This picture of Ainde reminds me of the joy that he found in the Lord. He marveled at the goodness of his Creator and enjoyed the beauty of God’s creation. He counted it a privilege to serve the Lord in doing Bible translation and he loved to tell about the faithfulness of God that he had personally experienced. A long time has passed since the first missionaries came to his village about 60 years ago! And what a life Ainde has lived!!

His love for Scripture was evidenced by his dedication to the work of translation for many years and the joy that he found in the work that he did. Ainde was an example of the light that shines in a person who knows and loves God and His Word.

Here Ainde poses with the translation team who joined him in the work of translation. He and the team had travelled from their village to Ukarumpa to participate in a Translators Training Course.

One of the many steps in the translation process is checking, checking, and more checking. Here Ainde is doing a consultant check for another translation team.

Figuring out how to translate key terms (like salvation, sanctification, redemption, etc) is a very difficult process but extremely important to get right. Here you can see many members of the community are involved and giving input and feedback as various terms are discussed. Finding the most accurate and clear way to communicate these concepts can be very tricky and time consuming.

Ainde leading the discussion on key terms.  Translators, with the help of others in their language group, need to make sure that the key terms used are clear and accurate and consistent. Ainde was committed to doing his work well and attention to detail is an important part of translation work.

Here Ainde is participating in the Paratext Course. This is the course that James taught this past July. It was encouraging to see Ainde’s enthusiasm and excitement for Bible translation.

Here Ainde and several members of his translation team are hard at work. Four of these translators came to a Paratext Course this year.

This photo is also from the Paratext Course…I include it because it depicts the most effective learning style for the majority of Papua New Guineans – collaboration and learning by helping each other. So while James “taught” the Paratext Course, he planned for times of hands on practice, discussion, and working together so that the information and new skills would be more fully understood and retained. This teaching strategy earned him a lot of compliments from the participants (I, Christina, know this because I heard their comments and their desire for him to teach more courses). We are grateful that this is such a good fit.

And here you can just see the joy and excitement on Ainde’s face during the Paratext Course. Shortly after completing this course he went home to be with the Lord. Now he is enjoying the great reward that was prepared for him.

And the parting shot…James and Ainde during the Paratext Course. We are grateful that we had the opportunity to work with Ainde and to get to know him a bit. We were honored to share stories with him over tea in our home and were encouraged by his love and commitment to the Lord.

We shared more of Ainde’s story in our newsletter (click here to read it), but after completing the New Testament Ainde asked his people if they were satisfied. They said, “NO! You’ve only given us half the pig! We want the WHOLE pig, not half…we want the whole Bible!”  What a way to put it, especially for Papua New Guinea where pigs are highly prized.

May Ainde’s translation team members go on to complete the Old Testament translation for the Angaataha people so they can have the whole Bible that they so eagerly desire.