Gertrude, Sharing Marianne's Dream
Marianne Fast is a co-worker in literacy who dreams of training Papua New Guineans to teach adult literacy in their own villages and to use computers and type their own Bible stories. She and her husband Lesley completed translation of the Tungag New Testament in 1999. This year they returned to help train people from two neighboring language groups to translate the Bible in their mother tongues.
It was great to re-unite with Marianne and the Tungag men who did the first Sunday School books in Tungag. They are well trained so they were a big help to us as we continued with developing Bible stories for eight other groups in New Ireland. Before I left PNG in 2000, I had generated extra funds to purchase a new computer. We found the new computer at the missionary group house where we stayed and Marianne training people to type their own stories.
Marianne's dream became a reality for two ladies we worked with us. Lydia and Alice typed Bible story texts in their languages. This freed us up to make layouts and publish Sunday School books. Kevin fit in as if he'd lived in Kavieng for years. He was very supportive-doing everything from dishes to publishing books to make our time a success. Near the end of our time, it was Kevin working full time with the local people while Gertrude supervised and prepared food for us each day.
We ended up working with texts from about 10 languages and producing books in six languages. The people continued working even as we were leaving. We saw God fulfill our dream of returning to help his people in New Ireland. God enabled us to do so much, it is difficult to tell it all. We praise Him for giving us the grace, mercy and strength to help build his kingdom in Papua New Guinea. We hope to return to Papua New Guinea in early 2005 to be a part of what God is doing in the United Church and to continue helping people to develop a four-year Sunday School curriculum in their languages.
Created on ... March 15, 2005..................................Last edited March 20, 2005