It takes a village, so the saying goes. Or at least, it takes a family. Let me explain.
Last Wednesday I drove over to Zoki’s house for our weekly session of translating Bible stories into his language (Ludari). As I drove up and parked, his wife came out and mentioned that Zoki wasn’t home yet, but for me to feel free to come inside. We didn’t go into the main room where we normally go since it was closed up and dark; apparently Nedjeljko was napping. No problem. I’d been curious to see the other main room of the house anyway so went on in.
Once inside I greeted Zoki’s mother, his two little boys aged 2 and 4, one of his younger brothers, and a visiting neighbor. They phoned Zoki and found out that he couldn’t come home now, so he asked if his wife could do the translating that evening.
I said, Sure! I thought to myself that it is often helpful to have more than one person try their hand at translating, especially in these early stages where we are just beginning and they aren’t even sure how to spell many words.
With her two little boys playing on the couch at my back, Zoki’s wife pulled a stool up to the coffee table and I opened the laptop to the next Bible story, #9 of 50 that we are translating, this one about God calling Moses (from Genesis 37 and following). She began to type, and after a slow start figuring out the Croatian keyboard and the one Romanian letter, she dived right in.
After an hour or so, the little boys were getting into more trouble than usual, so while Zoki’s wife took care of them, his brother who is 14 said he’d love to translate. He sat down and took over where his aunt had left off. Once in a while Zoki’s wife would come over and look over his shoulder to give advice, or another of his younger bothers would come over and suggest a word. From time to time, he would ask his grandma how they said certain words.
For example, there is no word for “relatives” so they use the general word “family”, not as in the nuclear family unit, but the wider family. Come to think of it, they also don’t have a word for “descendants”, so again they use “family”. Do you realize how many times the word “descendants” (or the use of “seed” meaning descendants) is used in the Bible? (Over 500, in case you were curious!) There is also no term for ancestor.
The night moved on and after two hours we had a first rough draft of another Bible story in the Ludari language!
Thank you for your prayers & financial gifts which enable us to be here and give them God’s Word.
Todd & Pamala Price ( Kirsten, Daniel & Ariela)
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