NPU 12 November 2006

The Brief Stuff

* My presentations to the Computer Technical Conference went very well
* My Presentations and banquet talk are available on-line, .pdf, .mp3, and .ppt
* Bonnie is Acting Associate Director for Language Affairs in PNG
* I have been working on Translation and other things in NC, before I get 
* Training on new translation and linguistic software next week at Jaars in Waxhaw NC
* I have been invited to a Cluster Strategy Seminare in Nairobi, Kenya for May 2007
* Helping Ibrahim Sani, Former Muslim Nigerian with YWAM, was a big highlight this week
* Don't let your spirit eat you (Luke 18:1)

The Good Stuff

Want to hear what I said at the Computer Technical Conference?

As usual, the Computer Technical Conference at Jaars was one of the highlights of the year for me.  This photo of me with my mouth open seems so appropriate because it felt like I talked the whole week.

I was privileged to give two presentations and to be the speaker at the banquet. You can download my banquet talk in .mp3 audio format or in written form on our resource page: www.thenystroms.org/resources.htm. If the link doesn't work, copy it into your browser or go to www.thenystroms.org. and click on the Resources link.

Warnings: 1) Listening to this could change the way you think about the people around you. 2) The jokes are mostly inside jokes only CTC attendees would get, so don't feel bad if you don't laugh when the crowd does.

In a presentation entitled "Using Adapt It for Translation Checking," I explained how we are using Adapt It software in creative ways in our translation process. It gets kind of technical if you're not into translation, but it could give you an idea of the kinds of things I talk about when I go to these conferences. The questions asked in the Q&A session afterward will help you see why I am willing to spend so much time preparing a presentation like this: we may not have all the best ideas, but when we share them, other people seem to think they are worth hearing. If you are interested in seeing it and hearing it, the PowerPoint presentation and the audio file are both on our Resources page. 

Another brother

It's one thing to hear about former Muslim believers who can't go home because their family has vowed to kill them. It's another thing to meet one. For most of this week I was staying in the home of friends here in NC. Also staying there was Ibrahim Sani, a Nigerian former Muslim who is beginning ot raise his support for going back to Nigeria as a missionary. Ibrahim and I enjoyed spending time together this week walking early in the morning, talking about his ministry, and working together on a brochure and a prayer card for him. He will have his own web site soon at www.ibrahimsani.com. For now you can see what we produced and get more information about him here: www.thenystroms.org/ibrahim-sani.htm.

Plan B, Again

I had a very productive week here in Huntersville, NC even though I didn't get as much translation done this week as I had planned. As usual, the Lord's plan was better.

Travel plans were one of the many things I have worked on during my days at the church office: To Arop in January, in February to Dallas for a confrenence, to Arop again in April and possibly to Nairobi Kenya for a Cluster Strategy Seminar in May. Back to Arop in June or July for a translation workshop, but when in June or July? There are many factors and many people involved. Sometimes it gets a bit complex. Pray for wisdom as we balance competing priorities and opportunities.

In the evenings I was in a different home each night for dinner getting to know people in our supporting church here, Harvest Community Church. If you ever want to know how your church can build strong mutually encouraging relationships with your missionaries, ask the folks at Harvest how they do it.

Headed to Africa for a Cluster Strategy Seminar?

Earlier this week, I was invited to attend a Cluster Strategy Seminar in Nairobi, Kenya in May. "Cluster Strategy" is a cover term describing a variety of approaches to translation for a cluster of languages. The project we are working in is just one type of cluster project.

According to the invitation, this is what the seminar is about:

The purpose of the Cluster Strategy Seminar is be to bring together individuals with an interest in a cluster strategy, those in the early stages of implementing a cluster strategy and those who have some experience in a cluster strategic approach in order to gain insights for developing

·       software,
·       management tools,
·       consultant procedures and
·       translation & linguistic procedures uniquely designed for a cluster strategic approach.

I think cluster strategies could be one of the key ingredients in the future of the Bible translation movement, so I am thrilled to hear this seminar is happening and that the organizers think I have something of value to contribute. Please pray for Bonnie and me and the rest of the Aitape West Translation Team as we try to work out how I can attend the Cluster Strategy Seminar in Nairobi Kenya in May.

Back to Jaars for more training

On Monday I return to the Jaars center in Waxhaw to take a training course in FieldWorks, our new integrated translation and linguistic software. When I return to PNG, I will help lead a workshop where we will help translators to begin using this software. I will also be developing some criteria to help translation teams around the Pacific Area to decide when will be the best time for them to switch to using FieldWorks. The answer will be different for various teams. Pray that I will learn enough about the software this coming week to do that job effectively. Info about FieldWorks is here: http://www.sil.org/computing/fieldworks/index.html.

Bonnie has two weeks to go in the Directors' Office

Bonnie is busy being the Acting Associate Director for Language Affairs in PNG right now. Pray for her as she deals with the daily duties and works on some big-picture strategy issues that are important to all of us who do Bible translation in PNG.

Don't let your spirit eat you

During my flights on the way to the US from PNG, I worked on checking the Arop translation of Luke 18-20. Luke 18:1 says, "Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up." The Arops translated 'not give up' by saying "their spirits will not eat them." "Eating" is a really interesting thing in the Arop language. If you leave dishes to soak, the water eats the food on the plate. If you are out in the sun too long, the sun eats your skin. Those are easy to understand. But your spirit eating you? Arops' spirits don't actually eat them any more than we actually "lose our hearts."

Whatever way you say it, please do keep praying for us, and don't give up.

Serving our King together,

John Nystrom

NPU 17 October 2006

Pretty Brief summary

• The translation workshop continues in Arop until Friday. Pray the translators will finish well.
• I leave tomorrow for my trip to the US
• November 2006 Arop Lagoon Tribune is attached.
• Our schedule and contact info appears below.
• In the US, I'll have Brianna's cell phone with me. The number is 704-301-2452. See my schedule below.
• Updated needs list on our web site. Address appears below.

I hear from Emil by email just about every day telling me how the translation workshop is going. Pray that the translators will finish well this Friday. Their goal is to complete Luke 9-15, but quality is more important than speed.

On Wednesday I leave Ukarumpa for my trip to the US. Below I list the various events that are coming up. I have marked some items in bold. Would you please pray for Bonnie and me as we prepare for and participate in these events?

Our needs list on our web site has been updated. On it we list the outstanding needs of the translation project and our personal needs as well.The address appears below with our contact info.

Attached is the November edition of the Arop Lagoon Tribune (ALT) in PDF* format. If you are also receiving a paper one and would be just as happy to receive only the electronic one, please let me know. On page 2 is an exciting story about how we are now beginning to check the translation in informal sessions after church. In a later NPU, I plan to tell you the rest of that story.

If you're getting older like I am, it's easier to read the ALT at larger than 100%, but the photos will look best at 100%.

Nystrom Prayer Update for October 4, 2006:

Brief . . .

* Emil creatively used computing skills I taught him last month to help me to help him recover his translation files
* Emil resolved the translators' 'garbage on screen' problem so they can start translating
* Translation teams working well together in the workshop
* Email connection working very well
* Pray for translators' and helpers' health concerns
* Pray for unity as translators work together on their translations
* Photos at the bottom

Complete . . .

Dear praying friends,

When the translation workshop started in Arop on Monday, Emil and some of the teams had major problems with their translation files. 

In the last NPU I talked about how I had begun teaching Emil to write help documents for the other translators. Part of that process is taking 'screen shots' that show what the computer screen looks like as you use the software.

Without my asking, Emil thought to send by email some screen shots of the problems they were having. As soon as I saw the garbage the translators were seeing on their screens and the picture of Emil's data folder, I knew exactly what the problem was: somebody had accidentally moved some files to the wrong place. So the translators were giving the program the wrong type of data file*. The result was like putting diesel fuel in a gasoline engine--they wern't going to get very far.

I was able to send detailed instructions back to Emil yesterday and he was able to fix it last night. Below in italics is the original English text of his email to me today, along with some notes from me explaining the technical jargon. Hey, I'm a translator and can't resist translating, even if it's only from English to English.
____________________________________

Wanam [=brother],

Thank you so much. I got all my Adapt It files back and I think everyone on the centre is very busy this morning. The Group 1 Team all are all in the Net Meeting and busy sharing ideas and Ramo being the Target to the AropBT of Luke 09.

[The translators from the four languages that make up "Group 1" have networked their computers together using NetMeeting so they can watch each other work without sitting in each others laps. As the Ramo translators are 'adapting' from the Arop Back Translation of Luke chapter 9 to their own language, the translators from the other languages in Group 1 are watching and sharing ideas about how it should be translated. Later in the workshop, they will use the translation now being produced in Ramo as the source text for their translations. That will be easy because their languages are closely related to Ramo, which is also the reason they can give the Ramo team ideas on how to translate something.]

Onnele Group is doing the same with Wolwale being the Target to the AropBT of Luke 09. Goiniri and RomBar are watching and contributing ideas towards Wolwale. They are also in the Net Meeting in their Regional Group. [Same thing, with Wolwale being the first target language. Later they will use that as the basis for the translations in Goiniri and RomBar (=Romei-Barera)].

Nambis Group is taking a different approach. The Malol and Sissano and Arop are busy discussing each verse and then with a wanbel [one belly = agreement] on the verse, then each translates into their own tokples [talk place = local language]. [The Coastal or Beach Group is talking about each verse, agreeing on how to do it, and then all adapting from Arop at the same time into their own languages. He doesn't mention the Serra language, so I assume their translator Ignas Salle has not arrived yet.]

Thank you for praying with us.

Please pray for the following:
1. Some of our Translators have sores and some are not feeling well. (We have no APO [nurse] here in the village. He is on holiday for 2 months.

Our cooks are doing well but Leonnie [Arop translator Pastor Peter Marokiki's wife] is having problem with her neck. [She has had a lot of spinal trouble since getting hit with a big chunk of wood in the tsunami in July 1998.]

Thanks
Emil.
__________________________

Is that awesome or what? Try to imagine how exciting this is for us!After two days of emails saying, "Help, everything is messed up!", this was a welcome sight today. Seeing this stuff happen is what we have been working for since the tsunami eight years ago. We have invested a lot of time and energy training and planning and setting things up. You all have prayed with us at every step of the way and many of you have invested more than a dollar or two so that we could see these men working together like this and making progress on translation even when we are not there. And now that our email connection has been restored, we can still help them from far away. We are totally impressed that Emil thought to send the screen shots and that he was able to recover quickly from this problem and get the translators going again. 

To me, this moment is like a teacher seeing her student ace a major test or a track coach seeing his athlete win a major race after months or years of preparation. Emil and the Arop team have led other workshops and recovered from other problems, but seeing them creatively jump this hurdle, use the tools we have taught them to use, and work together so well is very special.

I will add some more prayer and praise items:

* Praise the Lord with us for this great news!
* Pray for continued unity as they work together. It gets harder and harder to do as the workshop goes on. If you have ever worked closely with somebody all day for three weeks in a row, you know what I mean.
* Pray that the translators will produce quality translations of Luke 9-15 during the next three weeks.
* Praise the Lord that our email connection is restored-- Emil and I have been exchanging email up to three round-trips per day this week.
* Two weeks from today I leave for the US. Pray that I manage my 'to-do' list well.

You have probably seen them before, but these two photos illustrate what Emil means. In the first one, the Onnele group is working on their translation together using one computer.

In the next photo, the Arop team is using NetMeeting so they don't all have to sit so close together in 90 degree heat with 90% humidity. Because they don't need me there all the time, I can be off in a corner talking to people from yet another language group, or I can be even farther away as I am today at Ukarumpa.

We are so grateful to our King for giving us the privilege of helping to enable these men to translate God's Word into their languages! Thank you for being part of it.

Praising the Lord with you,