The retired Archbishop Amos Waiaru unwraps a copy of the Owa NT. Photo: BS South Pacific (SPA06DJ-4.JPG)

SOUTH PACIFIC — Nurturing children, the region’s future leaders, through God’s Word is an important part of the work of the Bible Society in the South Pacific (see previous article). But the Society is also committed to ensuring that adults, too, have access to the Scriptures in a language they can easily understand. Among translation projects in which it has been involved over recent years have been New Testaments in Owa and in Romanised Fiji Hindi. The Owa New Testament was dedicated recently, while the publication of the full Romanised Fiji Hindi New Testament is eagerly awaited.

One of the 16 island nations for which the Bible Society is responsible is the Solomon Islands. Here, on tiny islands of South Makira, Santa Anna and Santa Catalina, around 6,000 people speak Owa. Parts of the Bible have been available to speakers of Owa since 1927, but Christians here have been waiting for the full New Testament for many years. Their long wait is now finally over. David Day, the Bible Society representative in the Solomon Islands, was present at the launch on Santa Anna and saw the eager response from local people. Of the 1,000 copies printed, 800 were distributed within a few days.

Highlight

The launch of the Gospels and Psalms in Romanised Fiji Hindi was the highlight of the Bible Society’s Bible Week in 2002. Now the Society is looking forward to making the whole of the New Testament available to the many Fijian Indians who cannot read the Hindi Bible in the Indian Devanagari script. One of the translators who worked on this project is Urmila Prasad. When she was first asked to became involved in the project, she was rather reluctant, she explains.

“My journey to faith began when I realised that I was in danger of spending eternity separated from my husband and children. I became actively involved in my local church. In 1999 I was invited to join the Fiji Hindi New Testament translation team. At first I was reluctant because Fiji Hindi is sometimes seen as inferior to ‘pure’ Hindi.

Got me thinking

“Two years later I attended a workshop organised by the Bible Society in Nadave. There I heard from translators based in Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands that, once the Bible was available in their languages, it really spoke to their hearts and they were able to understand better. That got me thinking that the project was a good idea after all. Now I’ve completed the whole New Testament.”

“Praise God for the Fiji Hindi translation team and their hard work over the years,” adds the Bible Society. “We thank Mrs Prasad for her commitment, zeal and love for the Lord.”

These reports refer to projects 86404 and 86401. For an earlier report about the Romanised Fiji Hindi New Testament project, see World Report 370/4. (WR 406/21 - 11.06) [2 photos]