Whitesands

Morris called to say that his first day of the consultant check of Luke went well. They finished their goal of 100 verses and they were getting ready for dinner. He seemed to be doing well even though he's having some stomach problems. He's taking pictures so we all can see what it's like there!

Pastor Peter Ray is a Presbyterian pastor who is now translating the New Testament into the Whitesands language. He and his wife, Ansi, have 4 children. He has served as Chairman of the Vanuatu Bible Translation (VBT) for 4 years overseeing 15 projects. Now he feels it's time for the Whitesands to receive a new translation. One was done in the language in the 1880s but it is "out of date" and considered unintelligible by most of the 3500 Whitesand speakers. He has also been a coordinator of other Presbyterian churches in the area but he has now been relieved of those responsibilites as well as his work with VBT so that he will have the time to work on the translation. However, he is still the Pastor of his local church. He went to Australia earlier this year to receive SIL's linguistic training.

Pastor Peter will be using a recent translation of the Naka New Testament, a related language to Whitesands, and Adapt-It, a computer program, to produce a Whitesands translation. Greg Carlson, the SIL advisor for the Naka NT is now Pastor Peter's advisor and the plan is to finish it in 4 years!