Language research is about people. It’s easy to talk about the adventure – the heat, the bugs, the mountains, the mud. Or about the work – facilitating group discussions on language vitality, collecting wordlists. But ultimately it’s about getting to know the people and discover opportunities to serve them.
A 2012 survey was particularly memorable, being more adventurous than most trips. Here are a few of the people we met along the way:
- The people of the first village, so remote in their river valley that we reached them by helicopter. Only women, children, and a few old men present. Most of the working men were two days’ walk away at a mine. Those remaining in the village were timid, uncertain about how to handle their foreign visitors.
- Children – We’re conscious of our ‘bling’ factor on survey. We have to carry papers and pens for research, water and food for sustenance, something to sleep in, medical supplies. Very quickly this begins to look like a great deal of wealth to rural PNGans, and, relatively speaking, it is. I pulled out the GPS to mark our location, the kids watched me curiously. In 2012, smartphones were very rare in the rural parts of PNG, and the GPS must have looked doubly strange.
- Guide – Lazarus, the man who volunteered to guide us on a path so seldom used that – many times that day – I could be standing on the trail and not be sure where it went from there. We later learned that Lazarus didn’t know the path either, but his jungle literacy was far better than ours. As he scouted far ahead to discern the path’s direction, he would leave sticks pointing the way. In a jungle full of sticks, our ability to read the sign he’d left was at kindergarten reading level, at best. Lazarus had to come back to show us the way.
- Armed local – Two of the surveyors were battered by falling throughout the day on the tricky trail, one a bit delirious. We descended a precipice after dark and were met be men with a rifle. They were afraid of retaliation from a nearby tribe with whom they were in conflict.
- Dead daughter – An old man asked for conversation with a female surveyor. We were mystified, as this is culturally inappropriate. It turned out that he thought she resembled a dead daughter of his. He wondered whether our colleague was his daughter, returned from the grave with white skin.
- Boatsman – We floated downstream in a forever-long dugout canoe, all four surveyors crowded together on a small bench in the middle. Bumping sideways over hidden logs, trying to remember if everything damageable had been sealed tight. The man with the pole at the far end of the canoe looked on with amusement.
- Translation enthusiast – A man accompanied me around a village, assisting with information about the language use habits of residents. At one point he asked, “There were three ladies that came in 1990. We thought they were going to begin translation. Why has no work begun?”
These people remain without vernacular Scripture. They are family, or could be. Some need a clear invitation. Probably best to give that invitation in their language!
For groups like this one, our research’s conclusion is clear: they’d benefit enormously from the Bible in their language! Pray that people would answer God’s call to serve this group and many others like them.
72 days until our return to PNG!
