What's new in Ukarumpa this week

I'm still keeping up with the weekly photo challenge--though the number of people participating is declining (due mostly to the annual exodus of colleagues returning to home countries for furloughs, or leaving PNG for good). This week's theme is "New," and this is my submission:

This picture makes sense when you know that the person in the photo is Newton Hamlin (i.e., New[ton]). Newton and his family have been working on translating the New Testament into the Nai language of the Sepik region in PNG. During his 12-week visit to PNG this year, Newton and the Nai translation team are finishing translating the book of Revelation. Over the next few weeks they'll have the translation checked by a consultant, and then they'll record an audio version of Revelation, load it onto portable audio players, and send the players back out to the villages so people can hear the Bible in their own language.

While I was chatting with Newton this week, I asked him what was the most difficult part of translating Revelation into Nai. His answer was not what I expected. "The hardest thing about Revelation for the Nai team to understand," Newton said, "is that at the end, so many people choose the wrong side, and are separated from God's family forever." Melanesian culture values unity and harmony in the community. People caught in sin are punished, but quickly brought back into the community. The idea that the "right" ending to the story includes some people forever excluded from the community seems wrong to a Papua New Guinean.

Join us in praying for the Nai people, that as they hear the message of Revelation they will choose to follow Jesus right now, and that the message of love and inclusion will spread from their villages to neighboring language groups in the Sepik.

Other "new"s this week

I had a couple of other ideas for this week's "New" theme. I was also thinking about the new building that's under construction out at the Ukarumpa Training Centre:

This building will include a classroom and administrative offices. Currently, the Training Centre staff members are all working out of what was intended to be a janitorial closet. They are greatly looking forward to the new space.

And I was thinking about the fresh, new coat of paint that is going onto the main Language Resources office building, where I and a number of my staff work:

It's been over a decade since the building was last painted, and it's great to see it starting to look as good as new again.