| Before the road came through the area, people were in church buildings lifting their hands up praising God. Now people sit on the back of trucks riding on the road and waving at all the people and saying, “Look at me!” Before, many of these people had not even seen a truck, but now everyone is riding around in the back of trucks or in Land Cruisers. Now there are too many new things to look at and no one is coming to church,” said Jeffrey.
Not all of the Apal have yielded to the appeal of the new. Martha still has people who willingly give of their time to help her translate more and more Scripture into their language. As they work on the task of translation, the Scripture is deeply impacting their lives. For example she writes:
Jekop was struggling to finish reading Matthew 25:31-46 and it took me a minute to realize what the problem was – he was crying and trying to control his emotions. I asked him what the problem was and he said that the passage about Jesus dividing the sheep and goats and what will happen at the last day was just really hitting him hard. We stopped and prayed and Jekop was later able to continue reading. Several other times as we were finishing the checking of Matthew, I looked up and saw some of the checking assistants, all of whom are preachers/leaders wiping their eyes as they heard the Gospel of Matthew for the first time in their own language. The youngest of the preachers said, “Can you print me a copy of this passage for me to take home after we correct it? I really want the part about Jesus praying in the garden.” Lun quickly chimed in and said, “I want the part about the woman pouring the oil on Jesus. I never knew that Jesus said that she was doing it to prepare him for his burial.” Each man had been “hit” by a different passage, but their conclusion was unanimous – the Bible in the Apal language makes things clear.
Praise God with me. We have just completed the consultant checking of the last book that needs to be checked in the Apal New Testament – Matthew. Now we will begin a new stage of the translation process. For the next few years we will be revising/updating the older books and making the parallel passages and key terms consistent throughout the New Testament. When that process is completed, we will record the entire New Testament as our final check of the translation. It has been over 25 years since we translated Luke and in that time the language has changed. Some words are no longer used by the young people who have switched to using a different word that has a similar meaning. Please pray for wisdom as we begin this next stage of the process. |
