PNG: Video of Bible Dedication

The Arop-Lokep people of Long Island, PNG dedicated their New Testament on June 8, 2014.

Other videos from PNG are available at  The PNG Experience.

Blogs from the Pacific

These blogs are being written by people serving in the Pacific.  Some are more current than others but you can read them to get a feel for what their life and ministry is like.  

Solomon Islands

The Lantrip Family: Serving a Bibleless people in the Pacific, assisting in translating God's Word into their mother tongue.

The Choate Family: Serving as Translation Advisors

Havengadventure:  Serving as Translation Advisors

Papua New Guinea

The PNG Experience  Bible translation and language development in PNG

Translation:

Beyond Imagination 

Tartan Tales  

Penned in PNG:  

Living Letters

Luke & Laura in PNG

Survey:

Life and Language Survey in Papua New Guinea  Juliann is no longer serving there but you can read her blog to learn more about survey work.

Language Intern:

Every Language 

Aviation:

Find me in the River  

The Carpenter's Sight 

Literacy:

Finding Joy in PNG

Language Survey

Survey work - one of the most adventurous roles we have! 
 

Do you have a love for languages and an interest in

analyzing them?  Do you want to see a Bible translation in the heart language for everyone in PNG?  Consider serving with us!

A language survey or assessment is the first step in the process of Bible translation.  A sample of questions that the report answers are: Where are the language boundaries? Are there dialects?  If so, do they each need a translation or can they all understand one of the dialects?  What is the literacy rate?

In Papua New Guinea, the Survey Office is located in the Highlands of PNG at the Ukarumpa center.  Most likely you will be based at Ukarumpa when you are not on survey hikes.  You and your team will gather data before starting the survey, then you’ll head out for a 1-4 week survey trip. As you gather language data, you’ll have the opportunity to visit with local people, eat their food and sleep in their houses.  

There is also a need for language surveyors in Vanuatu.

Check out a blog written by a language surveyor in PNG.

Surveying the Situation  short video from PNG
To the Ends of the Earth: Vanuatu short video from Vanuatu

Here  is a recent survey of the Bebeli language in PNG.

So what makes a good Language Surveyor?

Someone who is:

-Adventurous, flexible, able to deal with ambiguity

-a team player

-Physically, emotionally, spiritually hardy and sociable

-Writing and computer skills are helpful

There are still many languages that need to be surveyed before Bible translation can begin.

Does this role interest you? 

Contact Wendy at pacificbible@hotmail.com for more information.

PNG: Scripture Use Media

Would you like to be involved in making the Word of God more accessible and understandable to Papua New Guineans by recording Scriptures, Bible stories, worship songs and the Jesus or Luke video?  We are blessed with many tools to make the Gospel message understandable in one’s heart language.  Come and be a part of this vital need!

For the story of one couple working in Papua New Guinea who used audio recordings to aid literacy efforts and compile local music in the Bargam language, click here.

The Scripture Use Media office is located in the highlands of Papua New Guinea at Ukarumpa.  You’ll be doing recordings here but also in the villages--working with Papua New Guineans to make recordings of their own language.  Watching people’s faces as they listen to the Word of God in their own language is awesome!  It can make a huge difference in order to understand and apply Bible truths to their lives.

What are some of the job responsibilities and skills needed to do this type of work?

Ø  Learn the language of wider communication and the culture

Ø  Download recordings onto listening hardware such as media players or SD cards

Ø  Communicates spiritual values cross-culturally

Ø  Records and edits audio Scripture and post-produces finished product

Ø  Some technical skill is helpful including being comfortable with computers

Ø  In good physical condition and willing and able to “rough it”

Also helpful but not required:

    v  Previous electronic/communications/music training

    v  Previous multicultural experience

We will provide training!  For more information, contact pacificbible@hotmail.com

PNG: SIL Aviation

To learn more about the services offered or to book a flight, click here. 

You don’t have to be in Papua New Guinea very long before you realize how important our Aviation Department is to the Bible translation effort in the country.  Days of travel are reduced to a short flight and if there is a medical emergency, a flight to Australia can save a life. 



SIL Aviation Department

Our professional pilots, mechanics and avionics technicians work to speed Bible translation by: 

•Transporting translators, support personnel, consultants, trainers and linguists.
•Providing medical evacuations.
•Transporting cargo, such as cash crops, for community development.
•Assisting in disaster relief work.



An aircraft can be a link to the outside world for a translation/literacy team delivering supplies such as food, household goods, building materials and farm implements.  And, when translation work is complete, our pilots are often privileged to deliver boxes of freshly printed Scriptures.

Aviation Hangar
There are currently 2 Bell Long Ranger helicopters and 4 Kodiak airplanes.




Looking over the 'home base' Aiyura Airstrip. 
A one way airstrip at 5000 ft.

Watch a landing at the Aiyura Airstrip near Ukarumpa, the main base for Bible translation in PNG by clicking here.

SIL Aviation's website

Flying High with SIL Aviation in PNG

Ukarumpa, in the in Eastern Highlands, is a few kilometers away from the hangar. Learn more about Ukarumpa, click here.

You can learn more about the roles and skills needed by looking at the JAARS website or email Wendy at pacificbible@hotmail.com

ThePNGExperience: Change your Perspective  Short video

ThePNGExperience: Jump Start
ThePNGExperience: It's Coffee Time-take 2  Short video 
Tapmange, Papua New Guinea

Aviation Stories

From pilot James Nelson:

As a pilot in Papua New Guinea, one of the cool things I get to do is airstrip survey—visiting and evaluating potential sites for new runways.  Let me try to put this in perspective: There is precious little flat ground in the highlands of Papua New Guinea, so almost every runway needs to be cut into the side of a mountain. Not such a daunting task with explosives and heavy machinery, right?  But imagine having only shovels and woven leaves between poles to carry dirt, and attempting to make a flat section of ground that measures roughly 30 meters (98 feet) wide and at least 450 meters (1,476 feet) long.

Tapmange was one such runway.

For the past 15 years the Yopno* people have worked to build this runway, primarily to bring the Word of God into their community. Some of the Yopno—which means “we put down”—call the runway gen tamo, meaning “place of the word.” Together the two phrases describe a people who chose to put down weapons, fighting and anger, replacing them with the Word.

How beautiful. This is a great lesson for me also to put all things down in favor of God’s amazingly powerful Word.


* Wes and LeeAnn Reed began language work with the Yopno people in 1983. On August 7, 2010, the Reeds and the Yopno celebrated the arrival of their New Testament and Psalms.

—James Nelson and his wife, Natalie, are Australians who arrived in Papua New Guinea in January 2009. James serves as a pilot, and Natalie works in the pathology lab at SIL Papua New Guinea’s clinic in Ukarumpa.

Flying high in PNG

by Tim Scott

　
"I have a new appreciation for pilots", remarked one member of the survey team after returning from four airstrips that were being evaluated for safety. These airstrips are not for commercial airline jets or the casual flier. They have been carved into the sides of mountains, along flowing rivers and on top of ridges, in order to provide access to some of the more remote areas of Papua New Guinea.
For many communities, it is the only way to get coffee and produce to market without carrying it on their backs for several days. Coffee and produce are often the main cargo but it is also the lifeline to hospitals and health care that is not immediately available in the local village. Government and education officials, church and missions groups, and international aid agencies need these strips in order to gain access to these remote areas.
The airstrips are grass or packed dirt and require ongoing maintenance by the villages that they service. If the runways are not properly maintained, they quickly become unsafe for the planes to land, and access is cut off.
Many villages make it a high priority to keep the airstrips open. "Pilots have a great appreciation for the hard work that many communities do in order that we can better serve them. It’s not easy to cut the grass on these strips. Few strips have lawnmowers so it often requires many villagers using bush knives," remarked one pilot.
Not all airstrips make the grade. Approximately ten to fifteen strips are closed each year due to unsafe conditions. Some are reopened when improved but the number of available strips is rapidly decreasing. Erosion, poor drainage and rough ground are some of the most frequent reasons for closing strips. Ants can destroy a landing zone by creating areas that soften the ground. Communities work together to remove these areas by replacing them with packed dirt or gravel in order to maintain the hard surfaces needed for landing airplanes. Drains are cut into the runways and covered over so that water can move quickly off the airstrips.
One language development worker commented, "I am so grateful for these airstrips because access to the community I serve takes 25 minutes instead of a 2 day hike."

From Mary Pearson, Bible translator

It was an early morning in March 1986 the first time I laid eyes on a Cessna 206.

My friend and I grabbed each other in a fearful embrace.

We had never seen such a small plane. How in the world would our families fit into that tiny thing? Could it fly safely over rugged mountain ranges and miles of open ocean? Find a remote village and land on a tiny strip of coral jutting out of the water?

We were about to begin translating God’s Word into Lote, a language in Papua New Guinea that had never been written down. Its speakers had never seen the Bible in their own language.

That first weekend, we walked 3 1/2 hours down a coral road, six degrees south of the equator, to join an Easter celebration. We carried small index cards for reminders and said something like, “Ek Maria.” My name is Mary. “Iat nge Amerika.” I come from America. We’ve come to learn your language ... This is all I know. That’s how it began.

But to get there, we had to board the tiny, winged vessel that stood before us. As we squeezed into the cabin, we felt like we were taking our lives into our own hands.

We were wrong.

Turns out we were putting our lives into the capable hands of pilots and aviation mechanics, whose honed skills and sharp eyes enabled us to fly safely anywhere in this rugged country. They had received years of training and could be earning a comfortable salary. Instead, they used their expertise to serve missionaries around the world—giving their very lives to save ours.

Our first four years were the toughest. A strange place. A foreign culture. An unbearable climate. A new language. Learning to speak an unwritten language and writing it down phonetically often had us stumped, feeling we’d never get to the next level. But word by word, phrase by phrase, we got there. Meanwhile, we fell completely in love with the warm, friendly Lote people.

During those long village stays, away from everything familiar, we received visits from the angels: those beautiful white-winged planes we grew to cherish, no matter the size.

The hum of an engine breaking through clouds brought joyful anticipation. Mail bags! News from home! Fresh vegetables, meat, medical supplies—comforts to help us through the lonely months.

I’ll never forget the time a plane departed after one of its wonderful deliveries. A few minutes later, we heard it coming in for a second landing. I jumped to the radio and asked the pilot if everything was okay. “Yes,” he said, “I just realized I forgot to unload your Christmas presents.”

Those precious 20-minute visits connected us to the outside world.

On one extraordinary November day, the plane landed on our little airstrip loaded with precious cargo: books. The Lote co-translator stood over my husband’s shoulder as he opened the box and pulled out the first copy of the Gospel of Mark in the Lote language. It was the first time he ever held God’s Word in his own language. He took it, sat down in the shade of a tree, and read hungrily: “Helenga urana toto ngana nge Iesus Kristus nenge Nenut Non Palaungana Tuna.” The very good news of Jesus Christ, God’s Son.

One year, a cyclone destroyed our village house; we were rescued by a pilot willing to fly through turbulent winds, knowing the plane had been inspected and checked as always. A year later, pilots—once again—were key to building our new house, as they shuttled builders from the nearest town into our village.

It’s now 23 years since we arrived, and the Lote Scriptures are at the printers.

We’ve had twenty-three years of safe flights, medical rescues, mail and grocery deliveries, and flights for national translators to attend training courses. Twenty-three years of flights enduring high winds and wicked rain storms, over volcanoes, mountains and oceans. Twenty-three years without incident, bringing us to the place we now call home, so the Lote people can have God’s Word.

Because these pilots, mechanics and trainers have invested their lives in Bible translation, this will be the generation when the Lote people hold the New Testament in their hands, reading it in their own language for the first time.

—Mary Pearson and her husband, Greg, have served with Wycliffe Bible Translators since 1983. In 1986, they began translation and literacy work among the Lote people. The Lote Scriptures were introduced on January 9, 2010.

PNG: Literacy

“I was standing in my garden when God called me.” Carson leaned forward on his bench, spreading his hands in excitement. “I was just a subsistence farmer, but when God called me, I immediately dropped my yam seeds in the garden and left my digging stick there. I decided I was going to follow Him.”

Carson couldn’t hide his passion as he described his 10-year ministry in book production and HIV/AIDS and gender violence awareness among the languages in Oro province. The challenges and sacrifices were immense, but he remained undaunted: “I believe literacy is the tool that we need to use in this country. Literacy is the key to opening doors. If I help my people learn to read and write in our own language, then they can make a good transition into English and Tok Pisin and become leaders.” 
You can read the rest of the story by clicking here.

Come and be a part of teaching a community to read in their own language!  Not only does this make Scripture accessible to them in a language that they can clearly understand but by learning to read their language, it also becomes easier to learn to read English, the language used in schools.

SIL PNG is dedicated to vernacular language development and translation of community-oriented materials and Scripture texts in Papua New Guinea.

Types of Literacy Programmes in PNG:

(1)Literacy efforts tied to a translation program.  This often occurs in villages.

(2) Literacy efforts at regional centres.  These take place in the form of VERA (Vernacular Education for Remote Areas) or as part of a multi-language/ cluster project. These are often larger classes connected to translation and differ from village-only classes in involving more than one language.

(3) Literacy courses to enable training.  These courses help to train College Lecturers, or Teacher Trainers, or in some other way are nation-wide in scope. This type of training occurs in close collaboration with the government and the National Department of Education.

Literacy workers are often assigned to one language to gain experience and work towards becoming a literacy consultant.  A consultant might work in a language cluster or be available to translation teams to help them in their literacy efforts. The Literacy Office is located at  Ukarumpa, our Linguitic Centre. 

What sort of work does a literacy worker do?

-make books

-help with curriculum development

-advise on teaching methods

-help with producing primers

-encourage good classroom management

-help with making all kinds of literacy materials (books, flash cards, posters, games)

-help with games for literacy

-work at engaging the whole community

-encourage and develop local teachers

-give children relevant, culturally appropriate education that enables them to connect to their past, their culture and their future 

You’ll not be alone, trying to figure out each step!  The aim is to have literacy workers connected with consultants who can give them advice and provide direction.  We also encourage literacy workers to be involved in training opportunities held on centre, to continually learn about all aspects of literacy, and to work to gain insight into the country- wide situation.

Churches are continually asking us for help. Pastors want their congregations to have access to Scripture.  There is a huge need for literacy in Papua New Guinea.

For more information contact Wendy at pacificbible@hotmail.com

Additional Information:

Posts from The PNG Experience:

Bridging the Language Gap

Literacy is the key to opening doors.

Mother-tongue and literacy in PNG

13 Languages

A future in phonics

PNG: Storytelling in Alotau

04 March, 2014 – Ukarumpa, Papua New Guinea – Written by Janeen Michie with Tim Scott

Watch the video

An Oral Bible Storying (OBS) workshop began in Wewak, Sepik province on February 3, 2014. Nineteen nationals gathered together from seven different language groups to learn how to craft Bible stories in their tok ples (heart language). On the weekend they traveled back to their villages or found other tok ples speakers in town to practice their storytelling and get feedback from them.

Five Papua New Guinean trainers who have become well versed in storytelling taught these seven language teams how to internalize Bible stories and share them with their language groups. The participants learned both traditional and modern techniques to enhance their storytelling. Storyboarding, drama, mime, and symbols were all used as memory aids in learning the Bible stories.

Because they have no scripture in their language yet, students applied methods of sharing Bible stories without the use of any translated scriptures in their tok ples. They first told traditional tales and used this skill as a springboard for communicating Bible stories. Since they don't have a writing system and wanted to focus on improving their storytelling techniques, they orally translated each narrative using voice recorders. This way the translation could be spoken naturally the way they would tell the account in their tok ples.

During the first week, the language team practiced two stories, the Creation of Adam and Eve and the Fall of Man from Genesis chapters 2 and 3. For each one, they drew story boards to help them learn the narrative well and remember it so they could retell it. They also dramatized the account of the temptation and fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

The trainees went out to their villages to practice the skills with their people. Afterwards, they met together for one more week, to share their experiences and to encourage one another. Their recordings were also checked for accuracy and clarity by Bible experts. Lastly, they made a final recording of the polished stories so they could have an accurate telling of them for future reference as they share their stories in village settings.