February 2026

The office time this week then, has been in Bible translation. The first start of the process is an exegetical draft where I study the paragraph to be translated and do my best to translate all the meaning there into the Kovol language. That is something I can work on alone while we are here in Goroka, and so it was to that I turned. It’s a huge task. My attitude has been one of just making sure I put the hours in as that is the only way to keep chipping away and making progress.
I’m building up a stack of drafts, so far Genesis 1-9 that are all waiting for me to sit with Kovol language speakers to start the transfer process.

Oops, there go the plans that all seemed to be lining up. As there will be follow-on appointments it doesn’t make sense for us to fly into Kovol on Monday as we had planned. We’ll need to push things back 3-6 weeks while the wrist heals. It wouldn’t be wise to be a 45-minute helicopter ride away from the doctor if there are complications.

Life in Papua New Guinea is so very different from back in Europe. After a week in PNG we’ve been acclimatising again. We’ve been finding that it feels at the same time familiar and different.