From Brisbane Australia to Arop Village

The skin cancer was about the size of a pea on the outside, but as you can see from the picture, it went a lot deeper inside!

We are safely in our house at Arop village. Since I haven’t had much time to blog in the past few weeks, I thought I would write about my travels all in one go.

Just a little tidbit that I found amusing at the beginning of my trip: when I went up to the checkin counter in Port Moresby, the computers weren’t working. Both of the checkin guys slid down behind the counter. Most of us standing in line could all see the tops of their heads the whole time (!) I wanted to get a picture of them but decided against it I thought they were hiding from the shame of not being able to serve us yet. Incidentally, I wasn’t worried at all because we still had over two hours before the flight was supposed to leave and it looked like no one else had been able to checkin for that flight either. They eventually got it working and we all checked in.

I arrived in Brisbane later that day and met my big sister Jenny at the domestic terminal. From there, we took a taxi to the Wycliffe flats and spent the weekend talking, eating, shopping and sleeping. I haven’t had that much kid free time just to hang out with another adult in 14 years!! It helped that it was one of my favorite people.

On Monday I dropped off Jenny at the airport and my friend Lilah and her husband Lyall picked me up. They hosted me for the rest of my time in Brisbane and believe me, they fed me well the whole time. It was fun to stay with people who love to cook and eat spicy/flavorful food!

Lilah went with me on the bus to my first doctor’s appointment so I could go again myself the next day. It worked just like she told me it would, and I found the staff at the hospital really helpful. The first day was just a checkup, where I met the doctor and he told me about the procedure I would have. The second day was the actual Mohs surgery. From what I understand, they took a little bit out of my forehead, and tested it while I waited in the waiting room. They called me back in for another round of removal. After the second testing, they said it was all gone, and that they had cut through the fat layer into the muscle and took about 2.4 cm circumference out of my forehead. I ended up sitting in the waiting room for a cumulative of 3 hours and was really tired by the end. That day I didn’t have much pain at all, so I rested on my own and took a bus back to Lilah’s. However, I accidentally got on the wrong one. Thankfully Lilah set me straight before I ended up on the wrong side of Brisbane!

The next day I took a taxi to the next appointment because it was in the city and at a different location. This time, they had me put on a hospital gown, slipper socks and a cap. When I got to the operating theatre, they knocked me out. The next thing I knew I was really drowsy and nauseated and could barely keep my eyes open. Another friend Keiyeng came and picked me up from there and took me back to Lilah’s, where I ended up sleeping most of the day.

I didn’t think that I was anxious about any of the procedures except that I didn’t sleep very well Monday night through Wednesday. Thursday I started sleeping much better and I realized it was because I didn’t have any more appointments hanging over me.

I did miss my family intensely during those days, especially when Ben would send me a message asking to Skype because Jenny Beth was crying for me. He told me that the twins both learned how to pray by themselves while I was gone as well. However, I knew that this opportunity to rest was a big blessing to me, so I made an effort to focus on that during those days.

Friday was a splendid day because Cori, a friend of mine from college, had Lilah book me a massage—this was my first spa massage ever! I thoroughly enjoyed it. Afterwards, Lilah and I went shopping and had one of my favorite things, Subway sandwiches, for lunch!

Over the next two days I was able to shop some more at a spice shop and Ikea and have fish and chips with Lilah, Lyall and Lyall’s mum for mother’s day.

I left Brisbane on Monday, the 14th. The checkin line at Virgin Pacific took an hour, so I had 15 minutes at the gate before boarding (a little too close for comfort in my book.) When I got to Port Moresby I couldn’t find my bag. It looked like everybody else had found theirs. Eventually I realized someone had taken it off the conveyer belt. Phew!

At this point, I started feeling a little panicky because I only had 2 hours total in POM to get to my flight to Wewak where I was planning to meet my family before leaving for the village together. I saw that they had checkin signs for different flights so I texted Ben “I think Air Niugini is more efficient than Virgin Pacific!”

This is where it got not so funny….I got up to the counter finally and the lady told me “just go over there.” So I went to another counter where another lady was being trained and seemed to be very confused about filling in the computer forms. People were putting their tickets/passports on the counter and being served so I spoke up and said “I’m going to Wewak.” They looked up at me and told me “the plane is full” I replied (a teeny bit on the loud side…perhaps a bit teary too?) “I have to get there today!” I didn’t have anything organized in POM in case I was stuck there. So they took my passport and weighed my bag, telling me that they couldn’t give me a boarding pass until I paid overweight charges. I had 7 kilos more coming into PNG than I had domestically. I ran over to the overweight baggage counter and when the man finally was able to help me, he kept clearing and retyping the numbers over and over into his calculator to find out 23-17. By this time I was so nervous that I blurted out “my plane is leaving in 15 minutes!” He finally got the receipt made, I paid it, and ran back to the counter to get my boarding pass.

The story doesn’t end here folks…I walked up to the open doors and asked “is the flight leaving for Wewak?” A lady told me “yes! Hurry, go to gate 10.” Well, there was no gate 10 marked anywhere, and I ended up going all the way to the end, and started getting on a plane. A man who had been in line behind me told me that I was on the wrong plane because he was too! I guess being the loud white woman made me memorable that day?!

So I made it to Wewak, and had dinner and breakfast the next day with our good friends there…and pretty soon it was time to greet my family at the airstrip. Jacob and Jenny Beth seemed a little dazed when I saw them, maybe they were wondering if I had disappeared forever while I was gone. They kept asking about my owie and did I see the doctor. Then Jenny Beth told our friend Chris who was the pilot that day, “dat mine plane!”

We got back to the Wycliffe center in Wewak and found out fairly quickly that the car that Ben had booked to take us to the village couldn’t pick us up after all. He ended up finding two other cars and told them that he would go on whichever one arrived first. At 2:00 pm, one showed up. We put all our cargo in, and with the exception of having to wait while they changed a flat with the spare from our car, we were off.

The trip itself was probably one of the hardest trips I’ve ever been on. We were on some pretty hard seats for over 7 hours on very bumpy bush roads. I spent a good deal of the time trying to absorb the bumps for Jenny Beth and prayed that my backside would just fall asleep. By 9:00 we were all feeling exhausted so Ben asked the driver if we could please overnight in Aitape. He agreed readily and Ben found out that we could stay at a guest house. I am so grateful for this, because after a good night’s sleep, I didn’t feel like leaving Papua New Guinea for a more comfortable existence. I often find that things look so much better in the morning, especially after a nice breakfast of scrambled eggs made by our teammate Jessie. J The kids, Jess and I took a little walk to a small grocery store and bought snacks for the journey and also to the market to get some kau kau (sweet potato), cucumber and tomatoes for our first couple of meals in the village.

The next car ride was only 1.5 hours, and Ben had secured the cargo so that it wasn’t falling on him and Jessie like it was the night before. Also I had bought a pillow at Papindos to sit on so the bumps didn’t affect me as much.

As we were driving, I told my kids how I was proud of how flexible they are. The night before I was feeling pretty sorry for myself and wondering how they were faring. Apparently they did much better than I did, because Noah blurted out, “it’s fun to be bounced around!” During the night when we were travelling Jacob (2 ½) kept looking out the windows and looking for stars. He said “I’m painim stars!” (finding) He would then sing his version of “Twinkle Twinkle” and proceed to get mad whenever the trees would cover them. Jenny Beth did well and stayed happy as long as she had Jessie’s fleece wrapped around her in some way.

When we arrived in our village, we walked a short way from the car to our house. Even before the twins saw our house they started shouting “dat mine house!!” It really warmed my heart to know that they knew where we were going. Noah and Ellie were fantastic about looking after the little ones while we swept out the cobwebs and wiped down all the shelves, counters, tables and bookshelves.

This afternoon, Jacob woke up from his nap crying and covered in sweat so I said “let’s go outside and you can have your drink out on the veranda.” While we sat on the steps of our house, four different ladies came up to us at different times and said hello and chatted for a bit. In all of my 10 years here, I haven’t had that many ladies purposefully come over to me and initiate a conversation in such a short time. (Well, one stood and smiled and let me ooh and ahh over how big her baby had gotten! She’s not much for talking but she does have a beautiful smile.) I know it might seem like a small thing, but I think God gave that to me today to encourage me that people are noticing that we are here and are glad for it.

Tonight Ben is working on getting printed copies of Acts ready for our consultant and the mother tongue speakers who have come to help in the checking process. I have to say I am really grateful to be here, sitting underneath my mosquito net with my incision healing nicely, and the ability to use the internet in the village. J I really feel like the whole experience of me getting the skin cancer removed and the pieces that fell into place along the way evidenced God’s mercy to me and to my family as well. I have never seen Ben so happy to see me as he was yesterday, after caring for our five children on his own! One thing he said was “it’s hard to think about yourself when you are looking after so many other people.” (He almost forgot to pack his own things for the village). That made me smile. He gets motherhood!

Tomorrow will be a flurry of unpacking, pulling out homeschooling materials for Noah and Ellie, cooking and chasing down the twins and mopping our very dirty floor. But I will at least start the day grateful (I hope!) for all of the things God did for me these past two weeks!

If you made it all the way to the end of this saga, I’m impressed, I didn’t mean for it to be this long! Thanks for listening in….

The Word speaks more clearly to the Arop people…

Pastor Peter, an Arop translator and Baptist pastor. Photo by Dan Bauman.

The following is another story as related by Pastor Peter. Transcribed by Ben and translated by Jessie Wright.

Pastor Peter talks about how in 2011 when they first took the portions of Luke and Acts back to the community and listened to it for the first time, some significant discussions came up about a few passages. When they only had the pidgin trade language Bible and they would read Acts 4:12, people still thought there were many ways to God. The message in the Tok Pisin Bible was not clear to them.

After they translated Acts into the Arop language, however, the message of that verse now became completely clear to them in their own language. They now read that and understand that Jesus is this man that God sent to save us, and no one else.

Another passage that became very clear was Luke 19:10. Now they understand that Jesus is this man that God sent to save those who are lost. So the reading of these two Bible verses was a really big thing that happened when they went through the chapters to check the translations.

It’s in their own language so they do not misunderstand it.

My take on the translation process…

Above: Ben listens to discussions during devotions. Usually the translators take turns covering the passage they will be working on during their devotion time. Often they will interact with each other and talk about where they might have difficulty in translating the section.

At times the translation process has baffled me…how does one take a previously unwritten language and get into a readable form? How does that writing turn into God’s Word? This post is an attempt for me to speak about the process as simply as I can as the wife of a translator/linguist. I hope I can do it justice!

We have translators from ten language groups coming to a central location (Arop) in the Aitape West region of Papua New Guinea for workshops. Most of them walk, some coming from as close as a 30 minute walk away, others have to walk all day. We hold five or more workshops every year for four weeks at a time. Right now, Ben is in the last week of a translation workshop in Arop, working with his translators to get Acts ready for consultant checking

So the first major concept is our translators are trained by doing the work themselves. As the translators draft the Scriptures, they read them to each other and talk within their groups. When a difficult concept arises, they discuss it amongst themselves and with their advisor and work out a way to translate it. I’ve heard that they can find concepts like forgiveness and mercy to be difficult to put into a language that doesn’t have those terms. Each of the three groups is made up of language speakers who can understand each other, or at least their languages work in similar ways.

The translators use a program specially designed for them called Paratext. Whenever they input things into their databases, the program remembers what they put. It allows them to access this information for later times, which helps them speed up the translation process. Also this program provides a way to track when and if they make changes and also lets them write comments to each other as a group or to their advisors. I don’t really know how it works but it sounds amazing to me!

Ben is the Onnele advisor, so he sits with the three Onnele language groups. As much as they can, they make their translations similar; however, when something doesn’t make sense or doesn’t work in one of these languages, the translators are free to translate it differently. The advisors will then make comments into Paratext and the translators can interact with them and write notes back.

After going through advisor checks, the translation is ready for consultant checking. The consultant will sit down with our translators, their advisor and several speakers of the language who have not read the drafts. Then comes the comprehension testing and questions to make sure it is understandable and accurate.

Although I’ve simplified the wording of this process, it’s all rather complicated…the advisors and translators are learning about the linguistics of the languages we work with so that things are said in the proper way. They are also doing careful exegesis for the passages covered. Often the translators will ask Ben what the Greek text says, and they are also adept at using Translator’s Workplace, software that provides them with numerous notes and resources. We have been amazed by the dedication of our PNG coworkers, how they pour over commentaries and Bible dictionaries into the evening, until the generator power goes off for the night. They want to see God’s word speaking to their people, and they want to make sure they get it right.

And that, my friends, is my take on the translation process…

Sea travel and hiking for Ben today

Ben took this picture with his camera phone on the last boat trip out of the village…

Today the road is bad (you can drive about 1.5 hours but the rest of the road is impassable). Ben decided to catch a 2 hour boat ride from Aitape, which will take him as far as Waroiyn, and then he will hike 2 hours to get to our village. Yesterday they could not take him because of the strong winds. It took Ben nearly nine hours on bush roads to get as far as Aitape from Wewak, after waiting nearly a week for a car to take him. In the past few months, travelling to and from the village has become very difficult for our family because both of the government owned airstrips we have used in the past are not being cut and the dirt road in and out of the village is soupy. At least when Ben is travelling alone, he considers it to be an adventure and he doesn’t mind the hours on the road (or water, as it is today!)

Here’s one to show what the road looks like!

Waiting beside a river , because the water is too high to drive through. Ben says that the water covered his ankles in the front seat of the car this week!

We are in the process of ordering life jackets for our kids to reduce the risks of traveling by sea; however  even if we can go by sea next time, the road travel is still an issue, at least between Wewak and  Aitape. Please pray that we will find a better solution to getting in and out of our home in the jungle!

Wailing, beards, and lost for words at a funeral

This post is yet more “confessions of a missionary wife.” It’s going to be difficult to write.

You may have seen the post I wrote about David Emil’s passing here: http://livingletters.wordpress.com/2011/12/26/he-gives-and-takes-away/

When we were in the village we walked to the Emil family’s house to cry and grieve with them. A death in the family means that several cultural things take place: close friends and family come stay to mourn together. It is the responsibility of the grieving family to provide food for anyone who comes to mourn. This can be a financial hardship. The visitors can stay for weeks, even months. The men grow out their beards, a physical example of their grief and pain. When their initial grieving is over, they shave their facial hair.

Ben has the ability to mourn the way a Papua New Guinean does. When we entered the courtyard, he began wailing loudly. I had quietly explained to our children that this was going to happen, so they were not scared. I stayed back and held our two year old twins, and cried softly. As soon as Ben started crying, the mother and grandmother of the boy began wailing as well. The father stood quietly until I gave him a plastic covered picture of his boy. He started crying loudly then too. Ben came over and they held each other for a while.

Even though we’ve been in PNG since 2002, I still feel like a foreigner in situations like these. In my culture grief is a private matter. I am always concerned that I won’t know what to say to someone who has lost a loved one. However, in PNG, crying loudly with the family and being there says that you are walking with them through their pain.

As we walked the 45 minutes home, I felt anguish for Emil’s family and the loss of a beloved son. I told my kids that it was okay to feel sad for our friends because we love them. Ben went later on with the translators for a memorial service where a big feast was held after the grave had been decorated according to their custom.

Today I wrote an e-mail to Emil with these verses:

1Thessalonians 4:13-18

¹³ And now, dear brothers and sisters, we want you to know what will happen to the believers who have died so you will not grieve like people who have no hope. ¹⁴ For since we believe that Jesus died and was raised to life again, we also believe that when Jesus returns, God will bring back with him the believers who have died.

¹⁵ We tell you this directly from the Lord: We who are still living when the Lord returns will not meet him ahead of those who have died.¹⁶ For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a commanding shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God. First, the Christians who have died will rise from their graves. ¹⁷ Then, together with them, we who are still alive and remain on the earth will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Then we will be with the Lord forever. ¹⁸ So encourage each other with these words.

So often I get caught up in the mundane of the here and now and forget that one day the Lord will return! That last verse “encourage each other with these words” made me think how little time I spend encouraging others with the hope of Christ’s return. There will be no more pain, suffering and grief.

Journey to Arop…

Our plane landed at our first destination, Tadji, on the way to a translation and recording workshop in Arop village in January.

The road was good except for this spot…

…and this one.

Finally we arrived in Arop, where we have just a 5 minute walk to our house.

Home sweet home!!

Once we were in Arop, Dan Bauman (pictured above) and Andy Weaver began recording the book of Luke with our translators while Ben and Jessie worked with them on refining Acts. I cooked everybody’s lunch and homeschooled the kids…it was busy but very productive!

(Photos by Dan Bauman and Jessie Wright–thanks guys!)

We have internet in the jungle!

Many of you have been praying for us to get a satellite connection (VSAT) up and running in the village. A couple of weeks ago, Kurt Metzger (far left) and Wayne Ferris (far right) came from Ukarumpa to get it set up. They are pictured above with Ben and Emil Ninkure after getting it up and running in a day and a half.

“Why do you need an internet connection out in Arop?” you might be wondering.

We need to back up translation work. When you have 11 languages saving a book like Luke, for instance, the files get HUGE. We could not do this over the radio connection. Additionally, Skype allows us to contact the village when we are not there. Consultants and advisors assist us in the translation work remotely. Also, computer support people can ‘take over’ a computer and fix it from another location. John Nystrom, our teammate in the US does this for us already.

The VSAT has already helped save the lives of a mother and her twin babies! After coming back from the village, we learned from Emil via SKYPE that an Arop woman couldn’t deliver her second baby. Ben called the hospital in Aitape, a 2.5 hour drive away from the village and connected Emil to them using Skype so that they could talk to each other. The hospital personnel sent a car out to get her right away. A week later, I was able to reach the hospital by phone and found out that although the mother and babies survived, the mother needed blood. Once again, we got on SKYPE and asked Emil to send a family member to the hospital to donate blood for her. We praise God for the life of this mother and her babies. We are grateful for the VSAT which allowed us to help them get to the hospital!

 

Not waiting to see Jesus, I hope

This blog post title can be read in two completely different ways.

1. You could read it with a hopeless and disparaging tone, and perhaps that will get me some blog readers who are curious and ready to bring me into line. As such, the part before the comma has focus and the “I hope” really has the commonly used sense of “I doubt, but for your sake it would be good if you wise up”
2. If you want to get my real meaning, you should read it as a statement with the part before the comma only providing an adverbial restriction to the focus of the statement, “I hope.” This is true wisdom that only comes from above.

Obviously, language can sometimes be really ambiguous. And in Bible translation, often times we need to look closely at the words we use and make sure we’re conveying the right meaning and not some other meaning that can creep in either because of the way that words have multiple senses or because of some lack of understanding on our part about what the original text means.

We have an example of this with the word “hope” in 1 Timothy 1:1. Read on to get an idea of the kind of translation note I am writing these days for my teammates.