The Solomon Islands’ 2008 Year of the Bible was officially launched on Sunday February 24th. You can read more about the celebration on the Solomon Star newspaper website:
http://solomonstarnews.com/?q=node/16999
There is also now a website for Year of the Bible – www.YOTB2008.com to keep Solomon Islanders briefed on what is happening this year.
Thursday morning I walked out the door and found this python coiled up on our carport floor. It wasn’t moving and I assumed it was dead, but hey, I’m married to a science teacher and clearly this was Tim’s domain! Tim checked it out and sure enough, it was dead probably thanks to our cats.
The good news is that there are no poisonous snakes on this island and in fact this was only the 2nd or 3rd snake we have seen in the 10 years we have lived in the Solomons.
This afternoon a team of three from the British and Foreign Bible Society climb on a plane to make the long journey back to London. They have been our guests for the past week and it has been fun to show them the Solomon Islands and help them to get more than 25 hours of raw video. This footage will be edited used to produce dvds telling the story of Bible translation in the Solomon Islands. Some of it will be used at a youth convention in England to raise funds for publication of the Pijin Bible.
This week didn’t go as we thought it would – I (Martha) came down with malaria and a stomach flu which meant Tim had to take them on one trip. Later in the week we were not able to go to the western Solomons as planned because of flights getting canceled. The entire week has been gray and rainy, but we hope that the video they captured will tell the story well when they get back.
This story was in the Solomon Star Newspaper last Saturday:
PRIME Minister Dr Derek Sikua has endorsed 2008 as the Year of the Bible.
This was after he met with a delegation from Solomon Islands Christian Association (SICA) and Solomon Islands Full Gospel Association (SIFGA), Wednesday this week.
The church groups met the prime minister at his request.
The endorsement of 2008 as the Year of the Bible coincides with the planned launch of the Solomon Islands pijin bible this year.
Martha Matzke of Solomon Islands Translation Advisory Group (SITAG) said the launch of the pijin bible is an important achievement for the country.
“The pijin bible will give many Solomon Islanders access to God’s word in a language that is easy for them to understand,†Mrs Matzke said.
“In addition, New Testaments will also be launched in the Natqgu language of Santa Cruz and Wala language spoken on Malaita,†she said.
Mrs Matzke said SICA and SIFGA have been planning for the year of the Bible and are outlining activities that will celebrate the arrival of the pijin bible.
They were also encouraging bible study and raise the awareness of the importance of God’s word.
“A working group has been formed to carry out the plans,†she said.
She added that Prime Minister Sikua was very supportive of the Government declaring 2008 The Year of the Bible.
Dr Sikua had given his Minister of Home Affairs, James Tora, the task of drawing up a cabinet paper for presentation.
The document is expected to be completed by next week when it will go to cabinet for final approval.
The document, to be approved as The Year of the Bible, is a part of the stated government policy.
The Solomon Islands Philatelic bureau has chosen to honour The Year of the Bible with a stamp commemorating 30 Years of Bible translation in this country.
The stamp will be issued on Independence Day.
Mrs Matzke said during the church groups audience with Dr Sikua, they prayed for him and presented him with the plan for the Year of the Bible.
This is the first time for The Year of the Bible to be declared in Solomon Islands.
The Solomon Islands has beautiful postage stamps. For the past five years we have been in talking with the Philatelic bureau about producing a commemorative stamp to recognize the importance of Bible translation in the Solomon Islands.
The churches of the Solomon Islands have declared 2008, the Year of the Bible. With the Pijin Bible coming out on July 7 2008 – the 30th anniversary of the Independence for the Solomon Islands, the timing is perfect.
I guess the Philatelic stamp committee agreed. We are finally getting our stamp and the first day of issue will be on Independence Day. Our colleague, Robin, drew this rough sketch which a professional artist will use to produce the final stamp. We are pretty excited about this project which we hope will honor God’s Word and be an encouragement to our national friends who work so hard on Bible translation.
I honestly never thought we would go back to homeschooling Emily, but here we are again. In December Emily graduated from grade 9 at the international school here. Grade 9 is as high as this school goes, so we had to make some decisions in regard to Emily’s schooling. In this photo, Emily is performing a science experiment in our kitchen.
Emily is now enrolled in NorthStar Academy – a Christian online high school program designed to accomodate MK’s (missionary kids) like Emily. Emily’s classmates are literally all around the world. So far she is enjoying it. We are thankful for an educational solution that works for Emily and allows us to continue to minister here.
We are VERY thankful to a friend who teaches at NorthStar who is donating her salary toward scholarships for MK’s like Emily. In fact, all of Emily’s tuition has been met! God’s people using their gifts and talents to help get God’s Word out to those who don’t have it in their own language. How cool is that?
The girls are now on school holiday. We’ve had a busy week and just felt like doing something different tonight. So we went out to eat at a Chinese restaurant. That was fun but rather than just go home we decided to drive around and see the Christmas lights – ours!
We live on the edge of a valley so we drove to the other side of the valley to see if we could see our own Christmas lights. Sure enough in the distance we could just make out the colored flashing lights at our house. Decorating a house with lights is not done here so our lights are a bit of a novelty.
The other night Tim and I went to a function and as we were leaving we were surprised to see a tall evergreen tree in the distance flashing with red lights. So to night we went exploring as a family to see if we could discover where the tree was. It didn’t take us too long to find the tree and along the way we were rewarded with another house with a string of lights.
Yes, it’s been another exciting Saturday night in Honiara!
Recently an exciting new project got started here in the Solomons. An organization called, “Faith Comes by Hearing” has come to record the Pijin New Testament in a dramatized audio form. This is the first such project in the Solomons.
A woman named Priscilla came from Papua New Guinea to manage the project and Jesu is here from India to serve as the technician. In the photo to the right the man in the middle is Alex who is serving as the proofreader.
A number of professional readers have agreed to help with the bigger reading parts. Last week the man to the left was the sports announcer for a big soccer tournament. This week he is reading the part of ‘Paul’ – the largest part of the New Testament. A number of our friends have auditioned and gotten parts in the reading.
The brightly colored background is mattresses to form a ‘recording studio’.
This project is expected to take 8-10 full weeks to complete the recording. Editing and adding music and sound effects will be completed overseas. Faith Comes by Hearing is working hard to have this recording finished at the same time that the Pijin Bible is launched in July of 2008.
The recordings will be available in cd’s, personal mp3 players as well as a special solar-powered mp3 player called a ‘Proclaimer’. This device will play for 15 hours on one charge and can be heard by a large group of people. You can learn more about it at:
www.faithcomesbyhearing.org.
Pray for this project which has already experienced some set backs with viruses on computers and other frustrations.
Christmas has arrived at our house. Over the weekend we set up our Christmas tree and decorated the house.
One of our traditions is to light advent candles each Sunday of advent. I brought back some candles in our shipment from the USA, but unfortunately used them up. I’ve scoured Honiara and could only find some very basic white candles.
With the help of some crayons that I melted, I’ve managed to add a colored layer to the candles. They aren’t perfect, but all things considered, we are pretty pleased with the results.
