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Our team has just reached a significant milestone with the completion of the first draft of our literacy materials 🙂 We spent 2 weeks of focused time working on them with the help of two literacy consultants and we now have 87 lessons that teach all the syllables needed to read in the Kovol language. Some lessons introduce new syllables and some lessons are practice lessons that use syllables that have already been introduced to tell short stories for practice reading.

Last week we started with our 2 week literacy kick-off. We’re preparing the primers and readers that will make up the Kovol literacy program. It has been an incredibly exciting time that has been well attended by the Kovol community.

Setbacks aside Bible translation progress is steady and we have a visitor 😀
Carol, a friend of ours from training in the UK is once again visiting us. She was last here with her husband 2 years ago. Her son has come to Papua New Guinea to start his work in tech services and Carol tagged along on the plane ride to help with her grandkids and then come on to us. She’s going to be with us for 6 weeks.

Translating God’s word is a big responsibility. As such accountability to others is very important. Our Bible translation procedure builds in accountability to make sure I’m not the only person who gets to decide that what I have translated is an accurate translation.

Four months ago, I “finished language study.” Finishing language study required three years of full-time effort. What a challenge it was! I’ve come a long way from pointing at different root vegetables, asking “What is it?” and then promptly forgetting Read more…

The Bible is a very complex text to translate. As I draft new passages I routinely come across vocabulary challenges.
The latest challenge is also a grammar challenge:

As preparation for the Kovol literacy class, we need to produce practice reading materials. The number 1 reason literacy graduates don’t cement their skills and make literacy a part of their lives is lack of practice. Some estimate that students require at least 600 hours of reading practice, without which graduates may slip back into illiteracy.

This week we’ve had the Kovol people helping us in a big way. They cut bamboo in the jungle, carried it to our house and then walled in parts of our houses. The Hansen family had recently had an extension built onto their house and my little office under our house hadn’t had an exterior wall put on yet.