Recording and Riots in Paradise

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Looks like paradise to me!

Recording the Gospel in KUSAGHE

Kim editing the KUSAGHE recording on his laptop

Len and Jones repair Messenger players

"...I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him..." Psalm 91:15 (NIV)

with Kim Knight

As always, in April this year, the Solomon Islands showed itself to be a land of extremes and a land of surprises. The one sure thing was the faithfulness of the Lord in protecting and enabling us in our latest recording ministry. We are so thankful for those who were praying for us.

Dangers and Difficulties

We were targeting some of the languages in the Western Province of the Solomon Islands that haven't had recordings made in recent years. In most parts of the country there are very few resources in the local languages, so to be able to provide access to the truth in a form people can readily understand, is a real privilege. In the KUSAGHE language, we worked with some Adventist folk who soon formed a very capable and committed translation team, even though they had not been expecting us.

The script translation was written up on a school blackboard, then corrected, altered and rechecked, before being finally written down, ready for the recording. Back-translation is a very necessary step as it often shows up errors. In the process we found that those people had the wrong idea about 'spiritual birth'. They understood that it meant 'baptism'. At last we were ready to record. It was the first time I had used the new SD 722 hard disk recorder under field conditions and it was fantastic! The 722 will hold up to 120 hours of recorded material. Wow!

The next language we worked in was HOAVA. Here there were many frustrations and delays. When we did the final check of the recording on the last day in the village, the man in charge wasn't happy and asked us to re-do much of it when we went back to Honiara. I was travelling with Len Nieuwenhuis from our church in Sydney, and Jones Sanga our GRN man in the Solomons. We enjoyed good fellowship and we did a lot of praying and sharing together.

We travelled by dinghy to the small settlement of Seghe from where we planned to fly to Munda. However, at Seghe, we found that the airline agent didn't know when the plane was coming. His radio battery was flat! Eventually two planes turned up, so we got to Munda and found a dinghy to take us to the island of Rendova. It was a beautiful hour's trip at sunset, accompanied by dolphins. In darkness we pulled onto the shingle beach at the village of Hopongo.

We were welcomed by friends who accommodated us and helped us with the recordings in the BANIATA language. Again, a lot of time was spent praying to remove obstacles and enable us to complete the work in a short time. In most places where we go, the people are not used to the process of translating their own language, so to write it down and then to read it in front of a microphone, was a new experience for them.

Back in Honiara, we tried unsuccessfully to make recordings in the TOLO and GARI languages. It also proved very difficult to get the HOAVA project moving again. God seemed to be saying to me, "Why doubt Me now?" The HOAVA language helper who eventually came was a young lady who had never done translating before, but she proved to be very capable. She and her brother did a great job reading the script, and the Lord enabled us to complete the work. Jones and I had also been working on some PIJIN translations. We recorded those and also some PIJIN songs with the girls who were resident at the lodge where we stayed.

Damage and Deliverance

Two days before we were due to leave Honiara, political tensions erupted into full scale anger, destruction and looting in the capital. People were unhappy with their Prime Minister, claiming that he was corrupt. They reacted by burning and looting many of the Chinese owned shops. The trail of destruction will affect many people and set the country's economy back for years. Praise the Lord that no one was seriously hurt and we were able to leave unharmed. The Solomons once again showed itself to be a land of extremes and surprises.

Please pray for the plans to distribute the newly recorded material later this year. Only the Gospel can provide the answer to man's sin and help bring peace to this troubled nation.