Sunday, March 22, 2020

Friday, March 20

Aaron spent the last three days in Sorana Village. Here is his report:


I was excited to be able to do the work in Sorana, which is in the central part of our language group, because the translation project had not had much interaction with the village before. In addition to the translation team, I was delighted to have the village chief and catechist join us in many review sessions. Also, two members of the translation committee participated. These guests, combined with our translators, gave us a good variety of villages and dialects in our checking sessions. WE continued work editing the first draft of Matthew 5-6.


Though the review work can be slow and tedious at times, I always found it a great encouragement that the end result is always a better version of the text. Probably the most exciting part of the review sessions is seeing people have epiphany moments when we discuss a verse and they really understand its meaning for the first time. Matthew 6:22-23 is a good example. After working through the translation draft, I took time to physically “act out” the idea of this metaphor. Once they understood that if the only light you have is “darkness,” then truly, how great is that darkness!


This was the first time that we were able to use a portable solar system to run a small projector and Aaron’s laptop, allowing everyone to easily see the text and facilitating editing. Much better than the big chalk board we’ve used in the past! We plan to meet in a village in the far west of our language group at the end March to continue reviewing Matthew in preparation for a consultant check.

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