The Bible in Sa – “Our hope
for the new millennium”

WANURR, Vanuatu, South Pacific — Christians in the remote village of Wanurr, at the southern tip of Pentecost Island, have embarked on the task of translating the Bible into the local language of Sa.

The translation, say the Wanurr people, is their “hope for the new millennium”. And although there is no UBS funding currently available for the work, the Sa speakers are ploughing ahead with help and support from Dr John Harris, Director of Translation in the Bible Society of Australia.

Earthquake

The villagers have been Christian people for more than a century. They sing hymns and pray in Sa but have no Bible in their language. However, their determination to translate the Bible gained momentum after a huge earthquake in November 1999.

Sa – the language of Wanurr Village There are around 2,000 Sa speakers in south Pentecost. They are also literate in Bislama, which is the Vanuatu Creole language and the official national language. Sa, however, is their preferred language, and they only speak Bislama to people from other parts of Pentecost, or other islands. The government is supporting the use of local language – schools are now required to teach literacy in all local languages as well as Bislama. The Bible was completed in Bislama two years ago but although this gives the Sa speakers access to God’s Word, it is still in their second language.

A neighbouring village was destroyed by an immense tidal wave, and a number of people there were drowned. The wave reached Wanurr, but the people escaped its full force and there was little damage.

“The Wanurr people believe that God preserved them for a purpose,” explained Dr Harris. “On December 31, 1999 they put a stone outside their small thatched church to thank God for the past. They call it ‘the stone of everything that was’.

“The next day, January 1, 2000, they erected a second stone to mark their hopes for the future – ‘the stone of everything that will be’. One of their hopes is to have the Bible in the Sa language.”

Go ahead

Dr Harris was visiting the long-standing Raga translation project in north Pentecost in early 2000 when he was contacted by the Sa-speaking people. Together with Raga translators, he travelled to Wanurr and held a week-long translation awareness workshop attended by about 20 men and women.

“I explained that there was no money available at the moment, but they said that as long as they had some help they would try to go ahead anyway. They appointed Nelson Tosul to lead a translation team of three people, and I undertook to visit them as often as I could.”

Some translation was attempted during the workshop, including Psalm 100 – a psalm of praise to God “whose faithfulness endures through all generations.” The psalm was read aloud in the village on Palm Sunday morning in the year 2000 – the first time any of the Bible had been heard in the Sa language. The translation team is currently working on Mark’s Gospel.

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A great leap of faith

Wanurr is the home of the first bungee jumpers – or, as the villagers call it, nagol. In a jungle clearing where steep mountains fall away into the sea, the boys and young men of the village build an amazing tower of tall, straight trees, bound together by tough vines.

When they jump, they’ll plummet to earth, held only by a vine around the ankle, while the women and girls sing and dance below them.

But the timing of their jump is carefully planned. “We won’t jump until Easter,” they told Dr John Harris, Director of Translation in the Bible Society of Australia. “Then we’ll jump because Jesus rose from the dead!”

The people of Wanurr name the different levels of the nagol after body parts. You can jump from the knee, the waist, or the shoulder. Only the most daring will jump from the neck or the head.

This was a little like Bible translation, said Nelson Tosul, who is leading the Sa translation team. “We are Christians, but it’s like we’re only halfway up the nagol. We want to reach the top.” (WR 360/30 - 06.01) [PHOTOS]