Giving Ideas 2018

We have a couple items we’re looking to purchase before we return to Papua New Guinea. If you’re interested in helping us purchase some of these items or contributing to their purchase, the giving information is below. Thank you so much for all you do to equip us for this ministry to get the Bible in the hands of the Mum people.

A laptop for use training translators                           $400

A laptop for use training literacy workers                  $400

Solar power for the translation house                         $600

2 ceiling fans                                                               $110

Cell signal repeater                                                     $60

Water filter replacement parts                                     $145

Hand-held vacuum cleaner                                         $50

Flooring                                                                      $490

Indoor plumbing                                                         $960

Solar Freezer                                                              $2500

Solar Power                                                                $5000

Sonlight Pre-Kindergarten                                         $350

Sonlight Kindergarten                                                $670

Sonlight First-Grade                                                  $780                                                              

Airfare home                                                              $10,000             

To give online, go to pioneerbible.org/JacobandElizabethSmith

Or mail checks made out to “Pioneer Bible Translators” can be sent to
231 Athens St
Homer, GA 30547
All gifts post-marked before December 31^st are tax-deductible for 2018.

Mum Matthew Dedication

Without an advisor, the Mum translation team worked on the Book of Matthew for 6 years, making progress whenever a missionary had some time to spare. Now that I am serving as the advisor to the Mum, translation progress is much faster. This event, the Matthew Dedication, was a magnificent climactic celebration where long hard years of work not only came to fruition, but that kind of trudging, plodding pace is now over, and furthermore, the entire community gathered together to celebrate, re-engaging in this project that had long since fallen out of thought. Not only is Matthew here, but Acts is on the horizon!

Celebrate with us. Rejoice with us!

But this work isn't over yet. It's only just beginning.

And now is an excellent time to engage in this work to help bring Acts to the Mum!

With 4,000 people in the language group, an attendance of 1,000+ was very impressive

This had been the first time in a long time there was a celebration that warranted pulling out the traditional singsings

The translators escorted the Book of Matthew to the grand stand.

We gave copies of the audio recording of Matthew to anyone with an SD card, though some of them were full.
"I deleted porn and replaced it with Scripture. In the jungle. Holding a crocodile." -an intern

Some people need reading glasses in order to read. We made sure that need was met.

Each community gave gifts of thanks to The Rising church, who fully funded the dedication 

Literacy material was also available for those who were inspired to learn to read.

See more photos here.


The stages of translation that took Matthew 5 years to complete, took Acts 1 year. Now, funding is delaying us. Help us finish the translation process, so that Acts too can be in the hands of the Mum!
You can give here!

Pushing Aside the Worries for the Now

I used to have a great great anxiety of flying. Now, when you have anxiety attack, your system gets a nice shot of adrenaline. This is because you’re totally freaking out and your body is like, yes, of course, there must be a great danger, I will equip you with the fight or flight serum. 

Awesome. 

Perfect. 

Because I’m getting on a flight! 

But when that much adrenaline is pumping, your body shuts down non-essential functions. Like your digestive system. Yeah, you thought that was essential, right? But no. Beating heart. Inflating lungs. That’s essential. You can go without processing food for a while. 

That was actually the clue that keyed me into my problem. I had NO IDEA I was having anxiety attacks! None! I popped a motion sickness drug after the first time I took advantage of those conveniently located vomit bags (and all the other bags in my immediate vicinity) and fell asleep. What happened an hour later? I took a trip to the glorified portapotty to regurgitate a single perfectly shaped pill. Your stomach is supposed to digest things within an hour. 

A script for the little peach pills later, and my flying problems were a thing of the past. As long as I took them every 8 hours on the dot or so help us all. I had to set an alarm for my trans-pacific flight. I missed the second alarm. After your digestive system shuts down, there is no Xanax magic…

Four years of my life, I lived this way. 

Until I got pregnant. 

No Xanax for the pregnant ladies. 

An international flight. With an 8 month old. Moving to PNG. For three years. There was kind of a lot happening. And I was fine. I was so preoccupied with my little crawling bundle of joy, I didn’t have time to worry about the plane crashing in a fiery tragic end.

And as I prepare for getting back on the plane and taking a playful 3 year old and a feisty 2 year old on another international journey to a world allegedly their home, with 9 planes, 6 nights in a hotel, spanning 5 countries, I’m very thankful for my children. 

Now, let me plan our transport and shuttles and what we’ll be doing with those 2 carseats when. 

Then, let me make sure baby girl has pee-peed on the potty and pull that book out for my boy. 

Let me splash in the pool and stoop to look at bugs and gaze at the stars. 

And only after. After, let the reality sink in. 

That I’ve left my beautiful village house. I left my encouraging and progressing translation work. That I’ve left my team who has become my family. That I left that all behind to leap through an insane journey and arrive at a place where I have no place to call my own. To return to the stressful, defeating, merciless work of fund raising where new partners are treasured beyond all measure because of the exhausting and debilitating road we trekked to find them. To the family and friends who have changed and grown in ways that we don’t know.

Because right now, it seems too much to bear. But in America, after goodbyes are rushed through because my kids have already made it through security and I should really run after them. After the eight days (we spend one night in the sky) of adventure vacationing/traveling (because every vacation is an adventure vacation when you have two toddlers) that I’ll need all those pictures to actually remember. After I have a Starbucks coffee in my hand and I sit in a climate controlled room. Well, by then, half of that chaos will be already be a fond memory. By then, it’ll seem like we’re halfway back to PNG. By then, it’ll seem like, if I can get through the first two bits, I can certainly get through the last.

So now, I push aside the worries that won’t add a moment to my life, and thank God for the children He gave me that remind me that life is right here, right now. In this peculiar shaped substance on the ground. Is that buai spit? Yes. Here I thought life was about getting to the airport two hours before boarding time for domestic flights and three hours before international flights, but no. It’s about admiring the buai spit splatter on the ground.

Then, Now, Next: A Nutshell

We went out to the jungle for 7 weeks and in week one I said, “here’s a crazy idea… What if we changed our 3 scheduled 7 week trips to 2 12 week trips?? Crazy, right?! Let’s dismiss this idea as crazy so I can stop thinking about it.” And it was crazy. But the more we thought about it, the more it seemed like one of those ideas that was crazy enough that it just might work!
And it did.
We spent nearly 12 weeks in the village. We slayed a serpent slipping through our eaves. I was nearly eaten alive by a giant spider. We potty trained a strong-willed girl. Adventure was plentiful to say the least.

But more importantly, the team finished Team Checking the entire book of Acts! They finished Advisor Checking through ch 17. They finished Team Checking through ch 8. We heard things like the head translator breaking out in laughter because, “this is just so clear.”

A Scripture In Use Team was formed and has gone out into the community, encouraging reading and the use of Scriptures. We’ve heard things like, “I went around and sat down with people and read the Mum Mark, and they understood it! The Tok Pisin can be confusing but this is clear!”

Jacob went out and taught a course for those who can read Tok Pisin, to teach them to read Mum, in 10 different communities and heard things like, “This is so easy. But it wouldn’t have been easy to learn if you didn’t come and teach us.”

Currently we’re spending 6 weeks in town, gearing up for our next 12 week trip.

During that trip, our goals are:

• Finish Advisor Checking on all of Acts 
• Finish Village Checking on all of Acts 

Stretch goal (because what’s life without a stretch goal)

• Finish Team Checking on 1 Timothy 

Also on the agenda for next village trip:

• Two weeks with the interns! 
• Two week translators work session 
• THE MATTHEW DEDICATION 
• Scripture in Use Seminars following the dedication 
• Two week translators work session 

And that’s in addition to (or in some cases, in lieu of) weekly meetings with the Women’s Village Checking and Men’s Village Checking Teams and the Translation Team, Jacob teaching the literacy course in yet more villages, and Scripture in Use meetings.

After that trip, we’ll have two weeks in town before #SmithsStepStateside for home assignment. We’ll be stateside until we’re fully funded or for a year, whichever comes first.

If we meet our goals, the next step for Acts is Consultant Checking, but I need to be in PNG for that to happen. It’s FEASIBLE to get Acts in the hands of the Mum in 2019. But it all depends on funding.

Please pray for our funds. Pray for our supporters, those who already are our supporters and those who will be. And please pray about whether you might be one of those people who will be supporting this ministry as we work to get Acts, and the rest of the New Testament, to the Mum. They want it. They’re waiting for it. But we need funds to make it happen.
 Click here to contribute to this ministry.

 

Don’t kick the puppy

Coming in at nearly 3 and nearly 1.5 years, my children do most of their learning by observation. They see actions that are permitted. They see actions that are met with swift discipline. They see good habits and bad habits.

But at this tender young age, they don’t see subtleties.

Once, I tried to pretend to sit on Marissa to make her laugh. She was NOT in the mood. James walked up to me, grabbed my wrist, gave it a pop, and said, "No sit baby!"

Yes, that is how we discipline. The toddler's observational skills clued him into mastering that skill, but he was unaware of the subtle restriction on who can discipline whom.

An even more subtle subtlety is the differences in the acceptability of actions here in the village vs in that culture he'll call his home culture, that culture that he walked out of at 8 months old and has spent more time away from than immersed in.

How can he possibly compare? How can a 2.5 year old be reasoned with?

The social norms and values, that moms in the States can trust will be held up by those within their community, falls solidly on the shoulders of my husband and I to ingrain. I have little in the way of reinforcements. The lessons we teach in the home are blatantly defied when we walk out of our front door.

But hear this! It's not because our culture is better, but different. I find myself flitting back and forth between teaching why what happens in the village is not acceptable behavior for my American children and teaching why what we do in the American bubble of our house is not acceptable in the village. 

See, here, dogs are not pets. Food is not plentiful enough to be handing out to those who don't earn their keep. Dogs are for hunting. Here, houses are pretty exclusively for sleeping. People LIVE outside. They bathe outside and use the facilities outside. They wash dishes and clothes outside. And they cook outside. Meaning food meant for families is  very accessible to dogs. They have learned over the years that being nice to dogs welcomes them to stealing food. And food is not plentiful enough to have good pieces in the jaws of dogs. So to protect from hunger, to protect their children from starvation, they treat dogs in such a way that they steer very clear of the cooking fire. Consistently, they make a sound, a mix between a hiss and crying out, whenever they are not nice to the dogs, and eventually and often the sound alone can run off a dog. But if he's feeling particularly belligerent, the dog will be swiftly reminded of why he ought to be turning tail.

A cry will rise up from a mama to instigate action and everyone from the youngest child up will jump on board to defend the food. Those closest will smack the rump or kick the dog. If a stick is handy, it'll be used to give a whip. Dirt clods or bits of rock will be hurled from the far side of the fire, until the dog remembers his place and leaves.

In America, we have the privilege of an indoor kitchen with counters and tabletops that exceed the reach of a hungry dog. Our houses don't have exposed beams and supporting logs that make it easy for small nimble dogs to find themselves within access of dinner. We have the privilege of dog food that is accessible and affordable so that our dogs don't end up so hungry that they're constantly scavenging for a meal. With affordable fresh meat available at the local grocery store, a hunting dog isn't a necessary inconvenience but dogs find homes with those who want a dog for merely the joy of having a dog. For all these reasons and more, we have the privilege of pets and, as a result, there's cultural value of treating dogs well.

Here in the village, like in America, there's a cultural value of feeding one's family. But while America is privileged enough to be able to support both cultural values without compromise, that isn't feasible here.

So daily, whether it's a dog or a pig or a cat or whatever animal is causing a problem in the moment, my children watch animals treated poorly as a socially acceptable act. Led by example, my children flip between trying to mimic the local children and trying to treat the village dogs like they do our own. Both are unacceptable.

I cannot permit my children to kick dogs or beat pigs. And yet animals subjugated to this treatment are not known to be as kind to petting and loving as our dog who is unfamiliar with a cruel hand, so trying to love a village dog will only result in a chunk taken out of my kid.

I always find it amazing how God uses the family unit to reveal Himself more. But here my husband and I stand, trying to imitate the perfect Love of our Father for our children. And just as God is the source of morality, what He declares good is good and what He declares bad is bad because He alone is perfect and there is no one greater than Him to speak otherwise, we stand as those who declare what is right and wrong for our children, even when the world we're living in defies our teaching. 

I expect, I demand that my children act counter-culturally in many respects in the same way that God expects and demands that we live counter-culturally to the fallen world that we find ourselves in.

It's a hard lesson for the students

So what is it you actually do?

Translation Specialist (2015-present)

Planning and organizing work sessions, coordinating and facilitating meetings, planning and catering meals, inventory, ordering and shipping of equipment, materials, and supplies. Planning, preparing, storing, and shipping personal meals. Reviewing translated text for accuracy and clarity.  

I have a list.

I mean, of course I have a list.

If you know me at all, you are not in the least bit surprised that there's a list.

This list is cyclical. There's no beginning and no end. I don't know where it started.

While I'm in the village, I make a list of things I'll want next time. It's a basic shopping list except I only get to go to the store once every couple of months. Coke, dog food, salt, caulk, that kind of thing.

While I'm in the village, I also make a meal plan for when I'm in town.

When I get to town, I do massive grocery shopping. I buy everything non-perishable for the meal plan and perishable items for a week of said plan. Then I turn to the shopping list for the village and the village meal plan. If anything needs to be dehydrated, I haul the dehydrator out of storage, go to the market, prep all the food, start dehydrating, start prepping the next batch to go in in 8-12 hours. Then I go pantry shopping for the village. I'm the chick who's checking out of the grocery store with two carts in a third world country.

All of that gets packed, weighed, and labeled for the bush, in such a way that I can easily cut the low priority groceries in the event that I need to cut my weight. Then I get everything on my shopping list. Unfortunately, there's no Walmart. So I go to about 6-10 different stores, many of them twice, to get everything I need. Pack, weigh, label. Then I look at my total weight and the weight allowance of the helicopter and decide if I need to figure out what else to bring out or what I need to leave behind.

Meanwhile, I need to figure out everything that we're going to be doing the next time we're in the village because it's expected that if we have any work sessions that are all day long events or any building projects, that we'll provide rice and canned tuna for the people who come. So how many sessions are there going to be, how many people are going to show up? 1kg of rice and 1 can of tuna for every four people. (Luckily, I can often get someone to carry in a couple bales of rice for me. When it comes to making sure they get fed, all hands are eager to help.)

AND, I have to get materials ready for all those sessions. Jacob prints workbooks, storybooks, word collection lists. I print copies of Scripture. Go to the store to buy exercise books (like composition notebooks but only booklets), pencils, the translators' red pens. Packed, labeled, weighed.

Then I have to get ready to leave. I pack up our house. Make a list of every personal item that needs to remain until the last minute and where that should end up at the last minute. I make a go bag, what do we need in transit and the moment we arrive, diapers, snacks, the dog's lead.

I had a to-do list with everything from making sure I have a contact person and how often we'll contact (so they don't send for emergency evacuation helicopter) to doing a final meter reading and turning it into finance.

Then we get on a helicopter and the real work can begin!

We get in and I have a list of things that get done first. ALWAYS, filter water and check/prepare the beds. Then sort the cargo and unpack. Then I have my running list of things to do. Build the bathroom counter. Install that new light. Hang up a windchime. The sort of stuff that needs to get done eventually and preferably this trip so I can stop thinking about how I really ought to get that done.

Meanwhile, I start a shopping list and a list for what to bring back into town (laptops, kindles, broken radio, borrowed rivet gun, broken invertor…) And thus my cyclical list cycles again.

Meanwhile! We're doing all the aforementioned work sessions. The translators meet on Wednesdays though they also do a two week straight work session in the middle of our stay. Presently, we're working on Acts. It isn't until after they meet and finish revisions on their draft, that I get to start advisor checking. I check the Greek, I check the rules of Mum (i.e. they don't have "because" only "and so". The reason always has to come before the result.) I check the Key Terms, and parallel passages, and the length of the section headings, and the footnotes, and the spelling for every chapter. After my accumulated questions are answered by the translation team, I go to village checking. I generate a list of rigorous questions and run through them twice, once with a group of women, once with a group of men, just to make sure that everything is clear, nothing is misconstrued, there are no inadvertent assumptions. Then the list of questions/suggestions from that goes through the translators. Finally, the back translation, a nearly word-for-word translation from Mum to the trade language so that those who don't speak Mum can know what it says, is checked against the Mum translation to make sure that it's accurate. Then the chapter is ready for consultant checking!

Not that consultant checking is the end of the road! But it's the end of the road for now. Consultants want to check the whole book, not a chapter at a time. (After the consultant checking, the book will be taken back to the village and read aloud so that anything that sounds funny can be fixed. And then a final check, which is like the advisor check but just to make sure that nothing got messed up as they were trying to fix it.)

Meanwhile, I also function as a wife and mother. So in the mornings, I try to get the kids started on an activity. Something to stimulate their little brains. I spend 11-12 prepping lunch/doing housework and 5-6 prepping dinner/washing dishes. 7 starts our bed-time routine which generally runs half an hour. Nothing productive can possibly happen after that. While occasionally the productivity bug bites me, I just rub some benedryl on it because I know those kids are going to wake up at 6 am. But between the intense UV rays we're getting all day long and the oppressive darkness that whispers lullabies in our ears, seeing 10pm is rare in the village.

And that's what I do.

Wait, Why?

They stood staring up at the heavens and suddenly two men in radiant clothing were there with them. "Why are you staring at the sky?"

"Wait, wait! What's that word? Mumɨndɨhi?"

"It means 'why'."

"I thought mumɨrɨm meant 'why'?"

"It does."

"… you have two words for why."

They stopped and considered that and then explained.

"One means because why and one means for why."

"…"

So they explained again. And again.

We were all frustrated with the limits of the trade language for communicating these nuances until…

"Wait! So… A man gets bit by a snake and goes to the hospital. Mumɨndɨhi did you come? A snake bit me. Mumɨrɨm did you come? I need medicine. Is that right?"

It was! We finally pegged the subtleties between a why for cause and a why for purpose!

I was so elated I had to call Jacob in immediately and share this revelation with him. He was pretty excited too. (But a day later, I'm still geeking out!)

Then we had to turn back to the text.

 So what would be the correct answer to the angels question, why are you staring at the sky?

1. BeCAUSE Jesus just was taken up
2. FOR THE PURPOSE of seeing him again

Well the angels then said, "He's gone!"

So probably b. they wanted to catch another glimpse and the angels were like, um… hello… don't you have work to be doing?

It’s funny. Jesus just delegated His work of preaching about the Kingdom of God and left and immediately had to send down angels to tell the guys to stop standing around hop to! It's like He sent a message and said, maybe instead of waiting for me to come back, looking like a bunch of loons staring up at an empty sky, you could actually do what I told you. Go to Jerusalem, wait for the gift of the Spirit, go preach the Good News in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the world. Mmk? Cool. Go.

I wonder if we do that. Wait for Jesus to come back and sort this mess instead of doing the work He assigned us to do. I know I get anxious anytime someone says, "Lord Jesus come back." I know it's often just an expression, but I'm not ready and neither are the Mum.

I have work to do. All the Mum have not had the chance to hear about the Good News in their heart language, in the language that speaks to their hearts. We've met Mum speakers who didn't know the trade language so I *know* there are people who have never read the Gospel in any form. I don't want to meet my maker and tell Him that the task He set to me was uncompleted. He sent me to the ends of the earth and I'm not ready for this earth to be destroyed.

What about you? Are you just biding time until the Lord returns? Or have you started the work He's assigned to you?

How do you figure out what that work is?

First, you pray and you let the Spirit guide you. (Hint: if it makes you super uncomfortable, it's probably the Spirit.)

Does your neighbor know about Jesus? Do you know? Do you know your neighbor? Maybe you need to invite them for dinner? You do know your neighbor and they're super obnoxious? You definitely need to invite them over for dinner.

What's your church doing? Can you serve in your church? How's your church serving the community? It's not?! Maybe you need to start something.

What about the next community over? This has been a year for disasters! Donating goods to non-profits is often less than helpful but you could donate goods to a yardsale where all the profits go to a non-profit working in disaster relief. Could you coordinate one with your church or your community? Many non-profits have registries so that people can purchase online physical gifts that there's actually a need for. Maybe some online shopping is how Jesus would like you to serve Samaria. (By the way, the Jews were VERY prejudice against the Samarians, so the more prejudice you feel against a community, the more likely that is the one you should be serving.)

What about the ends of the world? Short term mission trips are great for seeing firsthand what's happening, but these trips often do more good for the trip taker than those visited. If you haven't been on a missions trip, do it! But if you have been on a missions trip, you might think about giving a financial gift instead. I can print 1000 copies of the book of Matthew for the price of one plane ticket to PNG. I can provide enough food for the translators to work two weeks straight for the price of one night's stay in town. What can an organization you choose to give to do with a check?

Let's stop standing around waiting for Jesus to come back and get to work!

We work for the Lord.

Mumɨndɨhi?

Because He redeemed us.

Mumɨrɨm?

So He can redeem others.