The Great Adventure: A Celebration

Recently Tim had the opportunity to travel to Wabag to participate in the Kickoff Celebration of the Enga Bible Translation Project. You can read more about here. We wanted to share with you more pictures of his time in Wabag.

The Enga Province of Papua New Guinea is located in the Highlands at an altitude of over 6,000 feet.

Enga is the largest language group in Papua New Guinea with over 300,000 speakers and nine different dialects. While there is an existing translation of the New Testament in Enga, it is not widely used. There are four main reasons why the current translation is not used. First, it was the work of only one denomination and so the other denominations don't feel like the Enga New Testament is for them. Second, it uses a mixture of dialects, which makes it difficult for various dialect groups to accept. Third, the Enga language has changed rapidly over the last 25 years and so the current translation is outdated. Fourth, literacy levels are very low in Enga, and most Engans cannot read (especially in their own language). The result is that very few Engans have ever heard a good translation of the Word of God in their own language.

The celebration began with a drum corp. The boys used old plastic fuel containers as their drums.

When I saw the boy climb the tree to get a better look at the parade I thought “Zaccheus"

Every drum had a message on it. It was either about Jesus’ love for them or their love for Jesus.

There was a reporter from the “National” newspaper (striped shirt) and other local and Provincial officials (camo vest)

Women from the local Catholic church take the lead from the boys with their traditional Kundu drums.

Luke, the videographer, captured the event

Looking ahead

The crowd kept growing until it was over a thousand people.

Looking out from the Grandstand at the crowd

We all were presented with a gift of a traditional woven cap

Dan and Luke from Newbreak Church were presented with gifts of sand art for the generous sponsorship of the Engan men

Several local Pastors from around Wabag

This is the largest primary school in PNG. Even the local school with its meager budget pledged money to the translation project.

Every celebration has food. We celebrated with a traditional mumu- kind of like a barbecue. First out of the fire was the pig

Separating the layers of food from the leaves.

A Tree Kangaroo, who will one day become a meal

Many of the local church leaders stayed for a meal of pig, chicken, kau-kau (sweet potato), bread, vegetables and a Coke.

Everywhere in the market the people were friendly and wanted to have their picture taken. These men wanted to show off their bags of peanuts.

This was one local flavor we tried. Each one of the pods in the bunch has a nut inside about the size of a hazel nut and had a similar flavor. They were selling them for 70 toa or about 35 cents.

This girl, who is the daughter of the guesthouse owner, helped us by opening the gate. Despite her obvious physical challenges, she was always smiling.

We stopped for a while to visit the village of Immi, which is where Adam and his family lived on a recent trip. This is outside the local church

Inside the church- no hard pews to complain about here!

The people Immi were captivated by Adam’s picture book chronicling his family’s 5 week stay in their village.

This is the house that Adam and his family stayed in on their visit.

The black roof is from the smoke; it helps to seal and preserve the roof. The building on the left is the kitchen. Papua New Guineans generally do not cook inside their house.