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Really smart phones

Saturday, February 11th, 2012

The Djambarrpuyngu New Testament was launched in 2008, after thirty years of work. The language is spoken on Elcho Island, just off the north coast of Australia, by around 700 people. But the translation of the New Testament into new forms continues…

Waangar was one of the mother-tongue speakers who was involved with the New Testament translation. But after the translation was dedicated, she didn’t just take it easy. She wanted more people to hear the Bible in her language. So she taught herself how to record audio programmes: she got the recordings broadcasted by the local radio station, the first ever radio programmes in the Djambarrpuyngu language.

Children wave flags as part of the Djambarrpuyngu dedication

But she saw more opportunities. People around her shared music files on their mobile phones, she noticed. Soon, she was sharing Scripture recordings with people, phone to phone.

Some people train to do roles like Waangar’s in Bible translation, specialising in sharing the Bible so that people can interact with it in new ways. Waangar met one of these specialists, and together they edited the Luke film, already dubbed into the Djambarrpuyngu language, and created a shorter, Christmas video, available for people to watch on their phones.

They made more films. Waangar produced one about Jesus calming the storm. She thought it was particularly pertinent for people experiencing turbulence in their lives. She saw first-hand the impact of this video when her neighbour described the enjoyment of it in their household: there was much debate among the children about who would get the phone as they loved watching the videos before bed, and had soon memorised it word-for-word. The neighbour told her make more films.

The whole language project committee is now committed to sharing the New Testament with the community using new media, like phones. Waangar is one of many around the world passionate to share God’s story with her people in the language they understand best.

Give the Story by helping people to interact with Scripture in new ways.

This story also appeared in Call to Prayer, the prayer diary of Wycliffe Bible Translators. Thank God with us for this tremendous spread of his word.

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How far would you go?

Sunday, January 22nd, 2012

One of the stories in our latest magazine was about the astonishing transformation God worked among the Pinai-Hagahai when the word of God came to them. The translated Scriptures were distributed on solar-powered media players. Read what happened when one family’s media player broke…

"Scriptures in my language"

‘What would you be willing to do to hear God’s Word in your language? Would you hike for half a day? Would you cross a rugged mountain? Would you navigate a vine bridge suspended over a raging river?

‘That’s what Wapena Mei did in order to obtain a small solar-powered device that has a recording of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Acts in the Pinai-Hagahai language. You see, Wapena knew it would be worth the trip because he had already been listening to the oral Scriptures for more than a year. But when his family’s player broke and they learned that 70 more would be distributed in a village across the mountain, his wife gave him the charge, “Go and get us another one of those MegaVoice units.”

‘Wapena was successful in his mission and he and his wife Makome will again be able to listen to the Pinai-Hagahai Scriptures in their small dwelling as they go to sleep at night. Wapena also uses it as a resource to prepare sermons for preaching in area churches.’ Account by Karen Weaver. Read more on thewordislife.net.

You can read more about the initial response to the media players in our magazine, Words for Life.

Pinai-Hagahai is a language of Papua New Guinea, the country with the greatest need for Bible translation in the world. Wapena Mei can hear God’s word in his language, but many more in his country and around the world have never heard even a single verse. Share God’s Story.

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The patient Kapingamarangi

Friday, December 16th, 2011

When Pam and Nico were working in the Solomon Islands, they heard about the Kapingamarangi people of Micronesia. They heard that many of them were longing to have the Bible in their language. They were even saving to support the translation financially. But no one was available to coordinate the linguistic and translation work.

Pam and Nico returned more than 10 years later, and asked after the Kapingamarangi. Were they still fervent? they asked. One man’s answer summed it up: “What do we need to do to get you to come? Do we need to pay your plane fare?”

“Finally, in 1996 we moved to Pohnpei [in Micronesia] with our 12-year-old son. We found a community prepared to make Bible translation work a top priority—and ready to work together toward that goal. With the help of 20-plus translators and more than 70 Scripture reviewers, the New Testament was completed in only four years! By then their savings fully paid the cost of publication.

“When the completed New Testament was dedicated in 2000, we heard the story of Lohete, which gave us a new perspective on the Kapingans’ accomplishment. Lohete was a Kapingamarangi man who had received a Bible in the Pohnpeian language many years before. Pohnpeian is a Micronesian language, completely different from Kapingamarangi, a Polynesian language. Nevertheless, Lohete longed to read the Bible, so he taught himself Pohnpeian and, as he read, he came to know Jesus.

“Lohete wanted others to know the good news that he had discovered, but he knew that most people would never teach themselves Pohnpeian as he had done. So he started praying for someone to help translate the Bible into his language. We never knew Lohete, and his son was already an old man by the time we came to help, but when we heard this story, we knew that God had sent us in answer to Lohete’s prayers.”

Lohete never saw the New Testament in his language, but his prayer played as vital a role in the translations as the savings of his descendants. Please join in prayer with Wycliffe and the work of Bible translation: you can reach our prayer diary here (as a pdf) or subscribe for prayer items direct to your inbox.

This story comes from Rev 7, the magazine of JAARS. JAARS partner with Wycliffe Bible Translators, specialising in transport and technology. Find out more about JAARS and read their magazine.

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‘An interesting and varied life’

Saturday, November 5th, 2011

Earlier this month we were saddened to hear of the death of Irene Walker. Irene had been a Wycliffe short-termer from the 1970’s. But, looking back at her life, the phrase ‘short-termer’ doesn’t really cover it.

In 1975, at the age of 55, Irene made the decision to use the freedom of her retirement to go to Papua New Guinea with Wycliffe. She volunteered, providing important teaching and administration skills. Irene returned home after her first 3 ¼ years, but soon felt that she should return to this work.

Her letters home tell of some of her amazing experiences:

December 1980

November 1st was a very special day for the people of villages on the banks of the Sepik river for on that day their own Yessan-Mayo New testament was dedicated![…] The previous day some of us had flown out from Ukarumpa and then travelled upriver in two canoes joined by planks of wood, enjoying the beauty of the river, the birds and foliage, and the little villages on the bank.  It was a wonderful experience to rejoice with the people in song and prayer and reading from their own New Testaments.

March 1981

I have acquired a car; bits of it are held together by tape but all vital parts work and it successfully negotiates mud, a flood, a plank bridge and herds of water buffalo between the centre and the aviation department.

After a further 3+ years, Irene returned home. But she still wasn’t finished with Wycliffe. She volunteered with the Wycliffe office in Northern Ireland, representing Wycliffe at churches and helping in the office. All in all, Irene’s short-term work lasted more than 14 years.

She is fondly missed, and her life – by committing to supporting the work of Bible translation – has touched many lives. You can read more about Irene from Wycliffe’s Northern Ireland coordinator John Hamilton, on his blog.

Find out how you could be part of Wycliffe’s work in any number of ways.

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A Fond Farewell

Monday, October 3rd, 2011

In order for Bible translation to happen, many partners need to be involved. In hard-to-reach places, one of the most important partners are aviation specialists JAARS. Without their work, how would the word get to the depths of the rainforest?

In April this year, JAARS decommissioned one of their pacific aircraft. As the Helio Courier was disassembled and shipped to the US, amid some sadness, one of the pilots recalled the vital work done with that machine:

“That plane carried a lot of Bibles and supporters to Bible dedications, new missionaries to their work locations, and sick missionary kids to town for medical help. It brought a family out of the village so they could reach a flight to Australia for desperate medical attention.

“It even flew a young mother on her deathbed to town for a simple operation that saved her life. And her child’s life was saved, too: in that village’s culture, without a mother, the child will die.

“A man died on that plane. The weather was so bad, and I was trying my best to get him to a hospital and praying for God to help me. My answer came in a different way than I expected—a tap on the shoulder, then ‘Mr. Pilot, take us back. He is gone.’

“At an airfield dedication, the people were so pumped up that they made me take a pig home for opening up their field. I thought, What am I going to do with a pig?”

This quote is from pilot Paul Westlund. Read more from JAARS.

Partnership is essential for the work of Bible translation. Wycliffe are working, with partners worldwide, to see a Bible translation project started in every language where one’s needed by 2025. And we invite you to be part of it.

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The Bible gets personal

Monday, September 12th, 2011

The point of Bible translation is never only a book. While Wycliffe workers spend many years ensuring accurate translation of a book into a book, the point is not the book but to see lives changed, as people hear God’s word.

The Sursurunga people of Papua New Guinea have had the New Testament for little over a year, but already they have been convicted of sin that was deeply engrained in their culture. This is an account of the impact Bible truth had on their way of life:

Sursurunga people grow up with the belief that if they allow their young children to cry, evil spirits will come to take the child’s spirit, and the child will become sick and die. In order to keep their children from crying, parents start lying to their children from the day they are born.

Because of this belief, lying has become an integral part of their culture. However, when Sursurunga parents learned [...] that lying is a sin against God, they were convicted to change the way they relate to their children.

[...] One grandfather went home, called his family together, and confessed to them his sin of lying to his kids when they were small, saying that the moon would eat them if they cried. One of his daughters had started telling her kids the same lie. He picked up his 9 month old grandchild, told her he was sorry, and asked her forgiveness. He asked his whole family to do the same thing, and he prayed, asking God to cut this sin from his family. (Account written by Karen Weaver)

There’s more to this story – read more on TheWordisLife.net.

What struck me most was the radical response people had to the truth they learnt in the Bible: they were willing to forego a cultural way of life to obey God’s word. Am I willing to do the same? Do I even let the Bible get personal in my life?

Learn more about how God changes lives when his word is translated, and get involved.

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Jenry’s Story from Rev. 7

Monday, August 1st, 2011

In many places, it is a struggle for people to fit the news of the ‘new’ God Christians proclaim with their traditional beliefs. This was a problem among the Nivhaar speakers* of Vanuatu. JAARS, an organisation partnering in Bible translation, have been working with them.

In areas like this, God’s word in the language people can understand speaks the truth louder than anything else. Translating the Bible has had an impact on Nivhaar people.

Take Jenry, a local shaman. He had been appointed to preach by the local church, but he didn’t fully understand the Good News of Jesus. He often preached that you needed to work really hard to be saved by God. But after being involved in the translation of Galatians, he was deeply convicted that ‘there is nothing we can do to be saved…. It’s the blood of Jesus’. When the first draft of the New Testament was complete, Jenry’s celebrations for it were heard all around the village. Read more from JAARS’s magazine, Rev. 7.

The New Testament  has been completed but not yet published. Soon, Jenry and 5,000 others will be able to read God’s word in their own language. JAARS have been involved in producing the JESUS Film and are now getting the New Testament onto audio players, so that those who can’t read will also have access to God’s word.

Around the world, more than 300 million people don’t share Jenry’s knowledge and joy, because they don’t have any part of the Bible in their own language. JAARS and Wycliffe Bible Translators are working together so that everyone can have God’s word in a language they really understand. Find out more about the vision we share.

*Nivhaar is a dialect of Southwest Tanna.

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Wycliffe Bible Translators Philippines

Tuesday, July 19th, 2011

A few days ago, I wrote about Wycliffe Benin, who are working with churches in Benin to help everyone have the Bible in their own language. Watch this video to see one way the same is being done in the Philippines.

This is Our Story – The Philippines from Wycliffe Global Alliance on Vimeo.

“And my hope is that other churches will see this example and testimony and they will be inspired to do the same… God has already provided.”

Churches around the world are getting involved in what God is doing through Bible translation, sharing God’s Story in the languages people think and dream in, their ‘heart’ languages. Local Wycliffe organisations, like Wycliffe Bible Translators in Philippines and in the UK, can help your church to get involved with the work.

Find out how your church in the UK could be part of God’s Bible translation work. Although Wycliffe Bible Translators (UK) have no farms at present, we do run a conference centre – the Wycliffe Centre – a proportion of whose profits go to Bible translation!

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God so loved the world…

Sunday, May 29th, 2011

Beth and Stephanie were doing short-term work in Papua New Guinea. They had spent some time with the Neme people and, for four days, had been exploring alphabet possibilities — seeing how it would be best to write the Neme language.

They were getting comfortable with the script and decided to try it out. Their test text: John 3:16.

It contains some very difficult concepts to translate. They spent many hours explaining and rewriting. With great exitement, they began to write it with permanent marker on a cotton flour sack. Everyone was eager to join in — one writing, one reading, several holding the sack tightly, and many more giving the writer constant instruction.

When they finished, everyone was smiling. There were tears in the eyes of the Neme speakers as they read it. The translation back into English is something like this:

‘Because God strongly loved all world’s-people, he sent-from-afar his one-and-only-son. Whoever hears-and-receives-continually him, he will not die, continually raw will-get.’

The Neme people had first heard the gospel almost 70 years before in a language that was not their own. But this was the first time they had heard God’s word in their own language.

But a Bible translation programme has yet to begin among the Neme people. They make up 0.0001% of the people in the world without any translation begun in their language. Find out more about how you can help to share God’s word with them.

This story comes from a previous edition of Words for Life, our biannual magazine. Read our newest magazine for more stories from Bible translation. You can also hear regular stories by signing up to our e-newsletter.

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View from the Ground

Monday, May 23rd, 2011

It can take five days travelling, by boat and on foot, to reach some language communities in Papua New Guinea. The same journey by plane takes a couple of hours. Small aircraft not only make transporting resources easier, but they can act as ambulances and their use is a matter of life or death.

A Runway in Papua New Guinea

So it’s important that the runways, small though they are, are maintained for planes to take off and land. David, an aviation partner of Wycliffe’s, says,

“Without the airstrips, translation within this country would cease. Air travel within Papua New Guinea is crucial to get the task of Bible translation completed.”

But heavy rains and thick vegetation growth mean that constant work is needed to maintain the runways. If a runway becomes unusable, workers are isolated.

Wycliffe Associates in the US, who partner with Wycliffe, have committed to raising funds and doing maintenance on strips that are falling into disrepair across Papua New Guinea.  The $50,000 they aim to raise will purchase essential maintanance gear, like shovels and wheelbarrows, as well as enabling ground-clearing work to be done where more runways are needed.

Read more about this project and the work of Wycliffe Associates in the USA.

In Papua New Guinea alone, there are still over 500 language groups where no translation work has even begun. You can help to share God’s story with them in their own language.

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