It’s going slowly. That is, preparation for the printing of our NT translation. We had hoped to have it ready to print by the middle of this month, but proofreading is taking longer than expected. The Manubu’ language can’t be proofread as fast as English as affixation makes for many long words that can’t just be scanned briefly to see if the spelling is right. For example, the word bansagon which means to speak loudly, shout. When they say to shout at each other that word becomes migpamabawbansagonay. Can’t see at a glance if that is spelled right! Or how about panumananan – a sacrifice altar? We don’t find very many spelling errors, but have to check to be sure.
Gene is proofreading the mountain dialect and aside from just a few spelling errors he is finding a number of little things that need to be checked with translation helpers. Carol then fixes those things that need to be fixed in four different computer files that cover the two dialects. Then Gene checks to make sure that there are no mistakes in entering the fixes. After that is done Carol proofreads that book of the NT in the lowland dialect. We’re now hoping to have the NT proofread, formatted and ready to print by the end of July. Please PRAY for strength and perseverance and eyes to see (and to stay open – very easy to get sleepy) as we continue to proofread many hours each day.
Another thing that slows up the proofreading is that Gene has almost constant Malaria – especially bad every third day – so there are days where it takes a real effort to concentrate so he isn’t able to proofread as fast as usual. Conventional Malaria medicines no longer help, but he is able to keep the headaches and nausea from getting severe by using homeopathic remedies (which are almost depleted – we’re waiting for more from the States which should arrive in a couple of months). He has been to an infectious disease specialist, but she was unable to help. We’re looking for a real solution to the problem. He has the kind of Malaria which resides in the liver and periodically pumps the Malaria critters into the blood stream. So even if never again bitten by a Malaria carrying mosquito there is constant relapse of Malaria. Only one conventional medicine acts on Malaria in the liver, and it does not work for him and is also very toxic to the liver so shouldn’t be taken regularly.
He is presently drinking tea made from the leaves of the neem tree which has been proved to prevent Malaria, but it is questionable if it will cure it. One option is a homeopathic treatment of several remedies that has been recommended. Another is a clinic in Manila that integrates conventional medicine and natural medicine that has been able to help New Tribes missionaries with other kinds of problems that haven’t been solved in other ways. Both are expensive, and we hesitate to maybe waste money trying these alternative treatments. Please PRAY that we would find a solution or better yet that the Lord would just take the Malaria away.
And, please pray for Jujin. He is a new Manubu’ Bible teacher. He has successfully taught the 42 lesson evangelical phase of the teaching to a group of kids and is now teaching them the next phase of the teaching. He has been very faithful over his months of teaching. But, he is a teenager (19) so subject to all the peer pressure and worldly things that Satan could use to draw him away from serving the Lord. So let’s build a fence of PRAYER around Jujin.
[cid:7.1.0.9.2.20110612113037.034b2268@ntm.org.0] Jujin