrap the project for the time being, I knew that it was going to be ok. In the midst of chaos, I had a peace from God that I couldn't quite explain. And, even though I wasn't looking forward to what it would take to get things back on track, I knew that things were going to be ok, and it was truly well with my soul.

I praise God for giving me peace in the midst of very difficult circumstances, and I thank Him that, despite our trials on that day, we now have a home to call our own in Enga.

Gathered together for conference

The guest speaker for the conference was Dr. Clive Burnard, a spirit-filled Baptist preacher from Plymouth, England. Dr. Burnard was a scientific atheist until the age of 32, when God proved to him that He was real in a way that he could not logically refute. God used Dr. Burnard to bring about great spiritual renewal among the people in attendance at Conference, and we were blessed beyond measure by his ministry. At one point, after I had shared my testimony and an additional brief message about faith, Dr. Burnard pulled me aside because he felt prompted by the Holy Spirit to pray for me. He encouraged me, saying that God was going to use me in pastoral ministry and to preach His Word. There was no way he could have known that I had been struggling with the very call to start preaching (in addition to my translation work), both in the Enga language to the people in Enga, but also in English to the people in Ukarumpa. But his encouragement gave me the boost I needed to commit to following the Lord's leading. So pray for me as I prepare messages in Enga and in English (and perhaps Tok Pisin too). Please pray that the messages I prepare will be fully grounded in the love of God.

Martha also played an important role at conference, leading the spiritual emphasis team. Each morning for seven days, we were challenged by inspiring testimonies, dramas, and stories that reminded us that God is in control and we are called to trust in Him. At one point, we all wrote on triangular pieces of construction paper the mountains that are facing us, and we taped them on a mountain panorama on stage. On the last day of the conference, we each wrote a truth about God that would help us to overcome our mountains. We then placed them on the same panorama, covering over our mountains to remind us that with faith as small as a mustard seed, we can move mountains. It was powerful to see hundreds of people streaming to the front of the meeting house, many in tears, clinging to their faith that no mountain is too big for God.

Dr. Clive Burnard

Prayer Request
On April 5 and 6, we will be traveling to Enga to 'move in' to our new house. We will be accompanied by two fellow missionaries, who will be driving a medium-sized truck carrying the furniture for our house. Please pray for safe travel over hazardous roads. (The truck is much smaller than the one that had the accident in January, so it should be a much easier drive.) Please also pray for us as we transition to life in our new home and for building relationships in the village.

Our House is Built!

It is with great joy that I report to you that our house in the village of Immi in Enga Province is now built. After three years of planning and waiting and delays, a crew of missionaries from the construction department along with Papua New Guinean employees and local helpers from the village of Immi put the house together in under three weeks.

Our house in the village of Immi

I wish I could say that everything went off without a hitch, but the trip did not start out well. On Monday, January 30, ten of us set off from Ukarumpa in a caravan of three vehicles: my small Toyota Hilux truck, a mid-sized Dyna truck, and a large Hino 700, which was hauling the bulk of our building materials. Because the Hino 700 was hauling such a heavy load, we drove slowly. I led the way in my truck, followed by the Hino 700 and then the Dyna. After three hours, we reached Goroka, where we stopped to refuel. As we started on our way, I realized that I forgot to put oil in my truck, so I pulled off at another gas station to get oil while the other two trucks continued on their way. I knew they would be going slowly and that I would easily catch up.

After getting oil and driving for about fifteen minutes, I came around a bend and saw a large truck similar to our Hino 700 that had overturned on the side of the road. At first I felt bad for the driver as I came upon the scene, but then I realized that it was our Hino 700. I pulled over on the side of the road only to see some Papua New Guineans flocking around the truck with great enthusiasm and excitement as if it were Christmas morning. I found out that the truck had swerved to avoid a large pothole and that the front left tire got caught in the soft ground on the side of the road which pulled the entire truck down. Fortunately there were no serious injuries, but there was great concern that our building materials would either be damaged or taken away. Thankfully the tarp covering our materials had not torn off and the straps still held everything in place (although one strap came within a few threads of tearing completely).

One of the straps hanging by just a few threads after the accident

We were also fortunate that the accident occurred near a large Seventh Day Adventist school. When the accident occurred, the head of the school’s security quickly came to the scene and told people to leave our truck alone and to go on their way. Nevertheless, it was still a chaotic scene, and so I climbed on top of the truck and yelled to the crowd in Tok Pisin, explaining that I was not a businessman but a missionary and that the goods in truck were dedicated to the work of the Lord. People slowly began to disperse, and the local tribesmen (including the head of security) assured us that they would look after our things.

We kept trying to call back to our families and coworkers in Ukarumpa, but our phone calls were not going through. Yet, by God’s grace, we were able to contact the head of the construction department every time we called out, and he was able to contact us. He arranged for a rescue vehicle to come and pull the truck back onto the road. The only problem was that the vehicle was more than five hours away. It was a little past eleven o’clock in the morning, but the truck wouldn’t arrive until close to five o’clock. So we sat around and waited.

As we spent the day waiting, the local Papua New Guineans who were watching our truck brought some food for us. And after a while, I remembered that I had a large quantity of banana bread and chocolate chip cookies that Martha had made for the trip, and so I shared our food with them as well, which they really appreciated. Then I sat down with them and we shared stories about life in America and a little bit about our work as Bible translators. At 4:20 in the afternoon the rescue truck arrived and the driver put the truck perpendicular to our truck by driving straight into the weeds on the opposite side of the road. Then he hooked three cables to the side of our truck and used a tiny remote control to operate the cables and pull our truck completely back up onto the road side. Our driver got back into the truck and it started up, but, to be safe, we opted to have the rescue truck tow our truck to the headquarters of New Tribes Mission, about thirty minutes away.

Talking with the local Papua New Guineans who were guarding our truck

It was after dark when we arrived at New Tribes Mission, and at that point we didn’t feel good about continuing on with the project. We didn’t know if our building materials had been damaged, and we also didn’t know how we were going to get everything to Enga. Plus, we were all in a bit of shock from the events of the day. We were all thinking that we would head back to Ukarumpa in the morning and try to get the project going at a later point in time. But when we woke up the next morning, we felt a renewed vigor. We realized that, despite the challenges of the prior day, this was our opportunity to build the house. There were other projects that the construction department was waiting to complete after the construction of our house, and a return to Ukarumpa could mean another long delay. Plus, it felt like a moral victory if we could somehow keep going. So we contacted Mapai Transport, the same company who had sent the rescue vehicle the day before. They agreed to bring a 40-foot flatbed trailer for us that same day. So we started the work of unloading the truck and reloading it onto the Mapai trailer.

As we began unloading, we were delighted to discover that the building materials had suffered minimal damage. Almost everything was still intact and usable. The team worked very hard from early in the morning until late at night unloading and loading, and by 8:00 p.m., the job was finished. Mapai came back the next morning (Wednesday) and hauled the flatbed away, although they had told us that it wouldn’t arrive in Enga until Saturday. So we made plans to transfer all the items for pouring the concrete post pads into the mid-sized Dyna and headed up to Mt. Hagen, and then to Enga the next day. We started as soon as we arrived (Thursday afternoon) and had the post pads ready by the time the truck arrived on Saturday. What followed was an intense two and a half weeks of construction starting each day at 7:00 a.m. and finishing around 6:00 p.m.

Transferring building materials to the Mapai trailer

Our friend Benjamin, who had donated the land for us to build, also let our team sleep in his house during our time there, and Benjamin’s wife, Martha, cooked all of our dinners for us. We would bathe in a small waterfall hidden in a cave just downhill from the roadside in cold, yet refreshing, river water. Benjamin and his family slept in a camping tent we had brought, keeping watch over our tools and construction materials at night. They had never slept in a camping tent before and really enjoyed the experience. As for us, there were eight of us in Benjamin’s two-bedroom bush house, but it worked out just fine as we all slept side-by-side, three to each room and two in the main room. By the time three more construction workers had arrived the following week, we already had the roof on the house, so four of us moved to start sleeping in the new house.

Trouble Getting River Stones
There are many more experiences I could share about regarding our house building project, but due to the length of this email, I will share just one. We needed to build a drain field for the septic tank. A drain field is basically a long, deep trench that is filled with large stones to give the septic water overflow a place to drain. So we needed to collect a large number of stones from a river for the drain field (enough stones to fill the back of a 12-foot long flatbed truck). So Benjamin told me to drive the mid-sized truck down the road to a stream. After driving a short distance, Benjamin directed me to turn off the road onto what looked like a walking path but was actually a 'road'. Nevertheless, I proceeded along the ‘road’ as he directed, praying as I drove along that the truck wouldn’t get stuck or tip over due to the conditions. As we got close to the river, I was instructed to turn the truck around and back it up the rest of the way, which I did nervously, praying as I went, and fortunately reaching the river with no incident.

Digging out the septic tank drain field

The river was in the land of the next tribe over, and as we began pulling stones out, one of the local landowners forbid us from taking any stones. Benjamin and those who had come to help us argued with the landowner for about fifteen minutes, trying to get him to change his mind. But no matter what they said, he wouldn’t budge. In my flesh, I began contemplating what I could say to him. I thought about saying, “Look, I drive to Wabag town all the time, but if you don’t help me I will never stop and take anybody from this tribe to town.” But as I stood there thinking such thoughts, the Holy Spirit spoke to my heart and reminded me, “If you love [only] those who love you, what reward do you have?” So, when it became clear that he wasn’t going to allow us to take any stones, I went to him and said the exact opposite of what I had been thinking. I told him, “You don’t want to help us, but that is okay. When I go to town, I will still stop and pick you up and take you if you want to go to town. There are no hard feelings.” He didn’t quite understand what I said at first, so I repeated it and shook his hand with a smile. Then we all started back to the truck. As we were walking back to the truck, he said to us, “Kuki mendalapo nyalapa,” which literally means, “Take just a few,” but in practical appication means, “Go ahead and take whatever you want.” So we started filling up the truck with stones, and he even got into the river and helped us. Later he came by the house to see the progress, and I gave him a can of Coke, which is a sign of friendship in Enga. God is good!

Thank You for Your Prayers!
After finishing the house in just three weeks (including travel time and delays), we returned to Ukarumpa exhausted. It took about a week for me to recover and regain my strength. We are planning on ‘moving in’ at the end of this month. We will still split our time between Ukarumpa and Enga, but having a house in Enga now will allow us to spend much more time there. Please pray for us as we transport furniture to the house in Enga and get settled in. Pray that our furniture would arrive in Ukarumpa in time for us to transport it to Enga when we go up later this month and pray for safety as we travel on the road.

Thank you for all the prayers and support along this journey of building our house in Enga and translating the Bible into Enga. We couldn’t do what we do without the prayers and support of faithful partners like you!

Construction is Underway!

After three years of planning, praying, and waiting, construction of our village house in Enga is finally underway! As you read this update, I (Adam) am in the village of Immi in Enga Province, along with a small construction crew, where we are building our house in the middle of the sweet potato garden in the picture below.

The site where we are building our house in Immi village

Because much of the construction was completed ahead of time in Ukarumpa, the main construction phase of the house should only take three or four weeks. During that time the construction crew and I are staying in homes with the local villagers, who are kind enough to host us and cook for us. Martha and the kids are staying back in Uka-rumpa because there is nowhere for them to stay as we work.

Because we will be living in a place without electricity or running water, our house will include a large water tank that stores rain water collected from the roof as well as a solar panel system to provide basic energy needs such as lighting, refrigeration, and a washing machine. That means that we are dependent upon getting lots of sun and lots of rain. Fortunately, Enga has both. When it is sunny, it is very sunny. And when it rains, it rains hard. It’s funny—when you depend directly on the rain for your water supply, it gives you a whole new attitude towards rainy days!

Our house site is situated right along the Highlands Highway. (You can see a small portion of the highway all the way to the right in the picture above.) This makes it very convenient as it is about a fifteen minute drive to Wabag town, which is where the Enga Bible translation team works. Yet it still very much has the feel of a remote village with beautiful mountains and streams.

Please pray for us during this time as I will be separated from Martha and the kids. Pray that the construction process will go well without any major problems, hindrances, or unexpected delays. Please pray especially that everything will be completed within the time allotted.

The truck loaded up to transport our house materials to Enga

Why Immi?
Many Engans wonder why we would choose to build our house in the village of Immi among the Dyuapini tribe. The Dyuapini tribe has a reputation for being the center of tribal fighting in Enga. And it is true that they have a long history of fighting reaching back to 1972. However, they recently paid compensation to their (former) enemies, and the new generation that has arisen is trying to turn over a new leaf. When some Engans express concern that we are building in Immi, this is what I tell them:

“When we were in America, many people were concerned about us coming to Papua New Guinea because it is not a safe place. Once we arrived in Papua New Guinea, we began thinking about working in the Highlands, but many people told us that the Highlands was not a good place. Then, when we decided to work in Enga, many people told us that Enga was the worst place in the Highlands. Now, you are telling us that Immi is a bad place, and we shouldn’t live there. But if I had followed that sort of thinking, we never would have come to Papua New Guinea in the first place. Besides, if missionaries are not willing to go to the more difficult places with the good news of the Kingdom of God, then who will be?”

The fact is that it is precisely places like Immi that are most in need of a witness to the good news that “the Kingdom of God is at hand.” Equally important is the fact that Martha and I both feel that Immi is exactly where God wants us to be. We know we have no guarantees (Martha’s heart attack in 2010 showed us that we don’t have any guarantees in America either), but we trust that the Lord is leading and guiding us, and we pray that our presence will somehow be a part of God’s work to transform Immi from a past of violence to a future of peace in the name of Jesus Christ.

Signing the agreement to build our house in Immi

Special Thanks!
When we first asked for prayer about the decision to build a house in Enga, one couple, without any prompting from us, donated $40,000 for our house. At the time we did not know them very well, and we were amazed that they were willing to invest so generously in our ministry in such a meaningful way. We would like to thank them again for their loving encouragement and support. Without their investment, I don’t know how we would be able to build our house and spend time in Enga working on the translation and ministering to the people.

To view a video related to our house building and recent translation activity, please click here.

Two Million Forms of 'Say'

In English we have 4 forms of the verb ‘say’: ‘say’, ‘says’, ‘said’, and ‘saying’. That’s it! Now, we can add auxiliary verbs to create various tenses, moods and voices like ‘I will say’ or ‘I would have said’ or ‘It was said’. but we will only ever find four forms of the actual word ‘say’. Spanish is a bit more complicated as there are 61 forms of the verb ‘decir’ (‘say’). But Enga takes things to another level entirely. In Enga, there are 2,322,432 forms of the verb ‘la’ (’say’), and that doesn’t even include imperative forms and other forms like infinitives! If you thought memorizing your Spanish or Latin conjugation tables was difficult, consider the fact that it would take roughly 5,000 pages to list all the possible forms of the verb ‘say’ in Enga.

How can there be so many forms? Well, Enga is what they call an agglutinative language. That is a fancy word that means that anything related to the action of the sentence is usually put on to the verb as a prefix or suffix instead of as a separate word. For example, the English sentence ‘I had already told him for you’, can be communicated with just one word in Enga: ‘lamaitekeo’. In that word, la means ‘say’, mai means ‘him’, t means ‘already’, ek means ‘for you’, e means ‘had’, and o means ‘I’. Let’s look at another example. The English sentence ‘I sensed that they had already sent [it] up for us’ can also be communicated with just one word in Enga: ‘pyalyetakaluiyami’. In that word py means ‘send’, aly means ‘up’, et means ‘already’, ak means ‘for us’, alu means ‘I sensed’, iy means ‘had’, and ami means ‘they’.

There are actually thirteen places where a prefix or suffix can be added to a verb in Enga. And in each of those thirteen places, there are between two and eight possibilities of prefixes or suffixes that can be added. There is a place for indicating negation, direction, direct object, causation, completion, indirect object, non-visual sensation, tense, person/number, mood, simulation, emphasis, and quotation. All those various places with different options causes the possible number of verb forms to grow exponentially, which is why there are 2,322,432 forms of ‘say’ in Enga.

Now even though there are so many forms of ‘say’, the vast majority of them have probably never been spoken aloud by anyone. In fact, the vast majority of the forms would sound silly because not all the information that can be expressed by the verb ever should be expressed at once—trying to do so sounds like nonsense. And in actuality, languages like Enga can be easier to learn than it might seem, because once you have learned the 34 prefixes and suffixes that attach to verbs, it is fairly easy to figure out how to create verb forms that you have never even learned. So you don’t need to memorize 5,000 pages of information. In fact, you can fit everything that you need to memorize onto a single-paged chart. Still, if I had my druthers, I would prefer just 4 forms of the verb ‘say’ instead of 2,322,432.

The Nativity Story in Enga

Seeing as how the Christmas season is now upon us, I thought you might enjoy hearing how the nativity story sounds in Enga. This is especially timely since we just recently finished the consultant check of the book of Luke. So here is a very literal back-translation of the nativity story in Enga from Luke 1:1-20. (Note: The brackets indicate words that are not in the Enga but are added to smooth out the English back-translation. The curly brackets { } indicate indirect speech.)

When the man [whom people] call Kurinius stood [as] governor of the land [of] Siria, the chief government ruler [whom people] call Agustas wrote a new law, saying {all the people [who] dwell, shall set [their] names on paper}, and then he sent it into all his lands [that] he ruled. Because he did that, all the people [who] stood in other lands went to their origin lands, saying their names {shall be set}. Then Josepe, because he [was] born of Dapiti's tribe, stood [in] Nasarete town in the land [of] Galilea and went to Dapiti's town, called Beteleme, in the land [of] Judia. That Maria [who was just mentioned], Josepe said he would take her as [his] woman, and he stood wooing her; because of that, while she sat, child in utero, they two went together, saying {we shall set [our] names}. After going and arriving in Beteleme and then looking, the houses [where] strangers sleep were full. Because that happened, when they two went and slept in a house [where] cows sleep, [and] when Maria's child bearing time came, she bore her first child, a male. Maria wrapped the child and then set [him] in the place [where] cows eat food, and then sat taking care of [him].

At that night time, some men [who] stand and take care of sheep were standing and taking care of sheep there at [the] Beteleme land boundary. As they stood, an angel of the Lord came and then suddenly stood with the men. When the light of [the] Lord distributively shone, the men saw and then died [figuratively] with great fear. When they did that, the angel spoke to them and said, “Feel ye not fear! This good word I am coming to tell you, all the people will hear and then feel great joy. Now, at this night time, in Beteleme, the town of Dapiti, [the] Lord Kraisa, [who] will save you, has been born. The child [is] wrapped with cloth, lying in a place [where] cows eat food. When you have sought and seen the child, you will think, saying [that] this word I am saying [is] true." When the angel had said that, a very big gathering [of] angels of heaven came and suddenly stood [where] he lay and then praised God, singing this: "We are praising the God [Who] Stands In The Top-Most Sky. In this down below land, his people [concerning whom] he feels pleasure are receiving lightness [of] heart."

When the angels had said that and had gone upon [the] sky, the men [who] stand and take care of sheep spoke to one another and said, "Let's go quickly [to] Beteleme to see what [the] Lord said to us, saying {something happened}. After saying that, they felt eagerness and went and then saw Maria with Josepe sitting and taking care of the child in the place [where] cows eat food. After seeing [them], they revealed, saying the things they heard when the angel spoke words to them about the child. When they revealed and spoke, all the people [who] heard that word were amazed. When they did that, Maria heard and then took and carried all those words in her heart and then sat thinking. As those [who] stand and take care of sheep were returning, they said [that] the things they heard the angel say to [them] and [the things] they went and saw [were] obviously true and then they returned, praising God.

Praise God for the good news in Enga that Christ the Savior is born! Thank you for your continued prayers and support. Merry Christmas to you all!

61 Percent!

I am happy to report that we have now drafted 61 percent of the verses in the Enga New Testament! At our current pace, it is my sincere prayer that we will be able to finish drafting the New Testament by 2020. Of course much work remains after drafting including various checks, audio recording and printing. But 61 percent is worth celebrating!

Just ten days after retuning to Papua New Guinea from furlough in July, the translation team and I (Adam) completed a four-week course on the book of Hebrews. We quickly discovered just how much more difficult Hebrews was than the gospels. Gone were the easy translations like ‘Jesus went to Galilee and taught the people’. Now we were facing difficult metaphors, strange vocabulary, complex sentence and paragraph structures, and obscure references to Old Testament practices seemingly in every verse (see below for an example).

The translation team in Ukarumpa for the Hebrews course

After completing our draft of Hebrews, we focused on completing our consultant check of the book of Luke. This first required a final read through of the book by the translation team to check for naturalness—in other words making sure that the translation is clear and sounds like how Enga people speak. Then we brought two Enga speakers, who had not been involved in drafting, to Ukarumpa to check the book with a consultant, who checks for accuracy and understanding by using a back-translation of the Enga text into English.

Benjamin, the man who has donated a portion of his land for us to build our house, and a pastor named Eki Napru came for the check, which involved reading through the text again verse-by-verse in Enga and then answering questions from the consultant in Tok Pisin. Although the consultant found room for improvements here and there, he was very pleased with the quality of the translation. The final step is to record the translation, which we hope to do some time after the New Year. Praise the Lord for enabling our work to this point!

A Difficult Translation
Almost every verse in the book of Hebrews was difficult to translate. But 12:18-21 was especially difficult. We ended up having to completely restructure the verses in chronological order so that the passage flowed well and made sense in Enga. We also had to state explicitly some of the information that is implied in the source text. Below is the draft of our translation. Compare it to an English translation of the same passage.

Before, when the Israel native people went and were at the Sinai Mountain, God said to them, “If a person, cow, goat, or anything comes very close to this mountain, hit and kill it with stones.” When they heard that, they died with fear (i.e. ‘were very afraid’). Then in the midst of the mountain becoming dark and quaking, and flames of fire going about, and a great wind blowing, and lightning striking, and thunder clapping, God spoke words that they heard. After hearing, they said to Moses, “Tell God not to speak words to us like that.” Then Moses, having seen all the frightful things that were happening, said, “Great fear is making me tremble.” That is what happened, but now the people who are going with the purpose of going to where God is, need not fear as those people feared as they were going close to Sinai Mountain.

In the English-speaking world, there is endless debate about whether Bible translations should be literal (like the ESV) or dynamic (like the NLT). We are lucky that we even have the choice between the two in English! Languages like Enga are so different from the Greek and Hebrew source texts that a literal translation is virtually impossible. The translation must be dynamic in order to make any sense in Enga. The end result is a translation that is very clear to Enga speakers, but the process involves a great deal of effort. It was so difficult to take the meaning from the source text and communicate that same meaning in Enga that on a couple of occasions it took us two hours to translate just one verse!

 

Bella taking first place at Sports Day

Sports Day
Every year the primary school has a Sports Day, where all the students complete in events. Jacob, Bella, and Asher all received ribbons, but Bella truly excelled, taking first place in three individual events: sprints, long jump, and sack race. She also finished second in the long distance run. Congratulations Bella!