Translation  Workshop

In November it was time to pick two Kovol men who would join us for our translation workshop in town. They were going to fly in the helicopter with us instead of hiking many hours. They were going to sleep on a center and eat food provided by missionaries. They were going to get a better glimpse of the work we were to start and they were to help translating God’s word. They think that the word of God is supposed to bring light to their life and their inside being. There are different ideas about what is going to happen. And I am not sure what all went through their heads. But I am sure almost everyone would have loved to be chosen to join us on this trip.

How were we going to choose? We could have asked some Kovol leadership for their thoughts. But on the other hand, we wanted someone we thought to be faithful, who has helped us before, who is respected, speaks the dialect we have learnt, who is not afraid to speak out and correct us, who is smart and so on. One of our landowners, who is a man in leadership, had gone to town. Another man in leadership, who is from a different dialect, really wanted to go with us and even begged us to take him. But for several reasons he couldn’t be picked. Not only does he not speak our dialect, but also with him present, others can be intimidated to not speak out what they think. Also, in a good way, this guy likes to control everything the way he thinks it should be done, which could cause some challenges. So we didn’t want to ask for his opinion on whom to choose.

At the end we picked two men who have been helping us heavily in language learning. They are trusted, respected men, we loved learning with them as they were extremely helpful and the one was particularly smart, humble and faithful when he was asked for help.

So Silas and Semig got to come with us. The Kovol people seemed to accept our choice.

We arrived in Madang town a few days before the start of the course. So we had to provide for their meals and look out for them. Poor guys, they were so nervous, trying to not make any mistakes. For some meals we had them in our house. They had never eaten at a table before. But you couldn’t tell– they did so well. They watched how we ate and copied us.

Since we wanted to swim in the ocean, we took them along.  We went to a hotel place with a clean beach. Well that was probably too much for them. We could tell they were overwhelmed and possibly in culture shock. We sat at tables or swam in the ocean. They slowly moved back under some trees where some security guys were sitting. Philip went over there to talk to them, and only for their lunch they joined us at the table.

Next time we went to a beach that was further away. A very run-down lodge offered some secure parking and a place to  hang out. We were on our own, nothing fancy. We were sitting on fallen tree logs, our kids played in the sand or we swam in the water and played with the waves. It was beautiful. And the guys LOVED it. They relaxed and enjoyed time with us. I was surprised to see that both were able to swim. They have learnt it while in town with friends before.

Our kids enjoyed doing some puzzles with them or playing UNO. We also showed them a couple of documentaries about fish and other wild animals around the world. They loved it and our kids warmed up to them, which was so sweet to see.

On Sunday morning we took them to our local church on the center. It was held open-air next to the ocean, with many students leading worship and prayer times. I was wondering what was going on in the heads of our guys? Do they see that we have something they don’t have? Could they see that we have a loving relationship with our father in heaven, even if they couldn’t understand what was said? I don’t know. They seemed to enjoy being there, because they joined us the other 2 Sundays for church as well. The people welcomed them warmly as well and connected with them.

On a Wednesday we started with our classes. The twins and Timon went to childcare while I had Louis in the office with me to catch up on some schoolwork. We were 8 families and 4 singles participating. All our national helpers were in their own classes in the mornings. Those were led by 2 experienced, strong national Bible teachers. They met at a different place.

We had 10 days of classes in the morning and practical work in the afternoon. So much was covered. We went through the “10 things we do when we talk”, why we use a meaning equivalent dynamic translation, why we can’t use AI… and then we also went through he practical steps of translation– from the exegetical draft, the polish, recording the text for naturalness, content checking for accuracy, comprehension checking, back-to-English translation, and again content checking . There is so much more to say.

Did you know that the passive grammatical forms are rare among the over 800 different languages in PNG? To give you an example: it says in the gospels “He was healed”. We can’t say that. We would have to say ”He (Jesus) healed him”.

If we stick to the Hebrew, Greek or English “form” and translate word for word, the Kovol people would not understand the Bible and therefore would not be able to use it.

We also talked through some keywords that are difficult to find such as “sanctification, angels, salvation, God….”

And no, we CANNOT use pig for a sheep. People here in Kovol don’t know a sheep. Will we use the pidgin word for that? Probably.

These are just snippets from our workshop.

Back in Kovol we realized that the people had underlying expectations.  Philip was asked the question: Did you bring a letter about the work from your leaders?

The people already met among themselves to discuss how the workshop went. Many people from different villages have attended. We weren’t invited. It would have been interesting to hear what questions people had. But we heard about it only afterwards.