Jesus is born among the Sissano people…

Felix from Wolwale took his turn recording the book of Luke in his own language. Photo by Dan Bauman.

Sissano Translator Kenny Aiprum related the following story to Ben who transcribed it, and then it was translated by our teammate Jessie Wright:

When Kenny first took the booklets of Luke and the Christmas Story back to the three Sissano villages, the response was so enthusiastic in the first village that he managed to keep aside only a few copies to distribute to the other villages.

He made sure to reserve a copy for the Catholic catechist, since that is the majority church in the Sissano area. The catechist wanted to read it over and over and be able to read it with understanding so that he could stand up in the Sunday service and read it well in their own language. But many women came and reported afterwards that when he read it, he made quite a few mistakes since this was the first time he had read something publicly in their own language.

Kenny went back and reported to his advisors in the Aitape West Translation Project that the church leaders were requesting that if a recording could also be made of the Christmas Story on CD, then they could listen to it over and over again.

They could listen along with the recording as they read it on paper and learn to read it much better.

In October, that request was fulfilled as cassettes and CDs were made available.

Others came back after the Christmas services and told Kenny with much joy that they got to hear the story of Jesus’ birth read in their own language.

They reported that when they heard it read, it really pierced their hearts and stimulated their thinking because they heard these words in their own language.

For too many years they had not heard this story told in their own Sissano language.

Evidently, the catechist had listened to the CD and really prepared well before Christmas day.

Kenny says,

“When he read it at Christmas, he knew it completely. The first time when I had given it to them, they were still trying to learn it. But when the catechist read it at Christmas, he knew it well and read it just fine.”

All the people were also really interested in listening. They were surprised, and they said,

“Hey! This man didn’t know before how to read Sissano words quickly and clearly like that.”

Next year in new Jerusalem!

 

 

 

Ellie eats her matzah bread while Ben explains its meaning. We celebrated a Passover Seder with another family last night.

I thought I’d write a quick update about our first Passover Seder since I had written about my pre-seder thoughts a couple of days ago. We did a simplified version but included the following elements:

Hiding/getting rid of all the yeast bread. The children found bread around the living room to hide. On this night we eat only unleavened bread in remembrance of the Israelites flight from Egypt–they didn’t have time to let their bread rise.

Ceremonial hand washing

The Seder plate:

• Bitter herbs (parsley):  symbolizing the hardship that the Israelites had as the slaves of the Egyptians. These we dipped into salt water, which represented the tears they shed.

• Roasted egg: representing the cycle of life, endurance of of God’s people and a hope for the future

• Charoset: a sauce made of apples, raisins, wine, cinnamon and walnuts (we used pandanus nuts) to represent the mortar between the bricks that the Israelites made

• Lamb shank bone: signifying the sacrificial lamb

Children asking questions

Leaving a place for Elijah

Communion, connecting Jesus’ sacrifice with the Passover

Each activity is done so that we are able to focus on Christ’s sacrifice for us. I think the most meaningful part of the meal was sharing in communion with our kids and the friends who had joined us. We’ll definitely do this again next year!

 

 

holy week preparation

Ellie picked these flowers in our yard and arranged them herself in preparation for Easter.

It seems like I am finally coming out of the ‘giving birth to twins’ fog. Last week I realized that although we had read Bible stories to the older kids, we hadn’t really done much of that outside of family worship (mostly singing) with our two year olds. To be honest, only one of them enjoys sitting and reading books at this point—the other prefers jumping off the couch! And yet, they are at the age where they are soaking up everything. I don’t want to neglect the most important thing: teaching them about Jesus.

I have resisted doing a lot of ‘spiritualized crafts’ and things in the past because I was afraid of becoming legalistic or appearing competative with other moms. However, the biggest reason centers around being just plain tired and worn out from the mundane tasks I do every day: cooking, cleaning, urging my kids to pick up after themselves, changing diapers, settling disputes and wiping noses to name a few.

It dawned on me that Easter was just around the corner and I had done NOTHING with the kids. Nada. I haven’t felt much like doing anything about Easter since the twins came along, aside from making sure everybody had enough chocolate Easter eggs to eat. When we were home on furlough it was easy to let the church fulfill that role. So last week I asked for some ideas on facebook and did some internet searches…and one night I thought about putting on a Seder that explained the Passover but also highlighted Jesus’ sacrifice. It all seemed very foreign to me but as I was researching it, I started hungering for tradition and rituals. Being over here without many of the perks of our churches back home, I wanted to do something that would help us focus on Jesus this Easter. Ben was still enroute to home, (he’s home now!) so I talked it over with him and he was all for it, in fact he was making the Passover connections before he even saw the material I was working with.

The thing is, I didn’t realize how putting together this meal would affect me. I took a powerpoint from a friend and simplified it greatly so that hopefully the littles won’t get too distractable. As I went through the slides, the words from “Once Again” by Matt Redman came to mind, especially the words “thank you for the cross…thank you for the cross my friend” washed over me. And so, as this holy week progresses, I hope to keep the cross at the forefront of my mind, not because I have to or because I want to look spiritual, but because I love Him. And I want to share that with my kids. If we get around to taking pictures I’ll try to post some of our Seder, and hopefully it won’t be a flop. I guess if it is, I will have had the benefit of the preparation I had going into it. I want my home to be a holy place where God is evident…

Decisions, guilt and doing the right thing…

This week has been an emotional one for me personally because of a decision that we had to revisit.

The Plan seemed like a good one: Ben goes to the village for three weeks, while I stay at our regional center of Ukarumpa. The reason the family didn’t go with him this time mainly centered around difficulty in traveling. Being on jungle roads which are muddy and slippery for hours on end did not seem like a good option for the kids and I, so I volunteered to stay here in the comfort of our Ukarumpa home. Not only that, but Ben and his translators were making a push to get through Acts and if he didn’t have us there to distract him, they could make really good progress.

Having Ben away has been difficult, not because we have had any major things go wrong but it’s just regular life that can get exhausting. It’s the ‘normal’ happenings which require my attention and concentration and with five kids, it feels like I’m dealing with something all day long. I am tired and I miss my husband, who I rely on to help make the steady stream of decisions that rush at me throughout the day. With our pre-teen I’m making more emotional/mental decisions, whereas with the two year olds it is more physically demanding.

The original plan was for Ben to come home, stay for a week, and then go back to Wewak for 2 ½ weeks for a Dictionary workshop that our team had signed up for. We have three or four translators going from our project plus some literacy people in addition to Emil and Jessie who are advisors.

Last week I came down with a sinus infection and for various reasons had a couple of sleepless nights. I think it took something like this for me to realize that I wasn’t going to be able to cope with Ben going to the Dictionary workshop only a week after he returned from being gone for three weeks. Since he was away, my option was to e-mail him or Skype chat, so I chose chatting. It was a really hard conversation to have, but I knew that I needed Ben to be home or else I might have to be medevac’ed out of here. Although it was a bit of a shock at first, he agreed and arranged for the team to go without him.

On top of living cross culturally and dealing with hard things about living in community, if my sanity starts cracking, I won’t last long here…there are definite triggers and I know when the alarm bells are going off. So I’m following the advice of a good friend and doing the right thing and learning to live with a little guilt.

I won’t lie to you, I feel like the weakest link in the chain. For many of us missionary women, if we find that we need to STOP or CHANGE plans it is painful to admit, because we don’t want to be the reason that The Project isn’t moving forward. I feel enormous pressure from the people who fund our project. (ie supporting our national translators) What if they find out that it’s my fault that we aren’t progressing? What if I’m just being a big wimp and I really should be able to handle it? Since I have had these thoughts recently and I have heard them time and time again from my friends and colleagues, I thought I would put it out there so that you can pray for missionaries who are making these same kinds of choices. Yes, we are trusting God. Yes, we are doing so prayerfully. But we are still human and have to deal with a lot of human emotions when we have to say “enough” “I shouldn’t do this” or “I really need a break.” Thankfully the friends who I confided in this week affirmed the things I was saying (and so did Ben!) so the angst only lasted a few days.

The Secret of Contentment

“Aren’t you, like me, hoping that some person, thing or event will come along to give you that final feeling of inner well-being that you desire? Don’t you often hope: “May this book, idea, course, trip, job, country, or relationship fill my deepest desire.” But as long as you are waiting for that mysterious moment, you will go on running helter-skelter, always anxious and restless,always lustful and angry, never fully satisfied. You know hat this is the compulsiveness that keeps us going and busy but at the same time makes us wonder whether we are getting anywhere in the long run. This is the way to spiritual exhaustion and burnout. This is the way to spiritual death.” –Henri Nouwen in Spiritual Direction

Do you think it’s possible that life lessons just keep cycling back in order to keep us humble? For me, the temptation to be dissatisfied with life creeps up on me in very small ways, particularly when exhaustion threatens to take over. Here are some of the ‘if onlys’ that I’ve had kicking around in my head the last couple of days…

If only…

I had this extra kitchen appliance to make my cooking-from-scratch easier

my twins were a little older and not so toddlerish, I wouldn’t feel like I’m constantly saying “no!” “stop!” and “come here!”

Ben weren’t away, I wouldn’t have to deal with the rat running around in my house.

I had a purposeful job to do (besides stay at home mom) I would feel more fulfilled and less like I’m running in circles.

I could figure out childcare, I could exercise and lose some baby weight that I’ve been accumulating for the last 12 years!

Ben and I communicated well every day and were of one mind spiritually, mentally and emotionally

And the one that gives me a lot of thought: If only my personality was completely different, I would have better boundaries with people. In short, I wish I could trade my NF for an ST. (cf Meyers Briggs)

So to counteract spiraling into self pity, I will list what I am thankful for:

I am thankful….

for my daughter, who flipped tortillas on the stove, leaving me free to roll them out more quickly

that the twins are having a nap, the first time in a few days! And they won’t be two forever. Pretty soon I’m going to wish that they were small and crawling into my lap again!

that friends loaned us a rat trap. My oldest son set it, and killed the rat that we caught this morning.

that I GET to stay home with my five children. Our organization does not force me to work outside the home—since I have the freedom to choose, I choose to be home with them!

that my house has two flights of stairs that I am constantly going up and down. If I don’t have an exercise program, at least I’m getting some exercise in here and there!

that I have a husband who loves me and cares about my well being. Although we don’t see eye to eye on a lot of things, we are learning how to communicate better all the time.

that my life is full of people I love and care about and who are patient with me as I learn how to function better in community life.

THERE! I feel much better, and grateful that I am here, with a few toddler-free moments to write this blog post! A few moments ago, before I wrote this post, I was feeling very sorry for myself over some fairly trivial things, and now I am feeling the presence of God washing over me.

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!

Twins: the best and hardest two years of my life!

The past two and a half years have been the best and hardest in my life. When Jacob and Jenny Beth joined our family, there were times when I thought I was going to die of exhaustion. I remember being afraid to go to bed at night knowing that one of them would wake up shortly for a feeding. I struggled with fears about continuing to live cross culturally and taking care of five children at the same time. Could we really return to PNG and live in a village??? Was I going to fall apart once we got there?

Other twin parents comforted me by saying that these two little ones wouldn’t be little forever. And they were right!! At the time it seemed like forever stretched out in front of me…but here we are, 2 ½ years into this journey and I’M STILL ALIVE!

I’ve been thinking about our twins recently as I have learned about a friend who is expecting five babies. FIVE. I thought having two at once was difficult. My heart just goes out to her!

So here is why having the twins has made these last two years the BEST in my life:

1) I’ve had to work on being less codependent with everybody I know and more careful about caregiving with friends in a healthy way. If I am falling apart, I can’t take care of the family God has entrusted me with. It makes Ben’s life difficult if I get so wrapped up in other people’s problems that I can’t function. I am still learning about this and constantly working on balance.

2) My older kids have become more compassionate and sensitive to other people’s needs since having two little siblings to love. Yesterday Jacob broke a glass window pane, cutting his fingers, and both of the older boys rushed to his side to comfort him before I could get there.

3) Ben and I have had to work together more just to survive. I saw myself as a pretty independent person before Jacob and Jenny Beth came along. I didn’t like to ask for help—I liked being the one giving it. But suddenly, I couldn’t do it all. I have learned to depend on Ben much more these past few years, and he has come through for me! Sometimes I start to wonder if I rely on him too much for emotional support and he assures me that this is healthy for a marriage. He should be the one I can confess anything to. I love that guy more now than I did before. J

4) I’ve had to rely on God as my shelter more. Sometimes when I think about each of my five kids, I wonder if I am enough. But then I realize I don’t have to be. That’s God’s work.

Lately the two year old tantrums have been exhausting, and even more so this week since Ben is gone—I think they miss him and don’t know how to articulate it. I’m adjusting to new stages my kids are moving through and praying for wisdom for Ben and I in our parenting (next year our oldest will officially be a teenager!!!) My prayer is that God will help me love them well and stay sane in the process.

Confessions of a missionary wife: embracing the spectacle…

Ellie, Noah, Jenny Beth and Jacob with their village friends and spectators…

One of the things which feels ‘normal’ to me is people staring at me. As an MK growing up in Indonesia, I often had people pinching me, laughing at me and calling me names from a distance whenever I left my house. I came to Papua New Guinea thinking that I was used to all of that. The one thing I wasn’t prepared for was to see it happen to my children. (At least the pinching and pulling hair is not a problem in our villages—we always have a huge crowd of followers whenever we leave our house.) During village stays, we stay inside our house a lot because of the demands of living…cooking everything from scratch, doing chores with minimal modern conveniences and of course homeschooling. However, sometimes in the afternoon, after the twins have their naps, we take a walk outside. If I feel too lazy to go out, I still push myself to do it because Jacob inevitably declares, “I want to run!!” So off we’ll go to a small courtyard where he and Jenny Beth run in circles or take off down a path to another hamlet. One afternoon when we had a particularly large crowd following the twins everywhere, I thought I’d just embrace the moment and get it on camera. I took the above picture and all of the kids crowded around to see it on the little LCD screen. Notice how Ellie and Noah protect their little siblings—it’s really sweet!

As I reflected on that afternoon, I thought, some things, like getting stared at and being the center of attention, can be extremely annoying. But if I am not too annoyed to think straight, I realize that this is one thing that comes with the territory. I can use the opportunity of having a captive audience to speak a kind word or even share my love for Jesus. I just have to look past my own personal level of comfort. It doesn’t mean I’ll ever enjoy being the spectacle but I can live with it because I’ve chosen to be there. And I have a place (my house!) to retreat to when I need a little privacy. (Although a mom of five children rarely gets privacy anyways!) Seems like most things in this life we’ve chosen end up being about balance. How much of myself can I sacrifice without crossing onto the side of insanity?! It’s not an easy question but it is one that constantly pops up when I deal with cross cultural living. And now as a mother, I am often looking for signs in my children, of when their comfort levels have been pushed too far. Thankfully they have become attuned to their feelings and can usually articulate what is going on. One day at a time…

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.