During my most recent trip to Papua New Guinea, I was very impressed with my friend Tomasi. Most people come to the house to ask for something. It might be medicine, to buy kerosene, soap or tin fish, etc. But Tomasi comes to visit.
I've known Tomasi since 1985. My first encounter with him was not a positive one. As I was walking through the village, I first noticed him sitting at the window of his house just starring at me. He didn't smile at all and it rather unnerved me. I even mentioned it to Roxanne to watch out for him. I had not talked to him before, but this is understandable since I was still learning the language and it is rather difficult to have a conversation when I could only say things like "I'm sitting" or "I'm standing"!
I had started a Bible study on Friday nights in which two men Karitoni and Kerebi would come and we would read passages and attempt to talk about them. One Friday night, Tomasi came in and sat down. He didn't say anything as we discussed passages in Acts. In fact, he came every week after that, but never said a word. He would just sit there unsmiling and listening to what we were talking about. He came across as very unfriendly during these times. I would ask questions, but he never answered one. I was using the Dobu version of Acts that had recently been completed. Dobu is the church language in the area and at the time most people could understand it.
This went on for several weeks until one day Tomasi came to me and asked if I would pray for his garden. I was rather surprised at his request considering that he had yet to ever talk to me. I knew people did magic in their gardens, so I looked at him and said, "No, I can't do that." He had a surprised look on his face and said to me, "Why not?" So I explained to him, "You all do magic on your gardens. If I go and pray for your garden, then you do magic on it afterwards, you will say it was the magic that did it." He thought about that for a minute, then replied, "No, I'm not going to do magic on it if you pray for it." With that answer, I decided to do it.
We went and prayed the next day over his garden. He had all his yams there ready to be planted. So we prayed over them and asked God to protect his garden and make it grow. Later during harvest, he had a great harvest. He knew it was God who had done it.
The reason he wanted to do this was due to the Bible study. He had been reading about what God did in the book of Acts, so he wanted to see if God really did help people.
Since that time Tomasi has grown quite a bit in his understanding of who God is. Tomasi has never been to school. When we started translating he attended a course for translation and began picking up some English. He wanted an NIV study Bible, which I got him years ago. From that time he began studying on a daily basis. As we translated together, he was continuously learning. Each time we would go to the village, we spent many evenings talking about various passages and about God. Through the translation process, I taught him how to do exegesis and how to ask questions of the text. I even gave him colored pencils to mark up his Bible and look for the main ideas the author was trying to get across.
Now nearly 30 years later, he is still studying and learning. But he is also able to discuss theology. This time in the village, he came in the evenings and on the weekends and we spent hours discussing various issues about God and numerous theological issues that he was interested in. As we were going over changes that needed to made to 1 Corinthians, we were looking at the Greek and he asked if he could borrow my book that had the Greek with English glossing below it. He took that and after a few days came back and wanted to know how to read Greek. So I printed out for him the alphabet and how to pronounce each letter. A week later he had memorized it and was sounding words out. He has a long way to go and huge obstacles to overcome in order to learn the language, but he seems intent on doing it. If next November when I go he has made progress, I will give him a Greek New Testament and a grammar to continue learning.
It was great to sit and talk theology together. I continue to marvel that this man has never been to school, yet he knows more about the Bible than many educated people in the church in America. God has used this man to bring the Scriptures into his language. I once told him, that if he became a pastor he would have an affect on the people in his church. But in translating God's word he would have an impact on not only the people living today, but also for many generations to come.
