Buka and Literacy

--Seven staff (including three from PNG) and participants from ten languages worked in this village conference facility on Buka Island. We accomplished a lot in two weeks!--

On the last day of January, Larry flew out to Buka Island for a Bougainville workshop to produce literacy materials for elementary schools in ten languages. No one from Solos was part of the workshop, but it was a chance to help out and reconnect with many of the national translators in the region.

Literacy is a big need in Bougainville, and encouraging and strengthening the elementary schools by producing early grade vernacular readers for kids to learn reading with is a big help. Many of these schools only have had such materials when the teachers make them up themselves, often only on a blackboard.

This workshop is part of a larger project to see if providing vernacular materials and training to the teachers will significantly improve student outcomes. 56 little books in each language will hopefully be a big help.

While Larry was there, he also had opportunity to update the Solos computer, collect all the latest translation progress, and print copies of nine chapters for village checking. He was only able to stay in Tung for a couple of nights, but it was a good training and planning session. We’re looking forward to a good year of translation.

Larry visited this church just up the road from the workshop. The ocean breeze was better than any air conditioning!

Allocation

One of Larry’s responsibilities is to guide new teams to a language allocation. There are many remaining needs in PNG, but often there are challenges to getting someone there.

A recently-arrived family was intending to visit a Highlands language at the end of February in preparation for allocating. Three weeks before the flight, a tribal conflict broke out there. Now it may be several years before anyone can move into that very remote area.

Events like this serve as a reminder that this is not a human-sized task. Pray for us.

Prayer Corner

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