Celebration for the Pinuyumayan New Testament and 65 years of Christian Mission (2023-11-26)

Halleluyah! Praise the Lord! Another new Bible is in the hands of an Indigenous people group in Taiwan. This time it’s the Pinuyumayan people, who have their very first New Testament translated into their own mother tongue. We worked together on this NT project for 8 years. Today (November 26, 2023) we gathered to praise God for the fruit of our labours.

Opening the service with a bang (2023-11-26)

Rev Haluwey Tapang, Chair of our Pinuyumayan Bible Translation Committee, picked me up along with Rev Chung Shou-hui, the newly appointed General Secretary of the Bible Society in Taiwan (BST). The sun was shining on a gorgeous 22-degree Sunday morning as we drove 20 minutes from downtown Taitung to the mountain foothills. We arrived at the Bei-nan Visitors Service Centre and drove around to the open field behind. Tents were already set up to protect people from rain or shine. Gradually members of the six Presbyterian Churches which form the Pinuyumayan Church District (not large enough yet to form a “Presbytery”) danced into the circle, then took their seats to prepare to worship God, “Viruwa i itras”. I and two other ministers were asked to light an ‘Amis bamboo “canon” to start the gathering with a bang!

Pinuyumayan children leading worship on traditional instruments (2023-11-26)

Pinuyumayan youth leading worship on traditional instruments (2023-11-26)

Let’s dance and praise the Lord (2023-11-26)

The worship service was divided into two main parts. First we praised and thanked God for 65 years of mission history since the Pinuyumayan Church District was formally established. Children and young people led us in praising “Viruwa i itras” for his loving kindness and faithfulness over the years. We sang traditional Pinuyumayan tunes with Gospel lyrics as the youth played traditional bamboo instruments and drums. We sang praise to God, <Ama, Alrak, Vangesar Lu’em> “Father, Son and Holy Spirit”. Parents were moved to get up and dance in a circle to praise God with their bodies. The youth sang some familiar praise and worship songs in Mandarin, which had people raising their hands in praise of our Saviour.

L-R: Rev Peto, Rev Chang A-syin, Rev Chung Shou-hui (BST-General Secretary), Paul (2023-11-26)

Using the Pinuyumayan translation typed in the bulletin, we professed our faith in unison in the deeply meaningful words of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan’s Confession of Faith. (You can find the English translation at: https://english.pct.org.tw/enWho_con.htm. I was at the PCT General Assembly in the 1980s when it was approved.) Scripture was read in Mandarin-Chinese and from a Pinuyumayan draft translation of Joshua 4:1-7.

Rev Peto preaching in Mandarin, Elder Pilay translating into Pinuyumayan (2023-11-26)

The sermon was preached by my friend Rev Peto, current Chair of the PCT General Assembly’s Indigenous Mission Committee. Rev Peto is of Sediq-Truku ancestry. He has pastored Snuwil PC in the Sediq-Toda District and happens to be Convenor of the Sediq-Toda Bible translation team which I also support. His sermon in Mandarin was translated seamlessly into Pinuyumayan by gifted Elder Pilay, a faithful member of our Bible translation team, who actually speaks a minority dialect within the Pinuyumayan language family. A beautiful testimony of how Christians from one indigenous group share in the joy of another group. People were also there from ‘Amis, Paiwan and Han ancestry, as well as this Canadian brother in Christ.

Rev Peto spoke about the commemorative acts recorded in the OT passage, and the message not to forget God’s saving actions in times past and present. Looking at the Pinuyumayan context, we considered what God has been doing in their recent history. The national government estimates there are 12-15,000 Pinuyumayan people in Taiwan. Among Indigenous peoples, they have one of the lowest percentages of Christians due to early assimilation with nearby Han settlers. There are six PCT churches in the Pinuyumayan Church District. Members on the six church rolls number around 500-600 in total, though only around 100 people attend worship on a Sunday. (There are more Roman Catholic churches, but they face a shortage of priests and active members. A few churches from other denominations are starting to sprout up too. We hope all of them will enjoy the new Bible.)

Paul with Rev Chung Shou-hui and her friend from seminary Suning Siwa who spoke about the 65 years of Pinuyumayan mission history (2023-11-26)

The first Pinuyumayan person to become a Christian was a man named “Dalisen” who came to faith in Jesus in 1928 when he heard the Gospel in Japanese at a Holiness Church in Taipei. After some seminary training in Japan, he returned to his Pinuyumayan homeland in SE Taiwan. There, from 1934 to 1938, he and a Canadian Anglican missionary named Narcissus Peter Yates did basic evangelism in Japanese, singing “Jesus loves me” and telling children and families Bible stories. (Rev Yates, 1862-1938, is buried at the Tamsui Foreign Cemetery, cf. https://www.takaoclub.com/Tamsui/cemetery.htm, near where Dr George Leslie Mackay and other Canadians are buried.) After World War II when the Japanese left Taiwan, revered Taiwanese missionary Rev Loh Sien-chhun and several China Inland Mission women who had fled from China, shared the Gospel and started “family churches” among both ‘Amis and Pinuyumayan peoples. In 1958, small churches started taking shape in the Bei-nan or Pinuyumayan villages, in close proximity to the larger ‘Amis speaking region. Hence, 1958 was chosen as one way to date the start of Christian mission through the first established churches.

Rev Peto invited us to remember and give thanks for what God has done in previous generations. Give thanks for the first generation of Pinuyumayan families who become Christians. Some became the first pastors, elders, deacons, leaders of women’s and youth groups, and Sunday school teachers. He emphasized the fact that over the years Pinuyumayan Christians, like other Indigenous Christians in Taiwan, have shared one and the same confession of faith: <maw i Luzu i Yēsu Kiristo> “Jesus Christ is Lord” (Philippians 2:11). Remember their trust in the Lord, their resurrection hope, their joy and their enthusiasm in sharing the Gospel—even before they had the Bible in their own mother tongue.

Rev Peto also encouraged us to trust in the Lord as we face the same kinds of challenges all Indigenous churches in the PCT are facing these days. The challenge of Taiwanese folk religion, as more Han people move into Indigenous areas and set up temples to various gods and goddesses. Social challenges, including issues over traditional Indigenous land rights, and economic concerns in rural or mountain villages. Even the challenge of changing ways we worship God: traditional or modern hymns/songs; scripture on power-point slides or in written Bibles; worship in-person, online or not at all. Each challenge is an opportunity we can face by trusting in God. Six little Pinuyumayan churches can do amazing things in God’s hands and, as Rev Peto concluded, by obeying Jesus’s words in the Great Commission in Matthew 28:18-20. Now God has blessed us with the seed of the Gospel, the New Testament, all 27 books translated into the Pinuyumayan language for the very first time!

Rev Pu’ay Chang A-syin lead translator of the Pinuyumayan Bible (2023-11-26)

My friend Rev Pu’ay Chang A-syin, who turned 83 last week, read an account in Pinuyumayan explaining how he and the team translated the New Testament. Later, Rev Haluwey, Chair of the Bible Translation Committee, added more details. In 1986 the Pinuyumayan Church District gathered leaders from local PCT and Roman Catholic churches, plus village leaders, to try to start translating the NT. Unfortunately, people could not agree on which of the 6-8 village dialects to use. Eventually PCT leaders chose the dialect understood by most people. A Pinuyumayan Roman Catholic priest (now a retired bishop) translated the 4 Gospels and Acts into his smaller Dz-bun dialect. His actions inspired others to start translating too. From 1989 to 2005, several Presbyterian Pinuyumayan translators and reviewers slowly produced the Gospel of Mark. Two highly respected Presbyterian ministers died of cancer, a great loss to the Pinuyumayan churches and these early efforts at Bible translation. Rev Chang felt the loss of his two dear friends very deeply. God inspired him to start translating the entire NT on his own. When he finished and realized he was not getting any younger, again inspired by the Holy Spirit, he pressed on and prepared a draft translation of the entire OT too! This is an incredible accomplishment. It became Rev Chang’s gift to the Pinuyumayan Bible Translation Committee which was officially formed in 2015. That’s when I was assigned by the BST to join Rev Chang and the team as their Translation Advisor.

Rev Haluwey Tapang, Chair of the Pinuyumayan Bible Translation Committee (2023-11-26)

Rev Haluwey laughed and cried when she told us all, how she thought Bible translation would be easy. The 3-way covenant (MOU) signed by the Pinuyumayan District Churches, the PCT General Assembly’s Mother Language Bible Translation Committee, and the Bible Society in Taiwan, said they would take four years in total to translate both the Old and New Testaments! Even with Rev Chang’s draft translation, it took us eight years (2015-2023) just to translate the NT. We hope to complete Psalms and Proverbs in two years. These books will be useful in worship (responsive psalms) and Christian education. I would note a fourth mission partner which has supported this important work: my own Presbyterian Church in Canada and the ways it has supported me as the team’s Translation Advisor. Thanks also to former BST-GS Rev Daniel Cheng who helped start the NT project and supported it until he retired this past summer.

Pinuyumayan Bible translators, families and friends (2023-11-26)

I can’t thank God enough for his faithful servant, Rev Chang A-syin. The Holy Spirit inspired him to do a draft translation of the entire Bible, all 66 books, all 1189 chapters, and around 31,000 verses. He obeyed God’s call and followed the guidance of the Holy Spirit. His God-given vision of translating the complete Bible into his people’s mother tongue sustained him. During team review sessions which I attended with him, he was humble, open-hearted and patiently listened to others’ suggestions how to improve the translation, a little here, a little there. He was willing to adjust words and sentences when necessary. But he could also stand his ground and say, “You younger Pinuyumayan speakers need to learn this correct way of saying it.”

Pinuyumayan Bible translators and friends (2023-11-26)

Ever since 2015, when I and other BST and United Bible Societies (UBS) staff started training Rev Chang (and the team), he was eager to learn new things that would help him: how to use Paratext, the UBS’s powerful Bible translation software; how to create wordlists and his own Pinuyumayan spell checker—an immense help in standardizing the spelling of what had been an oral language without anything in  writing; how to analyse Biblical terms in 8 different semantic domains to check how consistently he and the team translated words for things like animals, plants, rituals, human and supernatural beings, and the many foreign names of people in the Bible. After Covid-19 hit and I could no longer meet with him or the team in-person in Taiwan, he learned how to skype with me. We would usually skype three times a week, for 2-4 hours a session. My wife Mary Beth would sometimes say to me, “You kept Rev Chang online a long time today,” to which I replied, “He got so excited with the checks we were doing, he didn’t want to stop!”

In August, I heard the happy news that the New Testament Bibles had arrived in Taiwan, and that the Bible Society had already sent them to the Pinuyumayan churches. But I wondered, weren’t we going to have a publication celebration service first? I learned that people were so eager to start reading their new Bibles, they couldn’t wait. Plus, the Church District leaders decided they would combine the Bible publication service together with their 65^th anniversary of mission service. A good choice.

Likavung Presbyterian Church reading 1 Peter 1:23-25 and Matthew 24:35 in Pinuyumayan (2023-11-26)

What happened next in the worship service was even better than I had imagined. All six churches (Puyuma, Likavung, ‘Alripay, Livelivek, Pinaseki and Tamalrakaw) took turns reading two previously assigned passages from the Pinuyumayan NT. Twelve passages in total. Each church had practiced reading their passages well. What a great way to inspire each church to start using their new Bibles. Children, young people, men and women, middle aged and seniors, all reading the scriptures in their ancestral language. Learning how to read the “a-b-c” words (some people for the first time), hearing the familiar sounds, feeling God speak to their hearts.

I found myself praying quietly as they read out loud. May God bless this new Bible and all who read, study and use it. May God use the Pinuyumayan NT to help preserve their beautiful language. May God help the six churches promote literacy for people of all ages in their Pinuyumayan communities, just like we did today at this special worship service. And may God help every Pinuyumayan Christian proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ by simply reading the Bible with a friend who is not yet a Christian.

The Pinuyumayan New Testament (2023) with Today’s Chinese Version (2019)

The NT Bible is printed in parallel columns with Pinuyumayan alongside Today’s Chinese Version (2019). Below, I reproduce it in rows. I close this blog with two wonderful Gospel passages:

John 3:16

na Viruwa i itras kemazu kana lraman kana trau i punapunan,

arusay za verayanay tu Alrak na misasa,

‘aziya matrepu na pakutatena’ ziya kantaw na trau,

muveliyas kituluz kana munayun na uwavaawan.

上帝那麼愛世人，

甚至賜下他的獨子，

要使所有信他的人不致滅亡，

反得永恆的生命。

1 John 4:9-10

9 na Viruwa i itras pazuwa i punapunan kanantu Alrak na misasa,

pakalrang ta kantaw kiveray za uwavaawan;

na Viruwa i itras mimanay kanini na kudayan pakurena’u kanantu lramanan kanta.

10 ini mawna lramanan:

amelri ta na lraman kana Viruwa i itras,

maw na Viruwa i itras na lraman kanta,

pazuwa kanantu Alrak muramawan kanta gisē,

semavung putrima’ kananta pinamelriyan.

9 上帝差他的獨子到世上來，

使我們藉著他得到生命；

上帝用這方法顯示他愛我們。

10 這就是愛：

不是我們愛上帝，

而是上帝愛我們，

差了他的兒子為我們犧牲，

贖了我們的罪。

Thanks to all who pray and support our mission of Bible translation among the Pinuyumayan and other Indigenous peoples of Taiwan. The team and I press on with our review of the Psalms. To God be the glory!

Some of the translation team the day after we celebrated the publication of the Pinuyumayan New Testament. Back to work on Psalms. (2023-11-27)

Reviewing Psalm 104:35 with Rev Chang. How will we translate “Halleluyah”? (2023-11-27)