Through Karen’s Lens

On December 5th, two precious friends came for a short visit to Marulaon: Karen, who works with SITAG, and Caroline, who was a great Pijin tutor for me when we fist came to the Solomons.  Their visit through Karen's lens.  First, on the Bikoi.

Translation Workshop in Hae

Aaron spent November 28-December 1 in Hae (Central Russells)teaching his first Translation Principles workshop.  This workshop precedes the selection of translators early next year.  He came home with a
froggy voice from teaching morning, afternoon, and evening, but it
was so nice to have him home again!

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Choate Update

Dear Friends of the Choates,

I am happy to report that we are having more success with our HF radio email.  I know that the Choates have been able to send and receive emails for most of this week.  However, I’ve been told that all attempts to update their blog have been unsuccessful.  Here is an update as of yesterday’s radio sked:

 

They are doing well.  They continue to get rain that is keeping their drinking tanks filled.  Sarah's sores are healing.  Joanna is busy showing her parents "village life".  They dove for shell fish the other day and have plans to go out to their garden for some work there.  Eventually they will also make cassava pudding together. 

 

Prayer Requests:

~~ Joanna's dad isn't sleeping well.  He has been having leg cramps at night.  Please pray that everyone will get good sleep.

~~Please pray for Aaron as he is preaching this Sunday and he hasn't felt led to speak on any certain thing up to this point.

 

If you want to respond directly to the Choates via email that has a good chance of going through.  If you would rather not take the chance than you can feel free to email me your message and I will relay it via the radio.  As usual, my email is deputy.solomon.islands@sil.org

 

Sincerely,

Andy

Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas

Aaron again,
Hard to believe Christmas is two weeks away. With poor contact with colder places over the past several weeks, it makes it even harder to remember that some of you are working hard to stay warm. Lots of days we are still wondering if the deodorant will give out after 30 minutes or only 20.
Thanks for all the prayers about our computer troubles. A colleague who works on computers all the time said he thinks it is a simple job of resetting the computer's memory. So, since I have not time or tools to try anything here, I will attempt my second computer surgery when I get back to Marulaon. The first was with the same machine, a keyboard transplant. The first procedure was 100% successful, no lasting complications. :)
We wish everyone a great Christmas and we are very much looking forward to catching up with everyone when we get back to Honiara shortly after Christmas. See you then
Aaron for all of us

Guest writer

Hi all,
Aaron here. Katherine and I are safely back in Honiara for a couple of days meeting up with Joanna's folks who are here for a visit. We are very excited to have a touch of "home" for the holidays. So far they are settling in well and we are getting everything ready for our return to the village on Sunday. Our village e-mail system is still not working well. Many man hours have been spent on various sides of the oceans to try to figure out our problems. Nothing certain yet. Thank you all for your prayers for the communication, please keep it up. The lack of communication with the outside world is becoming a serious stress for our village teams, so thanks ahead of time for the continued prayers, and thank God with us too for the right solution.

One other update. Joanna has diligently been keeping blog posts going through these weeks in Marulaon even though the connections have been so bad. She saves the articles and photos in our computer. The other day we were trying to send e-mail from the village and the computer suddenly stopped responding. We have tried several things to get something to happen, but we are very concerned. Please pray for us to have wisdom about getting the computer fixed, and we also pray that the articles and photos for November can be retrieved, as this is our family's fay of recording our time here is SI. Thank you all.

In case we don't get to do it again, Merry Christmas to everyone. Blessings on the new year. We look forward to catching up again after Christmas.
Aaron

Translation Committee workshop update

Dear friends,

As promised I'm passing along the information that I received from Aaron concerning the Translation Committee workshop that he just returned from.  Here is a summary of what he told me:

 

Aaron was happy with the outcome of his Translation Committee workshop.  He was a little disappointed that only 6 out of the 15 members showed up.  Those that came left with a clear picture of how Aaron envisions the translation process will look for their project.  They all worked on translating things into language.  Aaron has challenged them to say things in language and to not rely on borrowing words.  The committee members went home with homework and with instructions to have meetings in their villages to describe what a translator 'looks like' to the people.  Then the people can nominate someone to be a translator who fits that criteria.  The committee will then meet to whittle the nominees down to 4 translators. 

 

A brief look at the future of the project is as follows.  In December the committee members will start fundraising for the project (or at least coming up with ideas as to what fundraising will look like.)  They will also start earnestly praying over the translator selection process.  In January the committee will meet.  They will fill in the members who didn't attend this workshop as well as focus on prayer as a committee.  The plan is that translators will be chosen before the Choates go out to the village in March of next year.

 

Next year Aaron is looking to host two workshops for the translators, two workshops for the entire translation committee, and two to three general workshops on literacy to discuss some orthography issues that came up in Aaron's recent workshop.  Please pray that he'll be able to prepare well for these as it is hard to teach and run logistics for workshops at the same time. 

 

Thanks for your prayers for the Choate family during the last couple of weeks as Aaron has been at these two workshops.  As always, if you have any message that you'd like passed on via radio please let me know at the following email address: deputy.solomon.islands@sil.org. 

That is all for today.

sincerely,

Andy Pierce

Choate Update

Dear Friends of the Choates,

 

As the HF radio email is still hit or miss (mostly miss) Joanna asked me to post the following update:

Aaron has returned safely from the Translation Committee workshop that he has been hosting.  His voice was worn out from doing so much talking, but apparently things went well and he is happy with how things transpired.  I will get a fuller report from them at a future date at which time I will pass that along to you guys as well. 

 

Thanks for your prayers!

Sincerely,

Andy Pierce

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Choate update

Dear Friends of the Choates,

The radio email system is working on occasion.  Sometimes it works fine and other times it doesn’t work at all.  It is frustrating for both sides, but probably more so for the Choates as I know how much they would like to share with all of you.  As it is, I have the following update to share with you.

 

Things are going well for them.  Aaron had a good workshop last week.  He is preparing for a workshop with his Translation committee starting next Monday.  They have been having a good mix of sunshine and rain.  They don’t have to worry about their drinking water at this time.  As always continue to pray that they will have good health.  They are expecting to have some visitors next week so pray that the ship will follow its normal schedule.  Normally the boat is very reliable, but it has been irregular the last month or so. 

 

As usual, if you have any messages that you’d like passed along via the radio please email them to me at: deputy.solomon.islands@sil.org.  

Sincerely,

Andy Pierce

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Aaron's return

Dear Friends of the Choates,

At yesterday's radio sked Joanna informed me that Aaron had safely returned from the workshop on the other island.  Aaron said that the number of participants wasn't large, but it was still a good meeting.  Thank you to all who have prayed for them during their time apart.

sincerely,

Andy Pierce

Choate Update

Dear Family and Friends of the Choates,

 

Email contact has been very spotty with the village teams this month.  We are trying to find answers, but as of yet a good solution has evaded us. 

 

Joanna asked me to post the following comments…

They have arrived safe and sound in the village.  Aaron is currently helping with a literacy workshop on a different island.  He was supposed to be out of contact for a week, but happily Joanna received a handwritten letter from him today.  Joanna and the kids are all doing well and are carrying on with their normal schedules.  They are all looking forward to Aaron’s return on Friday. 

 

Hopefully the radio email system can be figured out and the Choates will be able to contact you directly very soon.  In the meantime, if you have any messages that you’d like for me to pass along to them via the radio, please feel free to write to: deputy.solomon.islands@sil.org.  

Sincerely,

Andy Pierce

 

rain and Bibles

Sunday, November 7
It rained last night! We got a huge thunderstorm, which is quite unusual for the Solomon Islands - thank you, Lord! It's nice to have the front tanks running fast again instead of drip, drip, dripping. Our big tank is about 3/4 full again. Please keep praying for rain. Everybody's crops are stunted and water is still a huge need for all of the small islands around the Russells.

This morning after church, the head catechist gave a big lecture on how important it was to purchase a Pijin Bible (dedicated in 2008) instead of trying to use an English one. He talked about how much easier to understand the Pijin Bible is. We always bring Pijin Bibles back from Honiara and make them available for purchase. Then we take the money and put it back toward the Lavukaleve Translation Project. Unfortunately, the Pijin Bible are too expensive for most families. One Bible is equivalent to sixteen heaps of cassava, eighty coconuts, or twenty parcels of green beans. That's a lot of work!

My heart aches to be able to quickly get them a Bible in Lavukaleve, but I'm excited to see the little baby steps (like Aaron's upcoming translation principles workshop) and the excitement that is beginning to build among our neighbors.