“Sign-up today, pray, and prepare for Sunday June 3rd! Join everyone here at Alrisapesape Presbyterian Church, as we make our covenant with God and one another to read aloud and write out by hand our own new Ngudradrekai Bible!”
I rejoiced and thanked God when I heard this announced at church this morning (May 27, 2018). I had a free Sunday between my visits to other indigenous Bible translation projects. So I decided to worship Twaumase (God) with friends I’ve made over the past six years at Church of the Rock, in Pingtung City in south Taiwan. While most Ngudradrekai churches are located in the mountains nearby, the Presbytery planted this church in 1985 for the convenience of families who live in the city and can’t always return to their home churches up in mountain villages. The lively worship service is conducted in a combination of Ngudradrekai (spoken according to the standard Vedai dialect) and Mandarin-Chinese (for the sake of adults who might speak one of five other Ngudradrekai dialects, or children and young people who are schooled in Mandarin).
The Scripture lesson this morning was from Luke 9, Jesus feeding the 5000. People in the pews opened their beautiful Ngudradrekai Bibles published in July 2017 to follow along. A teenage girl read the lesson in Mandarin, then a woman elder read it slowly in clear Ngudradrekai for all to hear. Jesus multiplied the loaves and the fish, and fed everyone to the full. God has performed another miracle. Through the careful, patient work of diligent Ngudradrekai pastors who first started to translate the Bible in 1988, people can now enjoy feeding on all of God’s Word in their own mother-tongue. But how to encourage everyone to open their Bibles, receive this delicious Ngudradrekai food which God has prepared, then eat it daily to grow strong and serve the Lord?
Sign the covenant for your church to join the hand-written Ngudradrekai Bible movement (May 6, 2018)
“Sign-up today, pray, and prepare for Sunday June 3…” In fact, pastors, elders and representatives from all 19 Ngudradrekai churches joined earlier on May 6 for a special Presbytery service to make their covenants with God and encourage one another to read and write the Bible. Later, congregations like Church of the Rock decided to follow-up and hold their own covenant service too. Church members of all ages are accepting the invitation to receive the good food God has prepared, now with its delicious Ngudradrekai flavours, and eat it in a fresh way. How?
Paul with Rev Palri who drafted the plan for this movement to write out the Bible
Led by their General Secretary, Rev Palri (盧天武牧師), the Presbytery has prepared bright orange handbags and large (B4) paperback notebooks full of empty lined pages waiting to be filled. Individuals or small groups (Sunday school classes, the youth group, women’s group, men’s group, choir, session) or the congregation as a whole, can organize themselves and make their public covenant with God and one another to write out by hand a Gospel, one of Paul’s letters, Genesis to Deuteronomy, the Psalms, Jeremiah, the whole New Testament, or for some people the whole Bible. Again, how?
A young Ngudradrekai woman writing out the Bible by hand
With the printed Ngudradrekai Bible open to the book, chapter and verse you want to write. With empty notebook alongside waiting to be filled. With pen in hand. After saying a prayer to invite Twaumase (God) to guide you. Slowly reading a verse out loud in clear Ngudradrekai. Then carefully, writing out each word and sentence by hand in the Ngudradrekai script. For example, Luke 9:16-17,
(16) Ku Yesu la malra kwini lrima ka pange si drusa ku kange, la paswabelenge, si kiaseasene ki Twaumase, ala malra apapipithingi, si patarumara ki lasitu, ku lasitu la apavalavala ki laumawmase. (17) La makitu kane makanaelre, si makitu kabucuku. Ku lasitu la sarubu ku tedrane ku sangukaneane, si pasuete ki 12 ka karadrare.
(16) Jesus took the five loaves and two fish, looked up to heaven, thanked God for them, broke them, and gave them to the disciples to distribute to the people. (17) They all ate and had enough, and the disciples took up twelve baskets of what was left over.
The youngest generation of Ngudradrekai Bible readers & writers
People are praying and asking God to bless this Bible reading and writing “movement” throughout all the churches. Here is an opportunity for grandparents who may only have a grade three elementary school education—and that in Mandarin, the most recent colonial language in Taiwan—to write out Jesus’ words in their own mother-tongue. They can use the alphabet first introduced about 50 years ago when the very first Ngudradrekai Bible stories and hymns were put into writing. (There was no Ngudradrekai writing system or written literature of any kind before then.) Here is an opportunity for children and young people, who are growing up in a Mandarin speaking and Han-character writing culture, to “honour their parents and grandparents”—one of God’s commandments—by learning and using the language of their ancestors, to pass it on to future generations.
What a vast library of 66 books-in-one for everyone to savour and enjoy! Gospels, parables, stories, letters, prayers, songs of praise and thanksgiving to Twaumase, laments, laws, prophecies and sayings of the wise. Full of topics and themes covering every stage and dimension of human life. The truth about “Twaumase—Tama, Lalake si Siri” (God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit). Wonderful words of life and love. 2300 pages full of words, now printed in Ngudradrekai, to help people grow in faith, hope and love. Grounded on the solid Rock who is “Yesu Kirisitu”.
The covenant that people are making to God as they participate in this Bible reading and writing movement goes like this:
Ngudradrekai pastors who signed up their churches (May 6, 2018)
Individuals signing up to write the Bible by hand
On May 6, all 19 churches signed up to read aloud and write out by hand their assigned portion of books in the Bible. In this way the Presbytery as a whole will write out every book in the Bible at least once. Most churches and their members are promising to write out more books than one. Each blank notebook has an introduction which explains how many books you or your congregation can complete if you write out five verses a day or one chapter a day, etc. At the end of 2019 or early 2020, the Presbytery will award prizes to churches and individuals based on how many books they were able to complete.
With God’s help there will be at least five benefits from this movement:
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- Literacy. People of all ages will learn to recognize, read and write out words and sentences using the Ngudradrekai spelling system.
- Comprehension. People will learn Ngudradrekai words and how to write whole sentences.
- Bible knowledge. People will study God’s Word and have their lives transformed, based on their own Ngudradrekai language.
- Bear witness to God’s love, as they participate in God’s ongoing mission among Ngudradrekai people through this hand-written Bible movement.
- Bear witness to the Presbytery’s unity in Christ, as each church writes out its portion and people participate together to write one special combined hand-written Ngudradrekai Bible (in addition to all the other portions churches and individuals write for themselves).
May this exciting example from our Ngudradrekai brothers and sisters inspire more of us in the PCC to read daily and even write out portions of our own Bibles. God might perform another miracle in our families, congregations and the Presbyterian Church in Canada too.
Pastors & churches have made their promises—now it’s time to start writing
