And the Bible in Audio version played a role.
In 1978 a language project began in the Madang region of Papua New Guinea. That was 35 years ago. In 2013 a Bible dedication took place in the Maia language, with much of the New Testament and portions of the old. It was not a complete Bible, but it was the completion of the project. Or was it?
A few single women branched out of the multi-language project in 1982 to keep their Maia project alive. It was flourishing while the other language projects were coming to a close. They had a house built over time, and a training center over time, and continued on working to translate and teach the people to read and write. But they quickly found that unless they were there, the work wasn't progressing. In fact they faced a great many discouragements. People not interested in learning to read, and then, even when they could read, they didn't understand the meaning of the words. Comprehension was very low.
(Linda and Barbara in their new home in 1997, Linda has been in PNG since 1978)
There were times in the project (that lasted over 25 years) that the ex-pat women asked themselves "is it worth it?" There was discouragement, failure, but never quitting.
in 2013 it was decided that they would retire and end the project. It was running out of steam, and they decided on the council of others, to hold a dedication for what they had finished.
A dedication is a ceremony, akin to a wedding. There is a lot of planning involved, and it takes a lot of effort to get people to the dedication. It is a ceremony meant to present the finished Bible to a people, as well as commit that Bible to God and give Him thanks, as well as pray that the Bible changes the lives of the people and is used.
The ex-pat women decided 'We have done the work to make this Bible, surely you can plan the party'. And left the area to the locals to plan the dedication.
During that time, in 2009 one woman took a recording class offered by my department (Scripture Use Media), and began recording the Bible in audio format, with the goal of having an Audio Player ready at the same time as the printed Bibles were for the dedication. The two could go side by side.
(Mavis doing recording)
In November 2012, I was asked to handle this project. It was my first project since coming over to the Audio department from the Computer department. I was asked to help edit and post-produce the Maia recordings and to compile them onto AudiBibles in time for the May dedication. It seemed like a possible goal, but I knew that given life in PNG, it could come down to the wire. I actually had completed them and had them shipped and ready to go, in June, giving me plenty of time to redo any errors (which did happen).
In May the ladies returned to the village to see how the planning had gone. It hadn't. Only 3 of the 18 villages had any interest in helping, and from that, nearly no one had joined the planning committee. The ladies were faced with apathy, and were not only discouraged, knowing that people had already booked flights from outside of PNG, they were considering how embarrassing the day could be.
One day a man had come to Linda (one of the ladies in charge of the project) and asked to buy one of her solar charging kits. She had one with her, and while showing it to him, she also showed him the Audio Bible she had. The man seemed very interested in it, and told her he was going home to talk to his wife. The next day he returned and said:
"I'm sorry but I can't buy the solar kit, I don't have enough money, my wife and I have decided to buy a Bible and an Audio Bible from you instead"
Linda needed no apology, she was excited that someone wanted the Bible!
She sold it to him and informed him that there would be more for sale at the time of the dedication.
Soon all the sample Audio Bibles Linda had were gone. People were playing them and listening to them.
One man said "I turn it on at night in my home, and soon the entire home is filled with people!"
Another said "I've read the Bible and saw that Jesus did things and went places, but when I hear it in my own language, it comes alive, as if He actually did all those things!"
Excitement was growing. The apathy was gone.
Word was spreading quickly that their Tok Ples (heart language) was alive again, and real! And that stories of Jesus were inside the player! Suddenly the dedication planning went into full gear. A man went on a long hike along a ridge telling people of the dedication coming, and the audio players.
18 villages were suddenly involved. They realized that they had not enough food, not enough places for people to sleep. Everyone got involved planning for the day of the dedication.
And then it came.
The dedication started at 4:10am because several of the villagers woke Linda and her team up and said 'we must pray for today!' and they prayed and sang songs of praise to God.
The day itself was amazing. Dances, songs, speeches, preaching, decorations, and most of all, people were buying the Audio players and the Bibles and honoring Linda and her team with thanks.
(video - raising of the PNG flag and the singing of the National Anthem)
All day and all night you could hear the Audio players playing. You would hear people talking and moving towards you and realize people were listening to the audio playing Scripture while they were walking from place to place.
(video - I just love this big fish, coming from a people who 30 days prior had no interest in the ceremony, imagine the work put into making it!)
Soon the first day after the dedication a woman came and said 'mine is no longer playing.' It was explained to her she wore out the battery and would have to wait until the next sunlight to charge it again in the sun.
Conversations were happening and people were asking questions about Christ. People were engaging with the Scripture, and the Maia dictionary was sold out. Sales of that particular book were pitiful before, and now, they needed to print more.
The event of Audio was turning things around, God was using this tool to speak to the people in a way that the Word came alive to them! Not only reading, but HEARING in their OWN LANGUAGE for the first time.
One man asked "Why didn't we know sooner that you had these players, we could have been saving our money!"
Before the audio players, there was a huge problem with getting people to want to read, learn to read, and then understand.
One night an older gentleman was sitting and listening to the Word, and he said "I'll never be able to read. I am too old to learn." But a friend sitting near him comforted him and said "I was just like you, I couldn't read, but then I listened to this, and followed along in the Bible here, and it wasn't long before I could read it... YOU CAN TOO!"
The Audio players were breaking ground in the area of literacy where the ladies seemed to be forever struggling.
One woman came to give a thank you gift of nuts, and said "I have read Galatians, and it moved me inside." she wept.....
It was time to say goodbye to the women who had brought them this gift, who had labored for decades to give it, who had faced discouragement repeatedly, obstacles regularly, and who had reached the age of retirement. These women who only a month before had thought that things would end poorly, were now being thanked and honored with gifts and visits and food. So much food.
Typically when you leave a village, there is fighting and arguing over who gets your stuff. Who gets your house or gets to tear things from it to use it. There was none of that.
Things could not have ended better for these ladies. God was honored.
One family came, who had for many years not been supportive in fact, had been problematic for the team and the wife said "I want to thank you for doing His work. This has brought me back to God. I bought one of the players for my son to listen to." Imagine hearing such a thing from someone who has stood as opposition to you for so long. God's Word, changing lives.
As they were packing to go, food kept coming, people kept visiting, and you could still hear the audio players playing day and night.
One man said "We were losing our language to Tok Pisin, but this work has strengthened our language and made it alive again!"
Another man thanked them for making their tok "clear".
The women realized they were part of something momentous. Wondering for many years if the work was worth it, they realized, that yes.... it was. They were feeling at the end, very blessed and that their labor had been worth it. They were feeling honored to be involved in what God was doing.
Here is a quote from Linda,
"I felt many times that I was terribly inadequate, my only courage was because I was part of a team. I was very humbled in the end that they said 'you were here in the good times and in the bad times and you prayed with us.' I never really considered that anything more than part of daily life, praying with others. But they did."
Linda thanked the teams that supported them over the years. Computer departments, Aviation, linguistics, support teams, support staff. People like you.
Jacob. A PNG man named Jacob one day was walking along the road, back in 1978 and he happened upon a pamphlet on the ground that had perhaps fallen out of a passing vehicle. He read it. It was about our organization and how we do Bible translation, and he wanted that for the Maia people. He contacted us, and that is how things began. Now 35 years later, Jacob is a much older man. You can see his tears in the video below as they were carrying in the Bibles.
Mabel (another PNG man on the team) called Linda the other night and said 'I really want the rest of the Bible." A man named Elbert called from a neighboring dialect and said that now his people want to know how to get a translation project begun in their language. In the 80's his people had complete apathy for their heart language, they were going for Tok Pisin ( a common language lacking the fine detail required for understanding many Bible concepts deeply). There was a resurgence of interest in Tok Ples (heart language) and possibly they could begin a locally owned and managed translation.
If you could make a movie about this, I'd imagine it would start with that pamphlet floating out of a window and to the feet of a PNG man named Jacob.
It would star some aging single women who spent their days sweating under the hot sun, bending over books.
It would flash back to the people in their home churches, dropping money in a donation plate, saying prayers, reading newsletters.
It would finish with a large fish dancing across a field, and people in grass skirts.
And it would fade slowly out, on a child listening to and reading the Word of God in their heart language for the first time.
And in the final moments, of black, you'd still hear the Word of God, as you did in the village at night... because the Word of God endures forever.
