November 1, 2024
With over 800 languages throughout PNG, Bible Translation is the clear priority for the Bible Society of Papua New Guinea (BSPNG). However, these translations have progressed through the sacrifice of a committed collection of Bible translators scattered throughout the most remote regions of Papua New Guinea (PNG).
Pa project team
Dozens of translators are engaged in ten active projects across the remote PNG provinces – tackling work which began decades, and sometimes a century, ago to bring God’s Word to the indigenous communities. Many based in remote areas, the translators must overcome challenges such as lack of internet connection, lack of electricity, unhospitable geography, violence among tribes and communities, and the lack of reliable health care, among other difficulties.
Simply travelling to the recent Bible Translators Training Workshop in the PNG capital of Port Moresby was a colossal effort. Members of the Pa translation team travelled several days to get there – including three days walking through the remote PNG rainforest to reach a small town with a runway capable of allowing a small plane to take off and fly 45 minutes to reach the city.
Even those who didn’t have to walk for several days still had challenging journeys. Bowali, from the Gogodala translation team, had to purchase a tank of petrol to power a small boat and venture down the Fly River for a couple of days before arriving in Port Moresby. John, from the Yuna translation team, must walk for 6-7 hours to reach the nearest town big enough where he can catch a bus which drives several hours to Port Moresby.
Bowali from the Gogodala translation project
Electricity is notoriously unreliable in PNG, as the high mountains and dense forest make it difficult and expensive to establish and maintain a functioning power grid. Working on laptops, the Bible Translators must find ways to keep their work going despite intermittent disruptions and outages.
“We have difficulties with our electricity. It’s not reliable. When we face electricity problems, we go into the Chinese shops to charge our laptops and it costs us two Kina to charge our battery from their generators,” Maimiya explains.
In addition to the issues with electricity, internet connectivity provides a hurdle to submitting and receiving updated Bible translations through ParaText – the software these translators use to do their work. John, who works on the Yuna language project in the PNG highlands, must constantly deal with the challenges that come from difficult and steep terrain in order to access internet.
“There’s no [internet] coverage. I can use my phone but not internet. For translation, most of the time I use a wireless modem. But sometimes, because of the rainy season and [tribal] fighting, they turn off the [receiver] tower,” John shares.
“The system can be down for a week or even a month. If it takes months to turn the receive back on, then I have to take a walk up the mountain – to reach the nearest receiver. It’s like 4-5 hours to go up the mountain and then to come back – about 3-4 hours. So that’s 7-8 hours to go up and come down.”
Maimiya from the Gogodala translation project
The Bible translators have remained faithful to their work, even through some of the most complex challenges that people can face – the deaths of a wife and child. Maimiya is part of the Gogodala translation team, based in the Middle Fly District of the Western province, and his commitment to his Bible translation work has remained steady event while facing these devastating events:
“I have faced personal challenges within my family itself. I’m married to a wife and I have four children – two boys and two girls. When I started doing the translation work, my wife got sick and she was very ill. And in 2017, she died,” Maimiya recalls.
“The children were very young. She got ill and she died. My children were looked after by my family and they were good and they were faithful. They raised them while I was doing the translation work.
Gogodala project team
“But when I began to do the translation work, I faced problems. It was made our own business, our own effort to get some sort of support just within our own family circles.
“I began to train my children when they were growing up. I told them ‘When you go to school, you must go so that when you get into a job, you will support me to do this’.
“My second daughter was accepted into college. She underwent three years of training. And, after graduation, she came back and taught for one year in our school. Suddenly, it was a very challenging time for me. She was sick by 2023 – February and January ’23.
“She got admitted into the general hospital in the Gulf Province and she died. Just last year, in February ’23. So that’s the challenges and the hard time that I faced.”
John, who works on the Yuna language project in the PNG highlands, received a call he had been waiting for back in 2010 – inviting him to come to Port Moresby where Bible Society leadership would induct him into the Yuna language translation team. On the way, he was attacked by a group of young men who mistook him for someone who would be carrying money – instead he was just carrying his Bible translation laptop.
“By 2010, there was a call when I was in the classroom teaching the students in the classroom. There was a call [from the Bible Society], so there was no time. So Thursday afternoon, I left Pori, and I was walking. At least three hours of walking, and I was almost at the nearest highway.
John’s scars from the machete and knife attack
So I kept walking. But some metres away from the main road, I got apprehended, and they chopped me. It was very hard. There were two young boys. They thought I was carrying some money or something like that, so they wanted to steal from me.
And I hesitated, I did not give in. I stand strong. So they see that I stood up [for myself]. So in order to take my bag, they chopped me. From there to my friend’s house, I took almost 25 to 30 minutes walking with the blood. Until I came to my friend’s house and found him.
He took me up to Tari General Hospital. That was Friday night, and Saturday. On Sunday, I went back. The people in the village [near where I was attacked] – the leaders, the council and the people from the village – they found the people who stole my bag. So they brought it back. Then I say I don’t want to interfere with you people. It’s OK, I got this cut but it’s OK.
I got everything, I got my bag and I [kept going]. When I reached Port Moresby, I had my bandage and cuts all over. After two weeks, I started the translation work. From that time, I didn’t do any other outside work. No company work, no government work. I was in translation – translation and teaching in the Bible School. From 2012 until today.”
With these significant hurdles and difficulties, it would be reasonable to some to question why the translators remain so com mitted to translating God’s Word – even in the face of death, pain, and suffering. But they are first to share how their lives have been impacted and how they’ve been blessed through their Bible translation work:
“I was ‘in the world’ and I wasn’t doing things right. So, I said I better join these people when [BSPNG General Secretary] Joel offered for me to join with the translation… When I got into translating the Word of God, it began to change my life and from there I changed,” Anton from the Molima translation project shared.
Yuna project team
“I thought that if I continued to live outside [and in the world], I would not do well. I saw Joel and the others translating the Word, so I said, ‘Can I come and join you people in translation?’ Then Joel said, ‘Yes, you can come.’ So I joined them.”
The Bible translators are motivated to complete their work for their community to read God’s Word. Maimiya shares what motivates him.
“I see Bible translation as being so vital and so important. When I read Romans – Romans 10, from verse 14 downwards. It’s the passage about “How can one hear the Word of God, unless it is being preached?” So when I see that passage, it tells me that how can one hear the Word of God unless it is being translated into our own mother tongue. When it is translated into his or her own mother tongue, it is very easy for another person to come to know [God].”
