On our recent trip to Papua New Guinea to visit translators and support folk we were heading out to meet Phil and Chris Carr who work among the Bamu people in the Western Province. When others knew that they said to us “You are brave, heading out to the mud mission. The mud could be up to your ankles, up to your knees or up to your waist.”
Travelling out to the Bamu area on a Cessna 206 I got talking with the pilot about the fact that not all the folk who travel with him would travel well in a small plane. He said there are a number of teams who always get airsick when they make the journey out to their village allocation or back again. He told me of one case where the mother and the two children are sick on every flight. Then he added, “That encourages me Ian. . . Even though they are going to get sick they come back flight after flight to get the job done. That’s commitment!”
I thought of the pilot’s comment in the context of the Carr’s work among the Bamu. Not only have they had to put up with the mud but they have also had intense spiritual opposition to face. At one stage the son of one of their prime co-translators, Domai, was overcome with fury and chased his mother off into the bush with a machete.
Initially too there was indifference among the Bamu people to work of Bible Translation among them. It was almost as though they didn’t care whether they got the Word of God in their own language or not. Initially it was not one of those projects where the people were delighted to have a translator in their midst. During those times there were occasions when Phil and Chris wondered what they had come to.
However during the time Tania and I were with them, they were on a high. They had just finished a translation workshop where Domai and Adau helped them demonstrate to the neighbouring language groups what it takes to translate the Bible in their languages. Now over 5 language groups around them are begging to be shown how to do translation for themselves.
Phil and Chris were “over the moon”, not only has the spark ignited among the other groups but the desire that has been in Adau and Domai for the Scriptures in Bamu has intensified as they have seen the multiplication effect at work among the other groups. And all that after so many times of feeling like there was no use and hearing the whisper of the enemy that they might as well give up.
Source: SIL PNG, Phil & Chris Carr and a personal visit by Tania and I to the Carr’s village location.
[Struggle, difficulties, perseverance, faithfulness, PNG, Translation, long haul]