The Latest Prayer Items

Thank God for a safe and successful repair project accomplished in May at the Masa airstrip that supports the Dedua language program in Morobe Province. Pray for God's continued blessing and encouragement for Bomac, the Papua New Guinea co-translator, who served as foreman for the project and is a key leader in the community.

Learning that Lasts is a highly interactive workshop for people who want to improve their ability to help adults learn. Most participants at the June workshop are from Papua New Guinea. Pray that they will grasp the information given and that the staff will be able to help them become a success as they teach Papua New Guineans for roles in Bible translation.

Praise God for the completion of the second Vernacular Education for Rural Areas course in Madang Province, despite difficulties with water and power. The participants will now be conducting writers' workshops and other assignments in their villages. Pray that these activities stimulate an interest in reading in the local language. And pray that local communities will indeed see the value of early education in the mother tongue.

Four young teachers from two languages in Gulf Province are currently in Hawaii to attend a Uniskript orthography development workshop. They will develop an alphabet and a primer. Pray for good learning to take place so that when they return they can successfully teach people in their communities to read using the newly designed alphabet.

In celebration of the 60th anniversary of SIL's work in the Philippines, SIL Philippines has published a biography of Dr. Richard "Dick" S. Pittman. Dick Pittman was the initiator of SIL's work in many countries throughout Asia and the Pacific. His vision for language development among minority peoples brought recognition in the Ramon Magsaysay Award awarded to SIL in 1973. Dr. Pittman also initiated the Ethnologue, a comprehensive volume that catalogs all the known living languages in the world today. Praise God that Dr. Pittman's vision continues today in the work of many Asians who care deeply about Asia's languages and cultures.

Pray for the Sepik Partnership Engagement Strategy team as they prepare a cluster of six new language groups (Nampes, Juwal, Urimo, Yambes, Wom and Bungain) for a series of four Oral Bible Storytelling workshops. There will also be a team representing the churches in the urban area of Wewak. Pray for Oral Bible Storytelling participants as they share the new stories and engage in discussion with their communities about what they have learned. Pray that the new stories can have an impact in ways never imagined.

In June, the Sepik Partnership Engagement Strategy team will travel to meet with the Wom language group in the northeast Sepik Province to equip them with skills necessary to begin translation work. The Wom group has 4000+ speakers, but has no Scripture in their heart language yet.

Pray for the Literacy, Leadership, Education and Development module 3 being taught in June and early July at the Ukarumpa Training Centre. Praise God for the participants from eight languages, representing five provinces. Pray for staff and participants as they work long hours during this intense time: for strength, health and good understanding of the material. This is the third of four modules.

Paratext and related tools are a collection of software programs for Windows and Linux developed by the United Bible Societies which allow translators to input, edit, check, and publish a translation of the Scriptures, based on the original texts. Pray for the participants at the Paratext Community of Practice meetings as they share ideas on how to use this translation software effectively. Also, pray for James Post to develop high-quality training materials for the Paratext 2 workshop planned for July.

George McDonald is traveling from the United States to consultant-check* Esther for the Binumarien language group. He then will check portions of Genesis and Exodus for the Kapin team. Pray for other language teams that need a consultant to check their translated books.

*Consultant check: A consultant thoroughly goes over the translation with the team, checking for accuracy, clarity and naturalness, and looking for omissions, extraneous thoughts or possible misconceptions.