Arthur, one of the Sa translators, approached Craig when he reached Proverbs 5:3: “The lips of the adulterous woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil.” Now the ni-Vanuatu don’t eat honey or have a word for it so this was not an easily understandable tok pija (word picture). Arthur asked in Bislama, “So honey is the excrement of the sugar bug, right?” Craig explained that honey is more like the vomit of the sugar bug. Then Craig said, “Why do you ask?” Arthur responded, “Well we had ‘her lips are sweeter than the excrement of a sugar bug,’ but I will change it to vomit.” Then Craig explained that the whole point was that her words were sweet and seductive, so they could really just substitute something sweet from their culture. They agreed and settled on saying, “The words of the adulterous woman are sweet like sugar cane.”

Craig continued thinking about this matter and asked Arthur how he had translated Deuteronomy 6 and the description of the promised land as “a land flowing with milk and honey.” Arthur explained that he had translated “a land flowing with the liquid that you squeeze out of the breast of a cow and the excrement of sugar bugs.” (There is no word for milk in Sa, either) Finally the translators decided to say that the land of Canaan was “a land filled with all of the best things.”

Talk about a word picture! 🙂 On a more serious note, thank you for praying for our family and encouraging us as we live and serve the Bibleless in Vanuatu. We are so glad to be here!

Matt & Angie (and the kids)