Serving The Northern Embera People Of Colombia And Panama
February 2005
Serving The Northern Embera People Of Colombia And Panama
February 2005
Back-Translation: One step in translation checking is the back-translation for our consultant. A back-translation is a rendering of the Embera draft back into super-literal English, so the consultant will understand what the Embera words are saying. Now you be the consultant. Can you guess what these terms mean?
Answers are at the end of the letter.
We trust you all had a very Merry Christmas and a good start to 2005. We had a really fun Christmas, our fifth one in Panama. Each year the celebration is different, so we never quite know what to expect. This year we opened presents in the morning, panting as we did so, because December begins the hottest time of year here in Panama. Three friends came over for dinner, and many more came in the evening for goodies and square-dancing.
This holiday season saw us celebrating both girls' birthdays, and was much more relaxed for us, as we deliberately planned fewer activities and more time for visiting and reflection. We are blessed to be able to read the Christmas story in our own language, aren't we?
To read picture captions place cursor over image. Click on image to view larger one.
After Christmas both Kirsten and Danny had the opportunity to help visiting mission teams with translation. A group of high school students from Canada came down to work with Youth with a Mission and Kirsten and Danny traveled around with them. The following week Kirsten went with an American medical team to western Panama, also to interpret. She learned to pull teeth, too, and almost got to help deliver a baby!
Now the kids are back to school, keeping themselves and us busy with activities and events. Kirsten is awaiting word from the universities that she has applied to before she makes her decision on where to attend this fall. She's hoping for the University of Michigan, where she is already accepted. When she's not watching for the mail truck, she keeps up with school work, friends, drama club, editing the yearbook, and worship band at church.
Danny is preparing to participate in the 9th-10th grade production of Hamlet for school. He is readying his audition for either Hamlet or Polonius. This will be a lot of work for the students, but they are all looking forward to it. Danny has recently been appointed the leader of his school spirit team and is a substitute paddler for a cayuco team. (Remember the cayuco race? It's the ocean-to-ocean canoe race through the Panama Canal). He is still studying computer graphics and recently got a new bike.
Laura is studying 2nd grade at home, with Mom as teacher. She especially enjoys science and computer class. She has learned to swim and continues with Brownie Girl Scouts. Right before Christmas she worked for an hour in sound editing, re-recording her one line from the movie "End of the Spear". The date of release for the film is January 2006, to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the deaths of the five missionaries in Ecuador, depicted in the movie.
On January 3, we celebrated 18 years of marriage. We are thankful to God for bringing us together and allowing us to raise three great kids and have many years of service as a family.
In December Chaz, along with Abundio, his wife and two granddaughters, took a trip up the Chagres River to visit an Embera community where Abundio had never been. The pastor in this village, Alonso, wants to use the Embera Scriptures but feels unprepared to read them in church or preach in the Embera language. Abundio promised to come back and give a weekend of literacy help. We hope to do that this month in between sessions of redrafting the Gospel of John.
In January Chaz had another opportunity to visit the Chagres, this time with a team of Christian veterinarians. The vets, Dan, John and Ben, wanted to improve the health of the people by reducing the chances of domestic animals passing on parasites and diseases. So we treated dogs, cats, cows, chickens, guans, a curassow, and one red spider monkey. In the photo, Dan and Ben treat one of Menique's dogs for topical parasites. Menique is dressed to welcome tourists to his village.
One publication we put together every year is an Embera calendar. Each month shows the phases of the moon, a picture of a typical activity for that month, and the holidays in both Panama and Colombia. We distribute the calendars in Embera communities to encourage literature use, Bible reading and people's pride in seeing their language written down. Here is the page for March. Click on image to see larger one.
The first weekend in March we'll be attending a dedication of the Guaymí New Testament. The Guaymís are the largest indigenous group here in Panama with around 200,000 people. Wycliffe colleagues Bill and Ann Bivin have worked among them for about 14 years. They held the first dedication at a church New Year's conference. It makes us dream of the day when we can hold the dedication for the Northern Embera translation. Thank you all for keeping us in your prayers and for supporting our work here.
Looking ahead, Chaz will be going to Mexico in April for two weeks of meetings for potential Wycliffe translation consultant trainees. He will attend sessions on many topics related to helping other teams produce better Bible translations. We're thankful that Chaz has this opportunity. Translation consulting is one possibility of service for us after the Northern Embera work is done.
Answers to back-translation quiz:
Did you know that there will be a solar eclipse on April 8, and the best place in the world to see it is in Panama? We will be having some friends coming to visit us near then, en route from Peru to Michigan, and Jim is an astronomy expert, so we look forward to learning much more about our sky from him.
Thanks to the generosity of so many of you, we were able to pay off almost all of our debts last month, catch up on bills and attend to doctors' appointments. We expressed the need to you and the response was overwhelming. Not only did we receive record gifts, we also received a new family computer, a beautiful iMac, from a loving supporter who wanted us to have a secure internet connection and more efficient computer. We deeply appreciate the sacrifice and generosity of many, to provide for our needs so we can continue to live here and translate God's Word.
Serving together with you for the Emberas,
Chaz and Helga, Kirsten, Danny and Laura Mortensen
