Lutheran Church of Australia

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Mea duoduo! Good morning!

9 June 2020

by Hanna Schulz

Mea duoduo! Good morning! My name is Hanna Schulz, and for the last five years, I have been privileged to be a translation adviser to the Kope people of the Gulf Province in Papua New Guinea. I am not the translator; the Kope translation team do that work – they are after all the experts in their language. I am the advisor to the team, training and supporting them in their work.

The area of PNG where I work is a delta, as several big rivers drain from the Highlands to the sea, tied together by many smaller waterways. In this delta area, Kope is one among more than a dozen languages. I recently travelled these rivers, visiting five of these languages and asking them what made it difficult for them to use the Bible. Common comments were:

‘English is hard to understand, we need the Bible in our own language.’

‘The Bible is hard to understand, we need people to teach us more about God.’

‘Many people in our community cannot read well.’

Hearing these comments in village after village made my heart heavy.

What can we do?

I believe the way forward is through training. Training vernacular literacy teachers, so that people can learn to read their own languages, and then have a better chance of success at learning to read national languages. Training Christians about the Bible to deepen their understanding. Training people in Bible translation.

What is the first step in this big vision? A dedicated space in which to do training.

Can you help me to build this training space?

In consultation with the Kope translation team, we are planning to build a Translation and Literacy Training Centre in Ubuo, the village where I live and work. The building will have a classroom for 50 people, plus two offices and a storeroom. To view the plans for the training centre, please click here.

We already have the land and the plans, we wrote a budget (although the dropping Australian dollar and closure of the local timber mill keeps changing it), and a timeline to build in October, but we need money for this expensive undertaking.

Keito hi’a-ka! Thank you very much! Thank you for your gifts and your prayers as I continue to work alongside the Kope people in Bible translation, and as we reach out to our Gulf delta neighbours to offer them the training that they have requested.

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