(^eW Jrom

FORWARDING AGFNTS:

Raul & Louise Faxon

Tlie 'Wilcox

A^3 1'rapp Ck. Rd.

Toledo, Or. 97391

serving ttie ^ord

OUR GURRMT ADDRESS:

as

Dan & Rosalind Wilcox

^ible TfanslatofS /

P. B. T.

Box 997

c/' /;

Madang, Papua New

in

^apua

Guinea

'U

Quinea

June 1986

"For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves

as your servants for Jesus'sake." II Cor. 4^5

Dear Friends,

Greetings in the precious name of Jesus.

have

One of our hopes for this year was to

part of Matthew's Resurrection Account

translated for Easter.

you

In

this

newsletter

will find our translation of Matthew 28:

1- 10.

When 1 had mentioned to the man

who

is

currently working with me on language work

the possibility of doing Matthew 28: 1-10 for
Easter, he simply said the equivelent of
"Whatever you want to do." However, when I
started doing something else in our session
the next morning, he interrupted with, "When
are
we going to start working on that
passage."
I
said
something
rather
non-commital,

like

"Later",

willing to accept that

but he was not

answer.

We

roughed

out the translation in maybe 2 or 3 hours of

work, with another couple spent in correction
and polishing.

trouble when someone comes running in and

says that so and so died.)
To effecively
communicate the resurrection we had to say
that Jesus rose from the grave.

When we translate Jesus's greetings to the

women we said "Oh, you've come?" There seems
to be no equivelent to "Hello" in this
language. When you see someone you say, "Oh,
you've come?" Then they reply "Yes, I've
come."

For Easter Sunday we all went to Church

before daylight and sang. After sunrise we
had - Communion, then. I read the scripture we
had translated and preached using it as a
text.

I really wanted to let someone else

do it, but so far Rosalind and I are the only

ones able to read the local language well
enough to do anything like this. We have a
few others who can worry it out, but they do
not feel ready to read their own language in
public yet.
That is one of our many future
jobs.

I must admit that it really quite fun.

From the very beginning we have said that I
do not really like linguistics, but I love
translation.
translation

hope we will be able to spend

more

time

Here are a few things that might be

in terresting to you-about the translati^:-

For the Sabbath we simply said Saturday,

and

for the first day of the week we said Sunday.

this

because

the

Pidgin

way

I.OSSKS IN MADAN{3

in

that area.

did

Dan

I really hope that after

the grammer workshop in October - December we

We

In Him

The more we are able to do in

the more the truth of that

statement surfaces.

counting

May the Grace of our Lord be with you.

of

puts Monday as the first day of the

week.

In e.irJy April thieves broke into the Mission

Aviation Fellowship hanger in Madang. They
wore discovered in the act, so they simply
grabbed
what
was
nearest
and
ran .
Ilri fortunately for us, it was our
stuff
because we had a supply plane scheduled for
the next, morning. What they took was mostly
unusable

to

them

but

irreplaceable to us.

The worse part of our loss is that the

thieves took our mail bag (Try going without
mail for six weeks and see

how

valuable

it

Where it says that the angels clothes were

white as snow we simply said very white. We

becomes)

do not get very much snow here.

letters were from, so if you wrote to us in

lale February or March and
we
haven't

The

Pidgin

term for snow means fog, at least as far as

our people are concerned.

which contained the letters written

to us in March.

We

have

no

does not mean a whole lot to these people.

All that would mean is that they were in a
coma or had fainted and revived. People do
that all the time! (This causes us no end of

who

answered, would you please write again?

taken at that time was about

To say that a person has raised from the dead

idea

$250

worth

the

Also
of

supplies:
mostly Sunday school materials.
Bibles, hymn books, and medicines.
Now if
those thieves would just read what they
stole... Not; the mail; just the Christian
1i terature!!

well.

Work on the airstrip was going quite

There had been about two weeks of work

The trip to the Angoram hospital was not

easy. The sun beat down

mercilessly during

parties arranged to start the work of digging

the first part of the trip, and when they got

out

to the Sepic

the

stumps

too

big for the tractor to

pull out and getting the downed trees off the

river they

were

met by big

why the

waves.
In the afternoon the Sepic can
sometimes be almost like being on the ocean.

tractor can't pull out all the stumps we

had to settle for the size of tractor that
could be brought up the river on canoes.
It

They had to travel very slowly because of the

roughness of the river, and they arrived at
the hospital close to sunset, five and a half

can pull stumps up to about 10 in diameter,

when using a block and tackle, but over that
size they have to be dug out by hand.

hours after they left our village.

site.

Now

you

may

be

wondering

Since Dan couldn't man the chainsaw (to

cut the trees into movable lengths) and the
tractor at the same time, he taught two men
how to drive the tractor. They were delighted
of course as it's the main object of interest

The head doctor

looked

her

over.

He

said that there was no nerve damage and said

that they would send her out by ambulance to
the Wewak hospital the next day where she
could get x-rayed.

Then we had to wait and wait

and

wait.

in the village at the moment. He taught them

well, and soon they were handling the small
stump pulling on their own.
While they

get through to the Wewak hospital by

phonewhich proved to be a difficult task

handled

because the phones were not working properly.

that

end

of

the work Dan took the

chainsaw and started limbing and bucking the

trees.
He discovered, after nearly having a
heat stroke, that he could only work in the

fairly cool hours of the day. The many other

people in the work party cut back the jungle,
gathered the movable limbs and stumps and set
fire to them, ate grub worms from the rotting
trees, and gathered firewood to take home.
Work started from early morning and continued
until

about

half hour before sundown for

eight days.

When

The ninth day started like the others.

it got too hot for Dan, he came home to

work in the

office.

Soon

however

someone

came running up to announce that a woman had

been hurt. Apparently she had crawled under
~a tree to rgsT~out of^ttre~ltorr~sun~

had

been

cut

completely;

but

had

not

This tree

fallen

down

Our

support team in town tried and

When

they

finally

got

through, there were

many prayers of thanksgiving here.

heard the bone in her back break.

We were horrified.

If

the

strip

had

She had

been discharged and was on her way home!!

The x-rays showed no damage to the spine:
the muscles had only been bruised. She's
back home and doing fine.

This whole incident has only

served

to

increase
the
people's
desire for the
airstrip. When it takes at least 4 or 5
hours by boat to reach the nearest hospital
in a case of life and death, that's not good
odds.

Another thing that impressed our people

was the care of our heavenly Father.
They
know that He listens to the prayers of His
children,

And when He is for us who "can

against us!

Rosalind

it had become hung up on another

tree. Someone else had moved a limb and down

the tree came on her back. She said that she

tried to

El.IZABETH'S EPISTLE

We have a new baby in our house named Heidi.

She sucks on my fingers and hops after me
wherever I go.
She's an orphaned wallaby

given to my brother and

me

by

our

village

been
complete we could have easily and
quickly gotten her to the hospital.
A
helicopter was really out of the question
because by the time one was found and could

friends. Daddy's not sure if he likes her or

not because she likes to lick his toes and

arrive Dan could already get her to the

nearest hospital by our canoe and motor.
So

first got her.

he's

ticklish.

We call her Heidi because we

fed her goats milk with an eyedropper when we

Beth

we got her on a streatcher, gave her a

painkiller, and put her in the canoe.
Then
the Christians gathered around her in prayer.
The people here made us very happy.
They
hurried to their gardens to get food that the

Our Grandma came to visit and though it took

some time, I finally decided she was OK.
When she made pajamas with race cars on them

woman and her husband

can

could

either

sell at the market for extra money.

eat

or

U TII'S DISCUSSION

T decided she was someone SPECIAL!

get

for them.

Now

D III

809 SE Second Street

Non Profit Organization

U. S. Postage Paid

Newport, Oregon

Newport, Oregon

?irst Christian Church

97365

PERMIT #5

ADDRESS CORRECTION REQUESTED

she

hugs and kisses without even asking

97365