New Bible translation project in Vanuatu

From Ross Webb
SIL Vanuatu Director

How can a place that looks so close as crows fly take so long to get to?! It did - 24 hours after leaving home we arrived at our first destination. Saving money and taking a boat for the first 15 hours was a bit of a mistake!

We were off to the South coast of Malekula island, to follow up on a survey done there last year to check out as a suitable place to do a translation of the Bible. As we suspected, it seems that a translation done in one of the languages in the area may well be able to serve as a foundation for quicker adaptation into some other languages in the region. Surveys are hypothetical, future possibilities. This trip was the start of the real thing. Along with Serah (from our office), and a pastor that speaks the languages we were headed for (more on Ps Aman soon), we had Brad Fleming with us - a real, live, future translation advisor, newly arrived from the US and looking to us to give him guidance for where he might spend the next 10 or so years of his life working with a community to translate the Scriptures.

The trip was rough - watery rough, but the 'captains' of the 'speed boats' assured us they'd never lost anyone to the ocean. That was a comfort! And land felt all the firmer, the beaches whiter, the swaying palms taller and the hospitality shown in the villages we visited all the more welcome. Meetings were called in every village for Serah and I to explain the mission of Bible translation - starting with God speaking with a loving intent to draw all men to himself through Jesus. Our meetings were all in churches so it wasn't an evangelistic event (!) but it was an opportunity for long time church goers to think again why they even open the Bible in church, and how much they should be concerned about understanding it. An astute elder present at one of the meetings commented at question time, "A lot of times we preachers don't really understand the text we are preaching on, so we dish out to the people thoughts from our own imaginations." When it boils down to it, there is not much choice for many to do more than that. It's our fond hope that translating will at least remove the haze somewhat!



Pastor Aman talking to leaders in Mbonvor village

Serah & I did this 'awareness' in 4 picturesque villages. Questions were good, ranging from what would the alphabet look like to how can we trust that the new translation will be really the Word of God like the KJV. Now that's a good question! Brad, the future translation advisor guy, has more or less decided that he'll settle his family in one of the villages. Working out how to get his family there is a bit more of a challenge, but he has till the beginning of next year to work it out! The main factor that convinced him that this rugged area of the nation is where God wants him to help out is Pastor Aman. Aman has served the church in other places for 7 years and has seen the effects of Bible translation in the lives of people. For a long time he's told us he'd jump ship, so to speak, as soon as there was an advisor on the horizon to help him. Now's

So you could pray for the Flemings - they have some practical training to complete in PNG in the next few months, and for Ps Aman - if God is pleased he will need to uproot his family from Tanna island after he serves out his pastoring term, and take them to his homeland to start a new adventure. There's a fair bit to be worked out!