The Next Leg of the Journey

Well, after saying our goodbyes in the second village and hiking 7 hours back to the first village (this time, after some intense rains, our hike involved wading through some waste-deep water) to rest a day and then catch a plane, we are back in the city. Fortunately, the summer and the internship are far from over.

Our next step is a three-week literacy course. One of the things that drew me to work with Pioneer Bible Translators was their willingness to do whatever is necessary to see the word of God transform lives – if that means translating the scriptures, they translate. However, that also means they are willing to teach literacy or plant churches or do anything else to insure that God’s word is able to be understood and able to reach people directly. So, although I am interested in translation, PBT also includes many missionaries whose role involves very little actual scripture translation.

This literacy course aims to provide curriculum and basic reading books for five different language groups in Papua New Guinea. Each intern will be working with a different language group, and we’ll be working (in Melanesian Pidgin) with nationals who have all traveled to the city to develop their vernacular-specific materials. From what I’ve gathered, we are going to be pretty busy (with fairly stressful, cross-cultural work) for the next three weeks. If all goes according to plan, after these three weeks, each language group will have a year-long literacy curriculum and 80 children’s story books (in the vernacular) to use throughout the year.

So, we would appreciate prayers for our work with the literacy course. We’re really excited about how much is going to be accomplished, but we know the work will be challenging and tiring. Pray that we will have energy and stamina to work, but also pray that we’ll have grace enough to maintain a sense of humor (or at least encouragement for each other). Also, pray for the language groups who are receiving these materials – that God will work through the gift of literacy to allow people to read and understand his precious word. As I sat in on a Bible study in the second village we visited and saw the children struggling to read the few scriptures that had been published in their language, I realized what an awesome gift it is to be able to pick up and read God’s word. At the same time, I also felt hope for all of the work that is being done (and is succeeding) to give that gift to other people.

One other note: I’ve changed the title of the blog to “Laik Bilong God.” One of the first phrases I learned in the bush was “Laik Bilong Yu,” which means (roughly), “Whatever you want” or “It’s up to you.” As people would ask me whether I was going to return to PNG after this summer, I had to answer that it was entirely up to God’s will – or, as I was taught to say, “Laik Bilong God.”

The Second Village

It’s hard to believe that we left the city – and with it, the internet and communication with the outside world – four weeks ago. And to be honest, that was probably the hardest part of bush living for me. I can go as long as I need to without hot showers or a real mattress, but it was a strange feeling to go longer than I ever have without communicating with any of my loved ones.

Fortunately, that feeling of separation wasn’t enough to keep me from having another wonderful experience in our second village. After a 6-hour hike through the jungle (through swamps and villages and over muddy ridges), we were welcomed into our second town (and our second language group – like the first village, they spoke Melanesian Pidgin, but they had an entirely different vernacular). Unlike our first village, we lived with an established missionary, so she was able to carefully explain all of the cultural happenings we didn’t understand (such as why a man would greet us with a “good morning” at three in the afternoon, or how two people were married during the middle of the day right under our noses without us realizing it). She was also able to set up for us different daily adventures with people in the village, which meant I was able to chop more sago, fish with poison vines, visit a larger bush market, take an overnight trip to visit a different village, dig yams in a garden, throw some kids into a river, and go on a pig hunt through the jungle at night. All the while, I was doing my best to continue language learning, which has actually gone really well. After coming to PNG knowing only three usable Pidgin phrases (the first being, “I’m trying to learn Pidgin”), I would estimate (based on an informal lexicon I’ve been creating) that my functional vocabulary is around 600 words.

The part of this village that I was most excited about was getting to sit in on the work of translation. Our missionary had a few different projects going on – first, a few Bible story books, and second, a rough draft of I Corinthians – and we got to watch her work with nationals to correct and clarify the translations. Each project was at a different stage in the development process, so for the story books she was checking the texts with a group of women. The missionary had many different techniques to check comprehension, using everything from asking questions to having the women act out the stories, and we were able to see her make changes. I Corinthians, on the other hand, was being checked by a group of men, and it was interesting (and always surprising) to see what in the text was misleading to their cultural background. As part of the internship, the missionary had asked each intern to check a section of an English back translation of the current draft of I Corinthians (mine was chs. 5-7) and discuss with her anything we thought was improperly translated. It was really exciting to attend the checking sessions with the nationals to see the missionary present our questions to the men and hear their feedback. More than a few of our suggestions were used and implemented into a new draft of I Corinthians, which was both an encouraging and intimidating feeling.

Much to my surprise, a lot of the learning I did during our time in the bush was not about Papua New Guinean culture or Pidgin; it was about some of the more mundane aspects of missionary life, such as cooking and cleaning. Once again, I was so thankful to get this opportunity to come to Papua New Guinea because there is so much I have gotten to experience – things like cleaning solar panels or pumping water from one tank to another or even seeing how to cook a variety of foods (such as coffee cakes or pumpkin pie) with very limited resources. Some of my best memories from the second village are my conversations with the missionary about how she deals with being separated from loved ones or what have been her greatest challenges and victories. I surely wouldn’t have expected it, but this summer has shown me that preparing to do missions involves much more than just learning language.

And one of the lessons that were harder for me to learn is that flexibility is absolutely necessary for any missionary (but especially one in PNG). As you may have realized, this blog update is coming later than I anticipated – our time in the bush was extended by five days due to unavoidable flight problems. On a smaller scale, we constantly saw plans change due to external circumstances, and I had to learn (with minor frustration) that any of a missionary’s plans must be taken with a grain of salt.

If I had ever feared that this summer wouldn’t be a “proper mission trip” or a “proper internship,” let me assure you that both fields have been fulfilled. You can’t have a short-term mission trip without some construction, and we built some large shelves for the missionary's house to provide more organization. You can’t have an internship without making coffee for people more important than you, and we were responsible for providing the translators with drinks and snacks during the translation sessions. Now that those requirements have both been met, I will be able to come home at peace :-).

For anyone wondering about what kinds of food I put into my body during our time in the bush, I’ve compiled as comprehensive of a list as I can remember. Many of our meals took place in the missionary houses, so we ate foods we had brought from the city (which were thus typical, like rice or peanut butter sandwiches). Whenever we were out for the day with nationals, however, or on special occasions, we ate bush food, which consisted of: lots and lots of yams (at one point, seven of us ate literally 17 bowls of yams to avoid offending the host), lots of sweet potatoes (and don’t picture the marshmallow-covered deserts you eat at Thanksgiving), bananas, greens (similar to spinach or collard greens), some taro, lots of sago, a few wild fowl eggs, a little fish, some bandicoot, some pig (including the liver), tapioca, pumpkin, coconuts, lots of papaya, a few cherry tomatoes, a little pineapple, and…the moment you’ve been waiting for…a handful of grub worms (lightly cooked, fresh from the tree they were eating).

Life in the bush includes getting used to a few things you probably shouldn’t get used to, such as coming out of the shower with spots of mud remaining on your body, watching flies dance across your open wounds, or eating two-year-old nonperishable foods left at the missionary house by the 2007 interns. But the truth is that going into the jungle for a month gave me an opportunity to do something I’ve never gotten to do before, and opportunity that few people get: to temporarily put my entire life on hold in exchange for an entirely different way of going about life. That is the kind of experience that changes you, and I’m still sorting through a lot of what I learned. In the second village, I stayed with a national in his house, which really helped to open my eyes to another way of understanding the world. It’s amazing how different my life is from his simply based on where we were born.

More than anything, I feel so intensely grateful to everyone who has supported my efforts to go on this internship. I am certainly in no position today to try and decide what my future ministry is going to be, but I can say that no one could ask for a better experience in missionary life than the one I have received. I have had more than a few moments to really think about what God is doing in my life, what (and who) is truly important to me, and just exactly who I am and what I can do. And for that, I am so thankful for all of the financial and prayer support I have received.

I’m sure I’ve done a terrible job of summarizing my time in the bush in these two blog posts, though I hope I’ve given you a peek into what we’ve experienced. I look forward to telling you stories and hearing yours when I return to the States.

In case you thought I didn't actually eat the grub worms, here's the proof. None of this "take a picture holding it in front of my mouth and then throw it away" business.

One of many yams we dug up

The "haus lotu" (church) of the village we visited for an overnight trip

The First Village

What a journey!

We had two primary goals for our time in the bush: language/culture learning (every village has a “Tok Place,” the regional vernacular language, but most people in the country are also fluent in Melanesian Pidgin, the trade language we’ve been trying to learn) and experiencing missionary life. Talking to missionaries can give you a pretty good picture of what it’s like to live in the jungle, but you really can’t ask for a truer experience than just moving out to the jungle yourself for a period of time.

The best way to learn language and culture is to just step out and interact with people, so the majority of our days were spent learning the PNG way of life with nationals. I spent time chopping sago trees, spear fishing, hunting for bandicoots, digging for wild bird eggs, playing soccer and playing cards, chopping up plants with my machete, digging in the garden, and just sitting around and talking. At the beginning of the week, I found myself looking for any excuse to stay in the house because it was much easier than stretching my brain to try and interact with people; but by the end of our stay, I was getting cabin fever and trying to squeeze in as much activity with people as I could. Language learning is exhausting, but it absolutely pays off. I can specifically remember the first afternoon when I felt like I was having a genuine conversation with one of my village friends – it was such a cool feeling to know that I was able to talk to someone from the other side of the world whose life experience was so very different from mine. It was the moment when the nationals stopped being, as they too often become to short-term visitors, “charming novelties” and started becoming peers and friends.

Fortunately, the people extended us a lot of grace as we got words wrong and made cultural blunders, and they did their best to help and take care of us. In PNG, relationships are everything, so the people would go out of their way to make sure we were safe and comfortable. This was a pro and a con – we never had to worry about our physical safety, but we also had to take all of the initiative in our interactions with people. If I was going to spend the day with someone, he was going to do only what I wanted to do. There was no way for me to ask, “Hey, can I just shadow you today while you do whatever you would normally do?” Instead, we had to ask specific individuals to do specific things with us. Fortunately, because they wanted relationships with us, they were happy to oblige.

I learned the lesson of just how much they wanted to please us the hard way on our first night in town. That morning, I had played soccer with a bunch of the little kids. In the afternoon, I was talking to some of the guys my age, and I joked about how I had played soccer but was really bad at it (anyone who has seen me play knows I have no business playing soccer). They quickly responded that I needed to train and get better, so we went out to the field to play more. Gradually, more guys showed up until there were about twenty of us playing. Now, as I said, I am no good at soccer, so I was just trying to avoid looking too stupid as the game went on and on. As it got later and the sun was setting, I was getting more and more tired; people were even beginning to remark that I looked tired, but I kept insisting that I was fine (because, regardless of how miserable I was, I didn’t want to quit while they were still going). Eventually, as it got so dark that I could barely see and I was thinking the game would never end, one of the guys came up to me and bluntly said, “You look tired. It’s totally okay if you want to go home.” Feeling dejected, I walked the long walk to the house and told my intern team how I had played so badly that they had asked me to leave. My intern coach promptly replied that, no, they weren’t kicking me out – they were just as ready to leave as I was and were going to play as long as I did because they thought I wanted to! As it turns out, this little “impromptu” soccer game wasn’t impromptu at all – even though the guys do enjoy soccer, they were only playing because I had said I was bad and needed practice. I looked outside, and, sure enough, everyone was headed home.

At the same time as I was trying to foster friendships and learn more Pidgin, God was doing incredible things in the city. This village has experienced much spiritual warfare, and there is currently no missionary living there. Gradually throughout the week, we learned that the village was in the middle of a serious conflict between the older Catholic church and the newer, smaller Protestant revival church, a conflict that had divided families. The leaders of the Protestant church happened to have the most history with PBT, so we spent most of our time with them during the week. On our second day in town, they asked us (as the resident missionaries) to give them a message about how to follow God and reach the village more effectively. Naturally, we felt completely unprepared to answer their question, but after a day of prayer and preparation, we were able to encourage them with passages of scripture and our very best Pidgin. Many other situations came up throughout the week (questions about Revelation, confusion about the Lord’s Supper, etc.) that had us praying hard and looking to God for guidance.

One of the coolest things to see was how the word of God really did speak directly to people and bridge gaps. We had brought this little device called the Proclaimer, a solar-powered digital audio player with the entire Pidgin New Testament on it, and some of the interns listened to it while doing laundry one afternoon. Some of the villagers heard it and asked to listen to more scripture, and by the end of the week we had dozens of people coming from surrounding villages to listen to multiple books of the Bible at a time. It was amazing to see the ways that certain passages spoke to the situations of the people, and more than once we noticed Catholics and Protestants sitting near each other (when they may have gone weeks without interacting).

Another highlight of the week was a nighttime worship service at one of the church leaders’ houses. One night, from our house, we heard singing, so a few of us went out to investigate. We discovered a small crowd of about twenty people singing their hearts out in joyful song underneath a small house. It was such an incredible feeling – here we were in the middle of a huge jungle, in a dark, tiny little village that nobody cares about, and these people were praising with everything they had. I realized that God sees and knows every single little language group in the jungle, and he loves and cares about them so much. Suddenly, the world seemed really big, but God seemed even bigger.

I appreciate everyone who has been praying over me throughout this time in the bush, as I simply would not have had enough energy to keep pushing myself to try and get out in the culture without God’s empowering. There were also moments of homesickness because I couldn’t communicate with anyone outside of the village, but God had grace enough for those moments of weakness as well. And it was always exciting to see what God was doing around us – his Spirit is clearly hard at work in the village. All in all, our week-and-a-half in the first village was an exhausting, exhilarating, and unforgettable time.

The missionary house in which we lived, situated on the side of the airstrip

Our first experience eating sago (which we chopped and washed ourselves) cooked in bamboo

At night, all of our activities were powered by kerosene lantern

Off to the Bush!

The time has arrived for us to head out to the bush! One of the most exciting parts of this internship is our opportunity to go live in two different villages for a few weeks, both to speed-learn the language and to encourage the nationals and missionaries who live there. We've been packing like crazy (we have to bring everything we're going to need, including food and bedding and clothing and toiletries and kerosene lamps and coloring books for the children and laundry detergent and clothespins and batteries and about a million other things), so we're finally ready to hop on the plane and fly out.

All of this packing has given all of the interns plenty of practice interacting in the market and all of the stores around town. I can remember the day back in the States when our intern coach said she was going to send us out to the market alone on the third day, and we all panicked. Now, going out to buy fresh produce is no big deal, and I look forward to visiting our normal stops in the market. The market is an exciting place, with dozens of people sitting next to their produce, spraying it with water and fanning the flies away to attract customers. There's something really special about buying food from the people who grew it - it feels much more personal than buying food from the supermarket, where the food has probably passed through a dozen hands. We usually visit the market once a day, as we're responsible for all of our meals and we like things fresh.

This weekend was very good for me. On Saturday, we took time for Sabbath (a discipline that is particularly difficult for me), spending the day with a missionary family around town and then watching a movie in the evening at our office. On Sunday, I went to my first ever PNG church service, which was a very interesting experience. The seating was divided by gender, and the service was a mixture of Pidgin and English. The preacher spoke about God's call to Abraham, how he had to leave the life he had established in order to follow God into unknown places. It seemed very timely for students on a missions internship! I feel like the church service may have made me more homesick than anything else we've done, simply because the songs and faces were so unfamiliar to me. I think time helps more than anything, as familiarity never comes quickly. Fortunately, on Sunday evening we attended a gathering of all of the PBT missionaries, and it felt much more familiar. We sang familiar English songs, we watched a video about what God has been doing in PNG, we were prayed over, and we took the Lord's Supper together.

The Lord's Supper was particularly impacting to me. I've become guilty of getting so distracted by all of the details of mission work - all of the packing and language learning and sunscreening - that I had lost sight of the purpose of all that we do: Jesus died for our sins, and that is very good news. We are sharing the words of life with people, bringing light into dark places, and it can be easy to forget that when you're trying to remember what the Pidgin word for "egg" is (it's kiau, by the way).

Today was a long day of final preparation. I made two purchases that were particularly exciting for me. The first was a machete, which I'll need for our time in the bush (I believe I'll mostly be using it to hack vines and open coconuts, but I may kill a tiger or two while I'm at it). The second was a bilum, a small bag that just about every single person in the town carries around with them to hold personal items (for those of you who are wondering, yes, I'm describing a purse. But it is culturally appropriate - even expected - that I, as a male, will carry one too. I'm not gonna lie; it's pretty handy).

From what I can tell, our time in the bush will be very challenging and very rewarding. I would greatly appreciate your prayers especially in this time, as it will certainly be the most physically (and, dare I say it, mentally/emotionally/spiritually) demanding portion of the summer. We feel very confident about what's going to happen, but there are also so many variables we have to deal with (until about last week, we didn't know if the airstrip into our first village was going to be too overgrown to land). Fortunately, God is bigger than our circumstances! He has prepared the way for us, and we are excited to join his work in the villages.

God's Big Banana Leaf

Well, let me give a big "Moning, poro!" from Papua New Guinea! We've (finally) just about settled in to our houses here, I know how to say a little more than "I'm trying to learn how to speak Pidgin" in Pidgin, and my body is slowly getting used to the time change (every night, I start getting tired around 6 pm, and most mornings I wake up automatically around 4 am).

Our travel couldn't have gone better. We had no missed layovers and no lost luggage, so we appreciate all of the prayers that went up on our behalf! I still don't really know where June 14 went, but I've heard that we'll pick it up on the way back to the States in August.

In case you're worried about where I'm sleeping or what I'm eating, rest assured that we are well taken care of. I'm living in a one-bedroom flat behind the girls' house, which is a two-bedroom house. Many of the missionaries here have been kind to feed us, but most of our meals are up to us and our ability to buy things from the market and stores. I feel confident enough to be able to shop in Pidgin, though a recent disaster involving my failed attempt to make hot chocolate may have hurt my confidence for cooking (the raw sugar really did look like hot cocoa mix, leading to super-sugary-hot-milk). We've been eating a large variety of foods, but nothing too too scary since we're preparing our own meals. We have been able to taste kulau (a hard coconut-shaped fruit filled with a sweet, electrolyte-filled liquid), rambutan (an angry-looking little sweet fruit), taro, and kaukau (like a sweet potato).

It's amazing how quickly you get used to doing stuff the PNG way. Already, I've learned not to make eye contact with a woman for more than a few seconds, I know that riding "shotgun" means sitting in the front-left seat, and it's weird to see a woman wearing pants instead of a skirt. Every morning, I know that the large flocks flying overhead are not birds but big bats (see picture below). Obviously, I'm years away from blending in as a Papua New Guinean speaking fluent Pidgin, but until then I can just throw up my hands and explain, "Mi no PNG man!"

This week, our major goals have been getting oriented to PNG, beginning to learn Pidgin, and preparing for our time in the bush over the next three and a half weeks (planning menus, buying food, packing supplies, etc.). We spend most of our day at the Pioneer Bible Translators main office, and it's been really cool to see all of the traffic of missionaries, national workers, and other visitors coming in and out.

And speaking of translation, one of our other main goals for this week has been checking a back translation of I Corinthians for one of the people groups with whom we'll be living. Obviously, Bible translators want the text to be as accurate as possible, so there is a long series of checks and re-checks before the scriptures are published. One of these checks is a "back translation," where they take the scriptures in the new language and translate them back into English so that workers (who probably don't speak the new language) can give an unbiased look at whether the new text reflects the original content of the Bible. As I read through this back translation of I Corinthians, I'm checking to see if anything has been added, poorly interpreted, or omitted.

Because the text has passed through so many different languages (Greek and English into the new language into English), the back translation can often give you quite a few odd sentence constructions or phrasings. I'm constantly coming across verses like this snippet of I Corinthians 6:12: "Half some men are habitually speaking like that. You habitually say, 'Saying, "I will do whatever whatever," I will do good.' Given that, half some whatever whatever will not help me." Fortunately, they give us lots of help to let us know what those phrases mean ("Whatever whatever" = "All kinds of things"). When we finally meet with the missionary in her village, we'll get to go through our corrections with her to discuss problems we found. The experience will be good since we'll get a look at the difficulties of cross-cultural translation and the ways missionaries have found to solve such problems.

The title of this post comes from a back translation, as the way "God's word" was translated to a paperless tribe who writes on banana leaves was "God's big banana leaf."

Today, we got to sit in on a translation check, which is another important step in the translation process involving native speakers and a missionary who is simultaneously comparing the new translation, the trade language (Pidgin), the English, and the original language (Greek or Hebrew). The process is rather slow, as the team may spend anywhere between two minutes and an hour on any particular verse, making sure that the translation is as accurate and nuanced as possible. I still just feel so blessed to be here, because so much of what we're experiencing (like this session, involving missionaries and nationals) would only be possible by traveling here. I feel so privileged to have this opportunity.

Language learning is going really well. We did some practice before we left the States, so we came in with a little head start. Today, our team successfully navigated the market and a few stores in order to buy lunch and dinner (without any help), so that was a real confidence booster. After lunch, I managed to tell a (very choppy, very poor grammatically) story in Pidgin, including a joke, which was also a good inspiration to keep working hard. One word at a time!

If you are praying, continue to lift up my team as we deal with changing cultures and time zones. We really enjoy cooking and eating our meals together like a little family, praying and singing together in the mornings, and encouraging each other in our work, and I'm still amazed at how well we function together and get along. Pray that we will be able to continue extending grace and love for each other, especially as we prepare to rough it for the next three weeks in the bush.

Also, pray that God will reveal his will for me specifically regarding the summer. From the beginning, I've seen this internship as a learning experience, a chance to try translation out. Unfortunately, I'm already seeing the limits of doing short-term missions...after all, I've been told that eight weeks is just enough time to really understand how much you don't know about a culture. Pray that God will show me what he wants to do in or with me and that I will be content with his work.

Hopefully, I'll get a chance to write again before we head out into the bush, where we'll be without internet at least for a few weeks. Thanks for reading! Now, for the pictures:

Our first view of PNG from the plane

The hand-carved "storyboard" for the PBT office. You see these everywhere, and the skill and attention to detail is incredible.

A flock of bats, which greets us every morning (and afternoon and night, depending on the day)

Pioneer Mission Institute

Well, my suitcase is packed, my room is clean, and all that's left is to hop on the plane and fly to PNG! It's hard to believe that our two weeks in Dallas are over, and in about 40 hours I'll be settling down in PNG, trying to remember the Melanesian Pidgin I learned and forget what time I think it is.

This week, we participated in the Pioneer Mission Institute, an annual week-long convention sponsored by Pioneer Bible Translators. The week is designed for past, present, and future missionaries, and it offers many classes and meetings to educate us on the work of translation and the lifestyle of a missionary. Because this is my first time to work with PBT, I went through the student track, which introduced me to quite a few new fields of study that I had never encountered (but will encounter a lot more if I decide to become a translator!). We've dabbled in phonetics, phonology, linguistics, anthropology, and many other -ics and -ologies, and I really, really enjoyed discovering these new fields. Exploring the ways that people communicate is extremely interesting to me, and the work of translation is all about being able to communicate effectively across cultural lines. In phonetics, we discussed all of the sounds that the human mouth can produce (it's around 110, and the English language uses about 40). In phonology, we looked at the ways that humans combine those sounds to create words and meaning. Linguistics is all about how we communicate meaning to each other through the language we use, whether through our words or phrases or sentences or paragraphs. Finally, anthropology deals with the study of culture and how to interact with other cultures successfully.

It's incredible just how little you can assume is shared by all humans. There are some languages in which two different sounds that would be almost imperceptible to an English speaker represent entirely different letters—think, for example, of the way that some cultures have trouble using Rs and Ls when they speak English (to them, they sound the same). There are some languages in which sentence order is subject-verb-object (like English), but there are others in which that order is completely different. There are some languages that have no word that means "to be," and there are other languages with 23 different words that all mean "to carry." What I'm getting at is that the work of translation is much more complicated than simply plugging in one word for another—it involves committing to learn and fully know the ways a certain people group communicates in order to be able to give them the most accurate and understandable version of the word of God possible.

One of my favorite things about this week has been spending time with missionaries, getting to hear their stories and jotting down their advice (I can't tell you how many times I've heard, "If you only remember one thing, remember this..."). When you hear story after story of entire villages being saved and scriptures being translated and lives being transformed, you really gain an appreciation for how big God is and how much he really does care about every single person on the planet. When we worshiped this week, I sang certain lyrics like, "Savior, he can move the mountains! Our God is mighty to save," in a new light.

More than anything, I feel like this week has sown in me a greater appreciation for the word of God and a stronger belief in the power of prayer—and those are important lessons to learn whether or not I end up translating. I've been thinking a lot about how we have the very word of God at our fingertips—his love letter, as it's been called, written to humanity and full of truth. Through studying the word, we can come to know our holy and mighty God better, and that is such a blessing. Prayer, on the other hand, gives us the opportunity to communicate directly with that God; to cry out to him and to listen for his voice. There is power in prayer, and God does amazing things with people when they take the time to stop and genuinely pray.

As I think about arriving in PNG, I can tell that God has answered countless prayers to give me peace and assurance of his presence. I'm not nearly as nervous as I probably should be, and I'm looking forward to everything that is going to happen this summer. Regardless of what happens—whether our luggage gets lost, or I get laughed at (which, from what I've heard, is a certainty), or I get frustrated with language learning, or I get a tropical ulcer or malaria, or we have conflict on the team (haven't so far), or I start feeling homesick, or anything else—I know without a doubt that God will be with me, and he will be glorified. If things go well, that is his grace towards our mission; if things don't go well, that is his mercy towards my life, growing me more into the image of Jesus.

I know that the reason I have such a peace is because countless people have told me they will be in prayer over my summer, and I am so grateful for their service. Please pray for safety and patience in travel (it's about 30 hours total, including flights and layovers, and we've got four separate flights), as well as quick recovery from jetlag and changing time zones. Pray that our initial language and culture learning will go well. Pray for my willingness to put myself out there, to initiate people in conversation, and to develop relationships as well as I can. Finally, pray that God will give me the willingness to seize every opportunity I have this summer—to notice every chance I have to be Jesus and take it. Short-term missions like these give people an incredible opportunity to wholly dedicate themselves to God's work without being tied up in school, work, relationships, etc., so I want to make the most of this opportunity.

If all goes according to plan, my next post will be from PNG! To close, here are a few pictures I snapped today:

The teams of interns headed to Tanzania, Papua New Guinea, and Guinea, as well as our coordinators

From this angle on the map, the United States sure looks far away!

Pre-Field Orientation

Our first week in Dallas went so well! After meeting on Facebook, our Papua New Guinea team has been praying for each other this semester, and we've felt God at work as we have quickly clicked in with each other. I feel so blessed to be working with my PNG team, even if I am the only male on the trip :-). I have been inspired by how much Lindy, Megan, Delaina, and Lindsey want to serve God and see his word touch lives, and I'm looking forward to seeing how God uses each of us this summer.

There are fifteen interns here this week, headed to Papua New Guinea, Guinea (West Africa), and Tanzania (East Africa). I must confess that I've grown used to a certain reaction when I tell people I want to translate the Bible: "Better you than me!" Well, it has been such a blessing—and a little surreal—to be surrounded by so many people who are seriously considering the work as a career. We're a strange breed, but we've had a blast together.

This week, we've been led by our internship coordinators through a series of training exercises and orientations. One of our first activities was called "Oomah Boomah," and it was a fun simulation of just how overwhelming it can be to try and tell the Bible story to a group of people with different customs and an entirely different worldview. As my team tried to tell the story of Moses parting the Red Sea, we could tell the missionaries were having fun pretending to be a foreign tribe: playing with our hair, clapping at us whenever we said taboo words ("God" and "water"), and asking us questions that don't usually come up during an American telling of the story ("So, if we raise our hands like Moses, will that bring the wind to us as well?").

Amidst a few other fun games, we've also had quite a few important sessions to educate us about the work of translation and how to be safe and smart this summer. Among other topics, we covered worldview differences, culture stress, the translation process, healthy teamwork, methods of language learning, conflict management, spiritual warfare, personality types, international security, missionary health, and child safety. In addition, we had a few sessions devoted to learning PNG language and culture.

We also took a lot of time to develop goals for ourselves and to build strong relationships among our team. We developed a team covenant (covering everything from "We will not date each other or nationals" to "We will place the needs of others before ourselves") and had a special time of sharing our life stories with each other (which, in our team of five people, stretched easily into five hours). It's amazing how quickly we've bonded together and learned to trust each other. Even this weekend, when I drove to Austin for my niece's birth, I found myself missing my teammates.

I feel like this week did a lot to grow me for the summer and beyond. I suffered an outbreak of chiggers (numbering, at its worst, no less than 32 itchy welts all over my ankles and thighs), which hopefully prepared me for any interesting insect bites this summer. I've been keeping a journal for myself (which was given to me by a friend), and it has been amazing to see the ways that God has already been answering specific prayers of mine during this week. I've been reading through Acts in the evenings and Psalms in the mornings, and the dedicated time in the word has been a source of nourishment and rest. One of my goals for the summer is to keep "buckets of grace" for myself and for others: to realize that we are all trying our hardest but that language learning is difficult and slow. I need to be especially forgiving this summer, understanding that it is stressful to live in a new culture and speak a new language.

Let me close with a few pictures from Wednesday. We spent the day outdoors on teambuilding exercises, so I broke out the camera to capture all of the fun:


I thought I felt pretty safe during our team trust falls, but my face may have betrayed some nerves.


Assembling a large puzzle blindfolded? Yeah, we can do that. Now, bring on the translation!


This particular exercise will come in handy should we encounter any gigantic spiders and their webs on our hikes.

Bilong Yu Oltaim Oltaim

I can't believe I'm already a week into the internship!

My name is Brent Bailey, and this summer I'll be working as an intern with Pioneer Bible Translators in Papua New Guinea. I remember feeling shocked a little over a year ago to find out about the huge need for Bible translators in the world: 200 million people still don't have a single verse in their language, and 30% of the world still doesn't have a complete Bible they can read. I cannot imagine trying to live a Christian life—starting a church, raising kids, working my job—without ever having read any of the Bible, and I am becoming more and more convinced of the power that the word of God itself has to transform lives.

There are many reasons that I feel like God may be leading me to become a Bible translator after I graduate. First and foremost, I want to use my life to invest in the spiritual lives of other people—to help others form relationships with God and discover their own potentials for ministering in his kingdom. I have known for awhile that I want to use my life for ministry, but I do not know for sure what that will look like. What I do know is that I have a passion for languages, especially the ancient languages of scripture. I also love detailed work; I tend to be task-oriented, and the work of translation seems to me like a big puzzle that I want to solve.

But the main reason may be hearing stories of just how much impact the translated Bible has on people. How I wish you could hear the stories of how desperately people are yearning for the Bible to be translated—how they celebrate when every book is completed, how they spend days reading and re-reading the same passages because it's all they have, and how their lives and cultures are completely transformed by an understanding of God's word. Translating the Bible sends a message to people that God sees them and cares about them where they are—that he knows their language and is yearning to tell them that he loves them in words they understand.

Therefore, I jumped at the opportunity to experience translation first-hand this summer. I am praying that this will be a summer of clarity and discernment for me so that I will be able to know whether to direct my life toward translation (in my graduate work, etc.).

It seems like this summer has been approaching forever. After initially talking with Pioneer Bible Translators in March of 2008, applying formally for the internship in November, getting accepted in December, sending out support requests, getting a few too many shots, reading all of the required readings, convincing the parents, packing either too much or not enough, and lots and lots of prayer...I'm here!

Until Saturday, "here" means good old Dallas, Texas, where I and the other PBT summer interns are spending two weeks for training and orientation at the International Linguistics Center, home to the Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics, Pioneer Bible Translators, and a Wycliffe office. Last week, we had a week of pre-field orientation with the internship coordinators, learning about everything from personality types to why it's important to carry toilet paper at all times (short answer: so that you don't have to use love letters from your girlfriend, like one missionary did). This week, our campus has gotten a lot fuller for the Pioneer Mission Institute, a week-long series of seminars and worship designed for past, present, and future missionaries. Our plane leaves this Saturday, June 13th, and we arrive back on American soil August 13.

I cannot make any promises about how regularly I will update this blog while overseas. The internet will not always be reliable, and it may be entirely unavailable in certain villages. In addition, I'll have to be somewhat vague on some of the specifics of our location, dates, etc. in order to protect the long-term missionaries in PNG. So, if you try and get in touch with me but receive no reply, never fear; I'm likely unreachable.

While in PNG, we'll have a variety of activities designed to immerse us in the culture and introduce us to missionary life. Our initial goal will be language learning; we've begun some preliminary study here, but the main way we will learn language is by walking up to people and engaging them in conversation, starting with a "Mi laik kisim save long Tok Pisin," or "I'm trying to learn Melanesian Pidgin." Learning language is a ministry in itself, as it further demonstrates that God—and Christians—are interested in these people where they are, and they don't have to change or become like white men in order for God to love them. We'll spend a few weeks in different villages to help speed up the language learning process; while in the villages, we'll participate in daily life of Guineans to understand them better. One day, I may work in a garden; the next, I could be spearfishing. After we've gotten a pretty good handle on the language, we'll be heavily assisting with a three-week literacy course, helping people learn to read so that they can understand the translated Bible. Along the way, we'll get to experience the work of translation and all of the other facets of life on the mission field.

I feel so excited, and I honestly cannot wait to get onto the plane. The language learning process has already been so much fun, and the culture seems fascinating. Most of all, I'm excited to see the ways that the word of God really is changing the lives of people in darkness.

I suppose I should explain the title of the blog. Since my first semester of college, I've kept a blog called "Forever Yours" at http://brentbailey.blogspot.com. Here's my original explanation for why I chose that title:

"I wanted a name that would somehow summarize where I stand in my faith; a short phrase that would capture my priorities and reveal my goals. I chose "Forever" because I am (and have been for the past few months) trying to live my life in a way that is eternal; after all, we were originally created to be eternal beings before Satan entered the picture. I want to live with my earthly life in perspective; that is, in the scope of eternity, 80 years doesn't seem so long, and nothing on earth is really worth an eternity. I want my faith to be perpetual, not simply relying on the moment and emotions but stretching both forwards and backwards forever. The "Yours" represents a search for self-denial in an attempt to allow Jesus to sweep in and replace me. I want to remove everything about myself that is sinful and human - my selfishness, my pride, my weakness - and give Jesus full authority to take over my life and captivate me. I fully expect the name of the blog to change as the likeness of my faith changes."

"Bilong Yu Oltaim Oltaim" is the Pidgin translation of "Forever Yours"—it seemed fitting, consdering that I'll hopefully be speaking more Pidgin than English this summer.

If you plan to follow this blog, please feel free to ask questions, and I'll do my best to answer them. I eagerly request your prayers, specifically that (1) we will have safety in our travel, (2) we will have patience and endurance in the process of language learning, and (3) God will reveal to me whether this should be my lifelong ministry. As always, pray for the Bibleless people in the world and those who are serving to translate.

I would love, love, love comments! Thank you so much for joining me this summer!