On Saturday, one of our best friends in Arop village, Linus Wairapu, died from the Tuberculosis he had fought for a decade.

During our years on the beach before the tsunami, we trusted him with our lives as our boat skipper. He was also our carpenter and helper in many practical ways. Linus often explained Arop culture to us when we were clueless. After the tsunami he became a Bible translator. A year ago this month he said to me, “I am going to stay with this work until I die.”

He kept that promise.

For more on how we worked, prayed, joked, and translated together, see this page.

Please pray for Linus’s family as they grieve for him. Pray for the remaining members of the Arop translation team, that the Lord would give us strength and years to finish what we started.

Coming soon, Lord willing:
March 1-6: At missions conference at First Baptist Church of Indian Rocks, Largo Florida.
March 7-14: Still in Florida, looking for a place to live in the Seminole/Largo area beginning July or August. During the next school year, we plan to travel up to three out of every four weeks, but hope to find an inexpensive place to call “home.” Suggestions are welcome.
Let us know if you have a car we can borrow for all or part of our time in FL in March. 

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When word came that Linus Wairapu had died of Tuberculosis, I was having dinner with a friend I had not seen in 28 years. In less than that time, Linus Wairapu came into our lives, and had left. My friend asked what the phone call from Papua New Guinea was about. I said, “I’ll tell you tomorrow.” I couldn’t begin to tell him how much Linus Wairapu means to me and to my family, and how much we will miss him. I knew I could not handle the emotion of thinking about Linus while trying to catch up on my friend and his family. So we had our dinner, and now it’s time to mourn Linus and to remember his life, at least the part of it that touched ours.

When we first arrived in Arop in February 1988, Linus was probably the first Arop man we ever met. During our ten years on the beach in Arop, Linus was our skipper. He piloted our 18-foot dinghy with its 40 h.p. Yamaha outboard motor to and from Arop, with my most precious cargo inside: my family. Going in and out of the dangerous breakers, we routinely placed our lives in his hands.

He was among the best skippers on the north coast of Papua New Guinea, always careful to count the waves as they came in, waiting for just the right gap between swells when he could start the engine and gun it, crossing an oncoming wave just after it broke, then speeding on before the next one approached.

He could “read” the waves better than anyone we knew—an important skill when moving through ocean breakers.

Eric especially enjoyed the occasions when Linus let him drive the boat. [I'll put a photo of that in here when I find it.]

On one occasion, Linus misjudged a particularly large wave when a fellow passenger was too active in backseat driving. The wave crashed right into the boat, sweeping Bonnie and Brianna, along with the chair they were sitting on, all the way to the back of the boat. Somehow, Linus was able to get the boat, half-full of water out of the impact zone before the next wave could hit us. Linus felt awful. It was a reminder of how dangerous coastal sea travel can be, and of how good a skipper he was: Of the dozens of times we traveled with him, that was the only mishap.

With a knack for mechanical things, he was in charge of maintaining our outboard motor. When my parents came to visit us in Arop in 1989, Linus was away visiting relatives, so I had to skipper the boat myself as we went to the airstrip. It poured rain, and I forgot to flush the engine with fresh water. Of course it froze up, and Linus (right, in photo below) had to help me free it up again while our friend John Maki looked on.

Linus also did carpentry for us on our house in Arop village, which was quickly going the way of all things made of tropical materials.

He protected our lives as a skipper, and repaired our house as a carpenter. We worked together on electrical and plumbing projects. But his most critical service to us was as trusted confidant. When we first started living in Arop, many things about the culture confused us. When we didn’t know what was going on or how to respond to a situation, we could always ask Linus. We knew we would get the real answer, even if it meant he had to tell us we had done something inappropriate.

I had been trying to get the Arop word for “help,” but everybody said there was no word for “help” in Arop. Instead, they borrowed the Tok Pisin word. I had pestered Linus so much about this word that he finally told me: “awupaij.” So when I saw Linus carrying our heavy outboard motor from the boat to the workshop, I though I had my opportunity to use it. I yelled from our back porch, “Linus, let me come and awupaij you.” Raucous laughter erupted from all the houses in the neighborhood. In the quiet of the workshop, I asked him why so many people had laughed so hard. He said, “Well, that’s our word for help. But we don’t use it because the young people have ruined it. It used to be just a normal word, but now it’s . . . it’s like . . .” He hesitated. “Sexy words” he whispered in English.

One day his daughter Nira had fallen into the lagoon out of her mother’s canoe and nearly drowned. I rode along as Linus drove our boat to the closest clinic with Nira and his wife, Jenny. Nira had been under water for some time, but she survived with no apparent ill effects.

Linus became my closest Arop friend while we were on the beach. Most Arops don’t want you to mess around with their names. A nickname based on what somebody has done is fine, but it should never sound anything like their name. Linus had a tendency to sleep soundly. Often when we gathered on the beach at 5:30 a.m. for a boat trip to Aitape, our nearest town, everybody would be there except the skipper. Linus was still asleep, so somebody would have to go and wake him up. It was a long-standing joke, so I started calling him “Lin usia,” which in Arop sounds like, “he didn’t get up.” I took the fact that he let me call him that as an indication of how close our friendship was. Or maybe he was just that gracious.

After the 1998 tsunami wiped out Arop village and killed his pregnant wife, Jenny, and their baby daughter, Christophila, he was left with five children. He married a widow who had six of her own.

We no longer owned a boat and now we lived inland in a new house in the new Arop village. We didn’t need a skipper or a carpenter. I invited Linus to join the team as a translator. His major contribution to the Arop translation team was his ability to think of better ways to say things in Arop. Many translators find it hard to try to think of other ways to express an idea once they have already written something down.

Linus (in striped shirt on the right, with fellow Arop language translators Emil Ninkure (left) and Pastor Peter Marokiki) was also great at making jokes and fond of saying that translation was too hard to do and too tiring if you didn’t have some humor to keep everybody’s eyes open. He and I enjoyed many good jokes together over the years, and tried to outdo each other coming up with expressions that incorporated at least one word each from English, Tok Pisin, and his Arop language. A friend who enjoys trilingual puns is a rare gift.

Linus has suffered with tuberculosis for the last decade or so, and apparently that is what finally killed him. As his body weakened, his faith grew and his desire to finish the Bible translation in Arop grew with it.

By his perseverance, he was a great encouragement to the translators from all eleven languages involved in the Aitape West Translation Project. I’m sure they will all be at his funeral.

Linus reminded me that since the project started, several translators who were not Christians when they began translating have become followers of Christ. He predicted some would eventually be leaders in their villages because of the wisdom they have gained working on their translations.

Linus did not live to see that prediction come true, or “bear fruit” as he would say in Arop. But he did live to see several books of the Bible published in his language. He spent most of his adult life helping to make that happen.

He told me in February 2011, “I am going to stay with this work until I die.”

He kept that promise.

The translators have all gone home and will return to Arop in March for the next translation workshop. Pray that the Lord would fill each translator with a love for the Lord and His Word, and that their witness will influence many in their home villages to read and respond to their translations of Luke.

Bonnie and I have finally turned in what may be the final draft of our book! Pray it will be published soon, and that the Lord will be glorified through it.

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A week out of jail now, Dominic Pusai is recording Luke in the Goiniri language for the many Goiniri speakers who do not read.

Translators from the other languages that have published Luke are doing the same. Pray they will finish the job this week, and finish well.

If you have never listened to the Bible, give it a try. You can buy audio versions of other English translations, but the ESV is available free via iTunes podcast and also at www.ESVaudioBible.com.

Bonnie and I are finally making what we believe are the final edits to our book. Pray that we will finish it well, and that the Lord will be glorified through it.

Coming soon, Lord willing:

Later this week: We submit the final version of our book.
Thursday Feb. 2: Translation workshop in Arop village ends, translators take drafts home to check.
Soon, maybe: We may change the name of this weekly update, which I rarely manage to publish on Friday, to Arop Lagoon Tribune, a name that only gets used once or twice a year for a print publication. Let me know if you have an opinion.
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Finally free. Dominic Pusai (above left) arrived at the translation workshop last night. I wrote about his being in jail here and here. When his accusers did not have a consistent story, it became obvious the case would be thrown out of court. So the police mediated a settlement, which was officially documented and signed. Dominic owes the other parties the equivalent of about $7,000, but can pay in small amounts over an indefinite time. Dominic is relieved that He can walk around unafraid of retaliation and get on with what he believes God has called him to do: translating the Bible into his language (Goiniri) and helping other translators.
Praise the Lord with us for this apparently final resolution.

Praise the Lord that our Internet connection at the Arop translation center is “live” again.

The grass at Tadji, the only airstrip in the area, was cut recently, but neither wide nor long enough. Our pilot had to close it again. Please pray for a long-term solution to this persistent problem, which involves a number of parties and some complex issues.

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Natural leader. Goiniri language translator Dominic Pusai (2nd from left), is a leader among the translators. We have not heard if he was released from jail on Monday, so we don’t yet know if he’s in Arop for a translation workshop with the other translators. (See last week’s Friday Photo for details on why he was in jail.)
Please pray for a truly final resolution to the conflict that unexpectedly landed him in jail, and that he can return to the translation team soon, if he hasn’t already done so.
Praise the Lord with us that Tadji, the one remaining airstrip in the Aitape area, is open again.
Pray our partners in Arop can overcome technical problems with the team’s Internet connection there.

PDF Version of original post.

Update on January 17, 2012:

Our partner Ben Pehrson has written with these new details on Dominic’s situation, which has to do with his having killed someone in self-defense years ago. My comments for clarification are in square brackets, prayer requests are in bold italic.
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I stopped in to see him last week on Wednesday, and the meeting didn’t really happen last Tuesday as expected. Only two people showed up from Kabore and they weren’t there to witness the bel isi mani [peace money, compensation] that was given (I think K6000) [more than $2,000--a lot of money by local standards] before. So the meeting was postponed to this Tuesday. I also met with Sgt. Nasnas [an Arop man, a leader among policeman, whom we have known for decades] and he explained to me that there are two possible ways that this will be resolved. If they come with evidence to prosecute Dominic for murder, then they will need to follow through in the courts with that. If they don’t have evidence, then the police will be a third party to help mediate an out-of-court settlement between the two groups. He explained that one of the reasons they are holding Dominic is for his protection. Obviously, the pain of the former heavy ["heavy" = "problem, dispute" in Tok Pisin, Papua New Guinea's main trade language] is still strong and they attacked Dominic in public. He is concerned if they were to release him that they could kill him. I think it is clear, too, that they are holding him because the group from Kabore is accusing him of being an escapee and the question of that prior case being completed is not settled. [Dominic did escape from jail several years ago.]

I asked Sgt. Nasnas if there was anything I could do to help Dominic’s case, and he asked me about his work with us and how far it extended. He seemed pleased to hear that Dominic is a leader in the project and that there is a desire among the newer translators to follow the example of the Arop translators in spreading the work to other languages. He asked me how far the Onnele languages [those related to Dominic's Goiniri language] extended and if it included Kabore, and I explained that it did. [In case this is not clear enough, let me spell it out: Dominic and the other translators want eventually to expand their Bible translation work to include Kabore, the language of the people who have this "heavy" with Dominic and recently attacked him. [Pray that the Lord would make that dream a reality in the years to come.]

He [Sgt. Nasnas] seemed happy to have that as an extra piece of information that he would like to bring into the meeting on Tuesday depending on how the meeting goes. He would like this heavy to be settled and the two groups to shake hands and not threaten Dominic anymore. If they do after this is settled, he said that would be a new thing. [Pray that the Lord would touch the hearts of all involved and that this would happen!]

I offered to pray for Sgt Nasnas and he seemed very pleased about that. He said that our work in bringing God’s Word to the people helps his police work in a big way. He’s not sure about any other groups, but he knows that the word of the Lord changes people and that makes his job much easier.

I visited Dominic again today. He seems a little more worried than he did last week, probably since the day for the meeting is coming up soon now. He really does not want to be in there. He just wants to get out and get back to the translation work and be an encouragement to the other translators. He’s concerned what will happen to the Onnele Group if he is not there to push them along. [Dominic is developing into a great servant-leader for that group of translators. [Pray that the Lord would continue to develop him as a disciple, translator, and leader.]

In other news, Tadji [JN: the only airstrip in the area around Aitape and Arop that has been open in recent years] was open enough to fly everybody but me there last week (I went by truck with most of the cargo). But John Mork [one of our Jaars pilots] said it wasn’t cut wide enough or long enough. It is therefore closed again. I met with D.A. [District Administrator--who happens to be an Arop speaker]  again [about cutting the grass at the airstrip] . . . I took all of [what the DA said] as his well-meaning communication to me that I better not rely on Tadji being cut again any time soon. [Pray that we can find a way to keep this airstrip open. The translation project's progress depends on all of us--translators, advisers, consultants, and our families, being able to come and go when we need to.]

The possibilities for the VSAT [our satellite Internet antenna at our translation center in Arop village] problem have shifted from an internal networking problem to the possibility of something wrong in Singapore, to the possibility that service was disrupted because our payment got held up at the bank. [Pray that this gets back on-line soon so I can help the translators during this workshop, even though I'm in Indiana.]

Dan Bauman and Andy Weaver seem to be making good progress with the audio recordings of Luke. Sissano and Pou went first, and Wolwale started on the second day to give the other guys a break.

There are 10 translators present: Joel, Felix, Jonathan, Lyons, Kenny, Petrus, Clement, Augustine, Kelly and Florian (another Nugia brother from Sumo to replace Kelly when Kelly goes to grade 10 in Vanimo [Sandaun province provincial capital] this year). [Please continue to pray that each language will have two translators at each workshop.] If that were the case this time, we’d have 22 translators present. I don’t know why the rest are not there.]

[Arop translator and team leader] Emil and Alexia really loved the picture that you took of David that we printed out for them. We visited them down at their house a few days ago. I wailed over the grave site and they joined in with me. We all quieted down and started talking and Emil and Alexia started wailing again when we brought out the picture and they saw him again. This morning they came to town with me to settle their funeral debts in town. Emil really thanked me for the picture. They said they hung it up and he said it is really nice that it is like David is there smiling at them all the time. [Please continue to pray for this couple after the loss of their only biological son, David.] (They have other adopted sons).
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So that’s the news from Arop. Now you know the rest of the story, or as much of it as I know. –JN

I know this looks like a mug shot of Goiniri language  translator Dominic Pusai (on left in upper photo), but that’s the point. This weekend he’s in jail. Last week some men from another village (Kabore) snuck up behind him in town and cut his hand with a knife. Though badly cut, he immediately went to the police station to report the incident.

He never came out.

The police are holding Dominic pending a meeting with local leaders on Monday (Sunday evening U.S. time).

Dominic says he is not afraid, but happy for this meeting to take place and he hopes that it will resolve the conflict that has been looming over him for years.

Supposedly this dispute was settled years ago in court, and Dominic did what the judge ordered. But every time he encounters these guys from Kabore, they threaten him. Dominic has said if God hadn’t called him to Bible translation, he would be hiding from this group in some other part of the country. Now we see why.

Dominic wants us all to pray that he’ll be released because he needs to come to work at the translation workshop, which begins in Arop on Monday.

This is very difficult for Dominic’s wife, Clarice. They were just married at Christmas time. Please pray for her, too. 

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Last week my sister Linda died suddenly of a brain aneurysm. Today (Dec. 30) is her memorial. Please pray that the Lord would use my sister’s passing to remind us all that there is hope beyond the grave for those who have accepted the ultimate Christmas gift: the eternal life that Jesus purchased for us through his death.

PDF Version: Friday Photos 2011-12-30

In 2011, seven language communities received the gospel of Luke. For six of them, it was the first gospel in their languages. For this news and the rest of the highlights of 2011, see this PDF: Arop Lagoon Tribune December 2011

PDF Version: Friday Photos 2011-12-17