Are you worthy to suffer?

A year ago at the Ukarumpa International School book parade, Josiah (right) with two of his best friends demonstrating our natural human desire to not be on the receiving end of suffering

We just finished consultant-checking the first 6 ½ chapters of Acts this morning in the Onnele languages of Goiniri, Wolwale and Romei-Barera, and in the Bauni languages of Pou and Barupu. With 28 chapters in Acts and two weeks left in our time together, we are well ahead of schedule.

It was a bit bumpy on the first day to get comfortable with the process of checking five languages simultaneously. By the second day, the vernacular language consultants from each language had a much better idea of the process and what was expected of them. And PNG consultant Aluis Simatab has been doing a fantastic job of doing what he normally does with one language among a group of five languages.

Because these languages have worked closely together in producing their translations, and because we have utilized consultant input early and often throughout the translation process, these factors make these final checking sessions doable in multiple languages. We have done this before in as many as three or four dialects from one language family, but this is the first time we have tried doing this final checking process with as many as five languages from two completely unrelated language families. To be honest, I was approaching this week with a fair bit of fear and trepidation. After the first few minutes of the second day of checking, however, my fears were set at ease. I has really been working well.

Because Aluis came down with a consistent cough a few days before we arrived in the village, he asked me to take the lead for the the last two half days. This experience will contribute to me becoming a full translation consultant myself. This will really be useful not only for the 10 languages currently involved in the Aitape West project, but also for other teams working among the 820+ languages of Papua New Guinea. It is difficult for many teams to find available consultants. We need more workers.

Aluis and I are both very impressed with the state of these translations. There are not a lot of changes needed. The hard work that has gone into drafting and revising the lengthy book of Acts over the last 3 ½ years is really shining through in these consultant checking sessions. It is so satisfying to see that the vernacular language consultants from each community are able to hear and read the translations and repeat back to us in the Tok Pisin trade language every detail that is supposed to be communicated in the verses.

Here is the most significant opportunity for improvement that we have found so far…

The three verses in Acts 5:40-42 make for a really surprising and inspiring conclusion to the story of Peter and the other apostles facing opposition for teaching about the resurrection of Jesus and the gift of the Holy Spirit to those who believe.

v. 40 – The ruling Council has the apostles flogged (READ: with whips that have metal shards that rip the skin right off their backs). And they are commanded never again to speak in the name of Jesus.

v. 41 – The apostles leave the Council rejoicing that God counted them worthy to suffer shame for the name of Jesus.

v. 42 – The apostles continue to teach that Jesus is the Messiah every day in the Temple and from house to house.

This is not normal behavior. Just reading those three verses makes me smile. Makes me laugh. It reminds me of Psalm 2 that the believers quoted in their prayer of Acts 4 the first time that Peter and John were released from jail and told not to speak to anyone in Jesus’ name:

“The kings of the earth prepared for battle; the rulers gathered together against the Lord  and against his Messiah.” (Psalm 2:2 in Acts 4:26)

God’s response to this in Psalm 2 (not quoted in Acts 4) is this:

“But the one who rules in heaven laughs. The Lord scoffs at them., terrifying them with his fierce fury.” (Psalm 2:4-5)

In the same way, when the apostles are ordered not to speak of Jesus any more, they go away rejoicing that God considered them fit to suffer for the name of Jesus. I’m sure the Lord in heaven must have been laughing along with his fit apostles as he guided them and strengthened them in this episode.

In our translations, the reason for the apostles’ joy was not understood clearly. It was difficult to convey the reason for their joy, and all of the vernacular language consultants thought the apostles were happy because they had been freed and allowed to go on their way. That would be too normal. But this verse is talking about joy that only the Holy Spirit can give. This verse is talking about the joy of suffering. The joy of being a living picture of Jesus, sharing in his purposeful pain. The joy of laughing in the face of persecution because you know that you serve the one who was raised from the dead and rules in heaven (Acts 5:30-31). The joy of saying,

“We must obey God rather than men.” (Acts 5:29; cf. 4:19)

When the translators and language consultants heard a clear explanation of this verse, they were also wide-eyed and laughing. They agreed that they needed to fix their translations so that the true meaning of this inspiring verse would come out clear.

How about you? Are you a picture of Jesus in the midst of suffering? Is God’s Spirit alive inside of you? Is your life directed by the authority of God rather than men? Are you worthy to experience shame and suffering for the honor and purposes of our risen King?

Lord, let your Spirit live and laugh in me.

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 the Lagoon…

As the translators wrapped up the Acts revising and Luke recording workshop, we asked our Arop friends what the road situation was like. Everybody we talked to told us that four-wheel-drive trucks couldn’t get in and out of the village. The dirt roads had become soupy. A huge truck blocked the road as well.

We began to brainstorm about our next options. We could walk to the lagoon and take a boat out to the Bismarck Sea to get to the town of Aitape, where we could get another car to take us to Wewak. Ben and I realized that although this had been a possible exit plan, it only lived in the idea stage. Our old life jackets had disintegrated, so it wouldn’t be safe for our children. Taking them out onto the open sea through a narrow inlet called The Otto (named after Otto von Bismarck, from the colonial days), where boats are known to capsize didn’t seem like a wise thing to do.

At one point, I asked, “Can we ask the Samaritan Aviation guy to come get us in the float plane?” A few years ago our director came to visit our project via this plane equipped with pontoons. Our managers in Wewak contacted the pilot and he was willing to pick us up, despite the fact that he usually only delivers medicines and flies patients in life threatening medevacs! He was concerned about the wind, so we began to pray for good weather.

(all photos by Dan Bauman, who came out with us to record Luke with Andy Weaver. I am grateful because I was too busy to take any pictures myself!)

Back to the wee hours of that Saturday morning…

We woke at 4:00 am set out around 5:30…I hadn’t slept all night just for the sheer excitement of the day ahead of us. “What if it rains while we are hiking,” and other questions kept rolling around in my head. That’s me carrying Jenny Beth on the left and Kenny (Sissano translator) on the right. Thankfully most of us had flashlights or headlamps to get us through that first part of the journey.

This swamp was my least favorite portion of the hike…we were up to our knees in the mangrove mud and had to take our shoes off in order to get through it. I had a couple of ladies holding up my arms to help me. I felt humbled, but grateful for their help!

Surprise of all surprises, in the middle of the jungle there was this large escavator submerged in the mud! It was brand new and working its first ever job when it got stuck.

We all breathed a HUGE sigh of relief when we came upon this path…this meant that the muddy swamp walking moments were over.

Here is Andy Weaver and Ben walking across a log bridge… notice the hand rail…sometimes we don’t have the luxury of something to hold onto!

Upon arriving in Wauroiyn, the village nearest the lagoon, we were able to rinse off our muddy feet and shoes.

Ben shaking hands with our friend Rosa, one of the ladies who helped us carry our cargo on the hike.

From Wauroiyn we took a boat down the long narrow stream to get out to the lagoon…

The lagoon appeared before us, calm and peaceful… perfect for the plane to land!

And the float plane, in all its glory landed smoothly!

Mark Palm, the pilot, greeted us. Jessie, the kids and I flew with Mark to Wewak, while Ben, Dan and Andy went on this small boat to then find a car from Aitape to Wewak. Their journey took over 14 hours!

The rest of our journey that day was a little more normal for us. We landed in Wewak and met up with the managers there who gave us cold drinks and snacks. A few other friends who live there came by to chat while our older kids played with friends. Then our pilot friend Chris came and picked us up and expertly flew us home to Ukarumpa! As I think back on that day, I can only be thankful for Jessie traveling with the kids and me, good weather, airplanes that worked well, gifted pilots, and willing friends who fed us. God is good, all the time!

New songs about a new road at Koi Nili, “the place where they sing.”

The concluding part 8 in the continuing short history of the Goiniri Onnele people of Papua New Guinea as reported to me last week by Dominic Pusai…

Now that the road is going in up there to Koi Nili, the Goiniri could move back to their roots within the next few years. At the same time the Goiniri, Wolwale, and Romei-Barera Bible translators are starting to think about taking the Bible translation movement into the mountains. There are many other Onnele language groups that still live in remote areas and have no access to the Word of God in their own languages.

These translators became a part of the Aitape West Translation Project in 2001 after a tsunami forced the Arop people to relocate further inland and the Arop translation team found themselves centrally located between 10 other language groups in the region. They were asking for Bible translation, and they couldn’t be denied. If the Goiniri people move back to Old Goiniri, or Koi Nili – “the place where they sing” — this could be another central area where the Bible translation movement could clearly mark out a new road for many other groups in the Onnele family of languages.

And once again they’ll hear others singing at Koi Nili. But these will be new songs about a new road from the Word of God, and in their own languages.

From Koi Nili to Goiniri, and back again

Part 7 in the continuing short history of the Goiniri Onnele people of Papua New Guinea as reported to me last week by Dominic Pusai…

Over the years, the Goiniri Onnele people have increased in numbers and spread out, constantly needing to clear new land for their gardens. This has created much conflict with the traditional landowners from Nengian.

This year, a lumber company is constructing a new bush road that will connect Amsuku just beyond Wolwale and Romei to Old Goiniri and beyond. The road has just about reached their Koi Nili homeland. The Goiniri people are talking about moving back to their traditional land. That would resolve the conflict with their Nengian neighbors, and plus, there’s just something about moving back to your roots, to the ground that God gave to your ancestors.

Forced resettlement downriver at Niu Niri

Part 6 in the continuing short history of the Goiniri Onnele people of Papua New Guinea as reported to me last week by Dominic Pusai…

Around 1960 an Australian doctor was making his regular patrol from Aitape and the lowland areas of Nengian and Wolwale villages before following the Pien River up into the Torricelli Mountains. He went up there to run a bush clinic for the Goiniri Onnele people. On that walkabout, he fell and injured his hand on the sharp spiny thorns of a sago palm. When he returned to the base of the mountains, he met with the Wolwale and Nengian people and suggested that they find a place for the Goiniri people to live down there. That would make it much easier for him to care for their needs as he passed through all the villages that run along the base of the mountain range.

There was a man from Nengian who had a large area of ground that was not being used, and it was decided that the Goiniri people could come settle there. So in 1961 the first three families moved from Koi Nili to the Goiniri village where they have now lived for the last 50 years. They call it “Niu Niri.”

In 1962 the leaders of the Goiniri people had discussions with the police and it was decided that the families remaining in Old Goiniri needed to resettle and build homes at the new Goiniri village. So the rest of the Goiniri people were forced to move to the place where they now live.

Our clans lived together at Koi Nili, “the place where they sing”

Part 5 in the continuing short history of the Goiniri Onnele people of Papua New Guinea as reported to me last week by Dominic Pusai…

The Goiniri Onnele people lived at Nongkripilru for only a few years before they moved again to the head waters of the Pien River at the confluence a creek called Kupen Rele. They relocated in order that a number of their clans could live together in a tighter community.

This place is called Koi Nili, which means “place where they sing.” This shift brought them close enough to hear the singing and drums from several other people groups in the chain of Onnele languages to the north and west. This was the original “Goiniri” village, and the alternate spelling probably derives from the pronunciation differences of these other Onnele languages. It is now known to outsiders as “Old Goiniri.”

The aid post was also moved to Koi Nili, and it served as a central location where the sick and injured from the surrounding areas could receive medical attention. People would visit the aid post from the related language groups of Wuguble, Kabore, Molmo, Inebu, Kaiye, Karantu, Romei, Barera, Wolwale and Nengian.

Flat hopes for a mission at Nongkripilru

Part 4 in the continuing short history of the Goiniri Onnele people of Papua New Guinea as reported to me last week by Goiniri Bible translator Dominic Pusai…

A number of years after World War II, the Catholic Church had a mission station at Sissano along the coast, and the priests there were looking to establish another mission station inland among the Goiniri Onnele. So the Goiniri people moved again to an area where an airstrip could be built in order to service the potential new mission. This place is called Nongkripilru, which appropriately means “flat edge of a hunter’s bow.” During the Australian administration of Papua New Guinea, a patrol officer’s outpost was established here, a “haus kiap.”

It was decided, however, that an alternative mission station would be established in the lowland Onnele village of Romei. From this central location, the new mission could reach further into the Torricelli Mountains where the Goiniri people lived, among other Onnele peoples. In the early 1950s then, the Goiniri people first attended schools run by the Catholic Mission. This was the first time they started learning the pidgin trade language, and it was then that they were first taught about the Word of God. But it was in a new and foreign language. And to receive this new learning, students had to come down out of the mountains from their new home at Nongkripilru. The airstrip was never built.

Big men, magic, and seduction at Munomu

Part 3 in the continuing short history of the Goiniri Onnele people of Papua New Guinea as reported to me by Goiniri Bible translator Dominic Pusai last week…

The Goiniri Onnele people grew in numbers and needed more space for their clans’ houses and gardens. So they moved down from the mountain to an area with more space that they call Munomu. That is the name of a limbum palm, the kind they use to make basins for preparing boiled sago. This migration occured during the German administration of the northern half of the island in the early 1900s. It was here at this second location that an aid post was established as a central location among the mountain Onnele dialects. People would travel to this aid post at Munomu to receive basic health care. They stayed at Munomu for quite a long time.

During these years, the Goiniri Onnele people were fierce fighters with their spears, and they would make raids as far as Pes in the direction of Aitape. It was also common for them to use traditional magic to fight their enemies. They attest that there were two things that enabled them to continue occupying this land: the strength of their big men as well as the seduction of a woman. This particular area is referred to as “Arop woman held a man,” which recalls the time when their enemies turned back before battle because one of the warriors was seduced (and thus weakened) by a woman on the night before a raid.