
Part of Wamangu village in the Urimo language. There is a kid on his home made stilts in the middle of the picture.
On Friday, Gary, Charles (a PNG neighbor originally from Urimo), and I (Sam) drove the 1.5 hours to Wamangu in the Urimo language area. The road was pretty good almost the whole way. We only walked a mile at the end because the muddy road was too slippery to drive.
There was a team that went in 2012 to see if they were interested in translation work. We have had no contact with them since then and Gary and I had not been there before. We met in a haus win (“house wind”, a building with a roof but no walls) with the community, leaders, and pastors. We laid out a way for them to work with us to get God’s Word in their language and they were excited about the opportunity. They are planning to send four people from among the seven villages in their language to the next Oral Bible Storying workshop. Urimo will make the fifth new language group coming to the second intake of Oral Bible Storying starting February 3.
We also had the opportunity to learn more about their area.
- This is part of the muddy road we walked on our way to Wamangu
- Part of Wamangu village in Urimo language group
- Much of the Urimo language is in a kunai (long grass) area. Not all of PNG is covered in tropical rainforest.
- This is a “haus win” (house wind). It is a common meeting area.
- One of the things we had them do was draw a map of their area and label it.
- The villages in the red string speak their language. The villages outside the red string are villages that speak a language they can understand but is different than their own.
- This is Charles (left) and Michael who is a Catholic leader in Urimo.