Correction...

...yesterday's picture actually had five kittens in it, but you couldn't see the fifth because it was still hiding inside Kiki. This morning I went down to see how they were doing, and #5 was there, apparently born during the middle of the night sometime. The newest arrival looks a lot like #4, just without the white paws and white back legs. I would have another picture, except every picture I take only shows four of the kittens well, because there's always one on the bottom of the pile. Don't worry, if only for my sisters' sakes, there will be another picture or two later as they're growing up. :-)

This morning we had a heavy rainstorm, which was good, because things were starting to get dry. (unfortunately, it hit during the time that I had to walk across the compound to go to the print center) Things are a lot greener and brighter right now, as the sun has finally come out and is starting to set.

The reason I went to the print shop this morning was to help out with what's called a "Scripture check." Basically, when a New Testament is completely translated but not yet printed, a team of people will get together to review the final draft for technical or printing errors. There were six of us working, and we checked things like page numbers, text formatting, cross-references (to make sure they're on the right pages, are chronological, and abbreviated correctly), and more. The entire Minimimb (yes, that's really the name of the language) New Testament was printed on individual sheets of paper, like these shown below. (This is the first page of Revelation, as well as another page from chapter three. This is one picture you're almost certainly going to have to click on to enlarge and be able to see it well)


You might be able to see how there are little corner outlines not too far away from the main text. What happens is that when the check is finished, the printers will take pictures of the area between those markings on these sheets, then mass-produce print copies of only that area. We were careful to do most of our handling on the edges of the paper, outside those lines. (we also had to wash our hands before working, to keep the pages as clean as possible) If we found a mistake, we had to take the page off the pile, draw a big red slash mark across it, and mark the mistake so that the page could be fixed and reprinted.

This was another one of those jobs that's slightly tedious, yet essential to the work here. In a short time, these pages will appear bound together with the rest of the New Testament as it's never been seen before, and the Minimimb people will be able to read God's Word in their own tongue for the first time. To be fair, though, the actual work of a Scripture check is not very exciting, but the atmosphere is exciting, because everyone knows what the final result will bring. Also, this isn't something that happens every day. The last Scripture check was finished four weeks ago, and apparently it's not often that two are done this close to each other.

One other thing that I didn't take a picture of, but noticed about some of the pages: there are often pictures of things which the people here may not be able to imagine because they've probably never seen them before. For example, many maps of the Mediterranean Sea region, a picture of a horse being turned with a bridle and bit (James 3), and a lion, leopard, and a bear so that they have some idea how to picture Revelation 13:2. (I'm not sure how much it will help in that particular case to know what those three animals look like on their own... but I guess it's better than nothing)

Another interesting thing about the Minimimb New Testament in particular (and may be true of others, though I don't know for sure) is that the verses are really long sometimes. It's not uncommon to have only 7-8 verses on a full page of text. I'm not sure, because no one in the room could read Minimimb and the translator wasn't there, but it may be because some words or concepts that are meaningful to us really have no direct translation in many native languages. The translator would have had to use 15 words to explain one English word... possibly a phrase like "not feeling angry about something wrong that was done or not ready to get back at someone for something wrong they have done" to substitute for the word "forgiving." That's not an unusual situation. Either that, or the Minimimb are just exceptionally verbose.

One last comment about translation in general: there are some amazing stories about how translators have finally found a way to describe a concept previously unfamiliar to the people whose language they are translating. I won't get into any of them now, or else I'll be here typing all night, and you'll be reading it just as long. It's neat to see how God works it out though.

There are also lesser situations, like Jesus' quote of "man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." (Matt. 4:4) Well, for some of the people here, bread is a foreign concept. They don't make it or eat it. Therefore, this verse has little meaning to them. Instead, the translator will use a phrase such as "man does not live by kaukau alone" (with the appropriate other native words of course) because "kaukau" is the name of the sweet potato that is a high-carb staple of many tribal diets, not unlike bread to us.