Printing and distribution of the Gospel of Mark

In April we were in the capital city and were able to print some copies of our completed Gospel of Mark in the Rral language of North Ambrym.

Magreet and her husband were here from Canada and she helped a full day.

If you are retired and want to spend some time helping out Bible translators in Vanuatu, there are always odd jobs for skilled and unskilled people looking to volunteer.  Or if you are a student and have summers off and want to come, please do!  These kinds of volunteers save us thousands of dollars in travel to come to Vila to do these things ourselves and of course save us time so we can continue translating the Bible!

Casey Ellis also helped a full day (as you saw in the video above).  Had I done it myself it would have taken 4 days instead of 2 for just 80 copies!

 

Completed books

In June, Casey organized a distribution and workshop time for leaders in the northern villages of our language group for our completed Gospel of Mark.  About 20 came and we (Houghton, Casey, myself, and our local translators) each taught various sessions throughout the day.

Elder Harre giving an overview of Bible translation history.

Houghton videoed the various segments so we can post them on Ambrym facebook sites.

George taught a Bible overview

Casey taught how to use an app for smart phones/tablets to listen to the audio version of Mark.

Houghton shared the qualification for teaching/preaching the Word.

He also taught how to find the main point in a passage and to preach using the tools in our Gospel of Mark.

I taught a session on difficult letters/sounds in the language for new readers, and I also taught about the various study tools in their Gospels of Mark (footnotes, headings, glossary, cross references, illustrations and captions, reference headers, etc).

Please pray for Casey as he follows up with attendees of the workshop that they would do the hard work to practice reading in their language and use their translated Scripture.  Please also pray for salvation of those who are reading and hearing for the first time in their own language!

Below see a bit of comic relief of our trip to and from Olal village where the workshop was held (just over an hour's drive for us).

Roads are really rough so we get tossed and slide around quite a bit in the back of the truck!

Jesiah brought some music and a speaker so we listened to the Muppets soundtrack and Christian rap on the way to Olal.  Interesting combo...