It Takes a Team

Recently another translation team in PNG published the Gospel of Luke and wanted to do 20 different picture booklets from Luke in time to sell them at the dedication of the first Gospel in their language.

The advisor did the work of getting the text together, then a friend of ours in Australia put in the ISBN numbers and permissions. Then she was able to electronically send the files to Ukarumpa, where a couple of guys put them on a thumb drive so the large files could be flown to the advisor in the village so they could be checked with the team. The advisor then texted changes back to our friend via WhatsApp, who then communicated those to the literacy and Scripture engagement specialist in the USA, who had created the templates for the booklets, in order to make some of the changes. Then the whole collection was sent to a literacy consultant for review, which meant a few more tweaks. Finally, she was able to send the whole lot to Ukarumpa to the printshop to be printed. She also uploaded them for future use and printing.

Our friend’s main job is helping missions with logistics in the Pacific, so she also did the purchasing, invoicing, filling out customs paperwork, packing, and sending the ink for the risograph that prints these books. The ink cartridges got there with a week to spare, so the printshop team got them done, and our missionary pilots were able to fly the picture booklets out to the village for sale and use in helping people access the newly-available Scripture in the Kope language.

It takes many people with many talents to make Bible translation and use possible. Pray that God will provide more people, both from inside PNG and from around the world, to help the work go forward.