Hard At Work

We are settled in and hard at work. Well, “hard” is probably an overstatement. In fact, “work” is probably at overstatement also. It’s important you understand the definition of “working” here in volunteer land. Our daily schedule goes like this: Up at 7:00 (yikes, that’s early for a retired guy), get ready for the day and drive to the Wycliffe Center (about 6 miles away). Chapel is at 8:00. This consists of a hymn, announcements, maybe a very short devotional, prayer requests and prayer and a presentation by someone about Bible translation or whatever. It’s usually quite interesting. This morning a fellow explained about Bible translation for deaf people – yes, they really need that. He explained there are about 240 different sign languages in the world.

Ok, now it’s time to go to work – about 9:00. We work until 10:30, take a 30-minute break (coffee and cookies), work until noon, eat lunch, go back to work at 1:00, take another break at 2:30, and quit for the day at 4:00. Tough, huh? Sometimes we shorten the break time and lunch time. And sometimes we knock off for the day at noon or at the afternoon break – like today. We needed to shop at Basha’s Grocery. So while we are grinding away at the treadmill for these hard five hours, what do we do? Excellent question.

Joyce is busy in the stamp room. Right now she is pricing a pile of German stamps. Someone wants to buy them so, of course, the question is, how much? There are books that list the standard prices for all stamps. So she goes through this book, finds the correct stamp and writes downs the price. There are pictures and various numbers to help her. Most are worth less than a dollar but she found a $14 one today. Who decides the value? Who knows! Some stamp-god in the sky and he publishes a book, I guess.

Meanwhile I am installed in front of a computer in a different building. Maybe I better start the story at the beginning. The heart languages of the many indigenous people groups in Mexico have been put into a written language and the Bible has been translated into that language. Think American Indian tribes with all the languages represented. Mexico is kind of like that. This translation work is not complete but many, many languages have been written. These languages are now digitized (on computer) and available on line. The ones translated in recent years were done on computer but older ones were only hard copy. Putting them on computer is what I did during our visit 3 years ago.

Okay, they are on computer and available for someone who understands that language to read it or hear it read on their own computer (some do have computers), or at an internet café, or on their smart phone. As they hear the scripture read it is a lot easier to follow if the verses are highlighted. The process of highlighting each verse as it is read was done “magically” by computer. Except for four or five languages that are not accurate. 

Enter me. And 5 or 6 others.  I sit at a computer, wearing head phones, listening to a man read Zapoteco Yaganiza while I follow along on the screen. Do I know the language? No. Do I understand what he is reading? No. But after a little practice I can pick out enough words to tell if the color of the highlighted verse goes to the next verse the same time he does. If it doesn’t I adjust the timing with either a plus sign or a minus sign in the right margin. After a while it gets pretty easy – mostly. Certain words stand out like the words for Jesus, Christ, God, Spirit, and proper names. So that’s my day. Five hours of that is plenty!

Imagine me hunched over a computer. That’s the picture of me.