Tag Archives: cultural anthropology

Bible Translation—A Waste of Time?

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Just Get Them Saved, Never Mind Translating the Bible.
A Brazilian pastor shook his head in bewilderment when I mentioned that my wife and I were engaged in a Bible translation ministry with an indigenous group.
“Your ministry will take fifteen to twenty years?” he said. “I have led many people to accept God’s offer of salvation through faith in Jesus. I quote a few key Bible passages and then lead them in a prayer of salvation. So why are you spending decades to translating the New Testament and more, when you could evangelize Canela people with just a few key passages?”
He was called away at that point, so I had no chance to answer this well-meaning brother. My explanation would have stretched his thoughts into new areas of understanding.

Huge Cultural Differences
He did not realize how different his situation was from ours. For many generations, Brazilian people have lived in towns and cities where evangelical churches are well known.
Moreover, Brazilians have had a Bible in their language for nearly four hundred years. Canela people, on the other hand, have no Christian history, no churches in their villages, no pastors to teach them, and no Bible in their language.
We could indeed evangelize with just a few passages and a prepared prayer. But then what? When Satan attacked these young believers, how could they defend themselves? Without a Bible in their language, how could they respond to his temptations?

How Jesus Met Temptation
Matthew tells the story of Jesus who was hungry after fasting out in the wilderness. That’s when Satan came three times to tempt Him to prove he was the Son of God.
“If you are the Son of God,” the Devil said, “tell these stones to become bread.”
Jesus replied, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ”
At the second temptation, Jesus replied, “It is written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
At the third, Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’ ”
As Jesus quoted the written Word of God, it became a Sword to attack Satan, and finally drive him away.

Paul’s Powerful Metaphors
Years later, the apostle Paul advised believers, “Take the helmet of salvation and the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.” (Eph. 6:17). And in Hebrews 4:12, the Word of God is described as “alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints, and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”

Our Effective Action
Canela believers, even wearing the helmet of salvation, could not defend themselves against Satan and drive him away without the Sword of the Spirit.
Jo and I were giving them the Word of God—in their hands, in their hearts, and in their mouths.

Jumping to Conclusions: Bad Exercise

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Jumping to Conclusions: Bad Exercise
Sometimes we jump to unwarranted conclusions. It was Friday, July 31, 1987, when I heard the news headline on Brazilian radio. “A major tornado has hit a provincial capital in southern Canada.” I listened carefully, expecting to hear about Toronto, Ontario, which is on the same latitude as South Dakota. Imagine my surprise when the announcer said, “Edmonton, a city in southern Canada, suffered major damage with twenty fatalities.”

Edmonton, Alberta? Canada’s northernmost provincial capital? The gateway to the North? With its long, cold winters, how is it in southern Canada? My wife and I looked at each other and shook our heads, as much in dismay over the grief caused by the tornado as over the reporter’s ignorance.

But, later, I realized I had jumped to the wrong conclusion. When looking at a map of Canada, I understood why the reporter considered Edmonton to be in southern Canada. That’s because it is! It is well over 2,500 km from Canada’s northern boundary and only 500 km from the southern border. It’s not just in the southern fifty percent of Canada; it’s in the southern fifteen percent!

Eli‘s Worldview Versus Hannah’s Reality
I recently thought of that long-ago incident when I read the story in 1 Samuel 1 of Eli, the priest seeing Hannah, the childless woman, moving her lips but not uttering a sound. He glanced at her and knew he’d seen that behaviour before. So he rebuked her for being drunk. Wrong! She was anything but drunk. She was fervently praying for a child.

Eli’s worldview led him to the wrong conclusion. The reporter correctly saw Edmonton as a provincial capital located in southern Canada. In contrast, Edmontonians see themselves as living in the farthest north provincial capital, ignoring that five times as much Canadian territory is north of Edmonton, including Whitehorse, a provincial capital of 30,000 people. How we jump to conclusions!

People tend to misinterpret actions by others who have a different worldview. It happens between adults and children, immigrants and long-time residents, retired seniors and college students, international travellers and local residents, and between the haves and the have-nots in our society.

Topless Canela Women
One day, a cargo truck stopped in the Canela village on its way to a Brazilian settlement. Six young Brazilian men, catching a ride on the truck, had never been in the Canela village before. When they saw the Canela women and girls were bare-breasted, they jumped to the false conclusion that this was a village of loose women and began to behave accordingly. Taking off their shirts and smirking lewdly into each other’s cameras, they draped their arms over the shoulders of half-naked Canela women. As Brazilians, they came from a hyper-sexed society, which, like our North American culture, views breasts as sex objects, while to Canelas, breasts were baby-feeding organs.

Canela Banking System
When we started our twenty-plus years of living among the Canela, it seemed like we were surrounded by beggars since our neighbours kept asking us for things. Only after we understood the culture more thoroughly did we realize they were not beggars at all. They were practicing a centuries-old credit-based trading system. When a hunter brought home fifty pounds of deer meat, he would have plenty left after feeding his family. With neither salt nor refrigeration, he had no way to preserve it. So, when neighbours came and asked for some meat, he would gladly give it, knowing he was building up credit with them to cash in the next time they had excess food, or he needed their help in his field. No paper, no IOUs—the village-wide credit and debit system was based on mutual understanding and family memory.

So What?
The next time we see someone do something that strikes us as odd or unusual, we should probably ask ourselves, “Is this person of a different age, culture, race, gender or nationality?” If so, we must recognize that this “odd” action may be perfectly acceptable in the other person’s worldview.

Exercise is good for us, but not when we jump to the wrong conclusion. That just shows our ignorance.

 

Our Forever Family

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An Adoption Decision
The Canela chief and elders’ council made a significant decision during the first week that Jo, our pre-school daughters, and I lived in the Canela village. The next day, Jo was taken to one house and I to another, where we went through an elaborate ceremony. It took a long time to cover most of our bodies with hawk-down, glued on with sticky tree resin. The parts of our bodies not covered with feathers were painted with vivid red ochre. Then we walked to the central plaza, followed by women carrying pans of food and other gifts for the elders to share.

The chief made a speech, and although we didn’t understand much at that time, we did catch on that the two families in whose houses we were feathered and painted had adopted us as their son and daughter. We were now irrevocably citizens of Canela society, with all the rights and responsibilities of born Canelas.

Yet Another Adoption
Many years later, after we were fluent in Canela and had translated Luke, Acts, and a few epistles in a first draft, Jaco, a young man, surprised me, “I am a Jesus follower.” He was the first believer!
“How did that happen?” I asked him.
“Well, I was reading some of the carbon copies of Our Father’s Words that we translated, and I asked myself, ‘Jaco, how long are you going to just read this stuff? When are you going to believe it?’ So, I got up from my hammock, walked out to look up into the sky and said, ‘Great Father in the sky, I have been reading about the way you want us to live, and I realize I am in a terrible situation. Please do something for me.’”

“So, what did the Great Father do for you?” I asked.
“He adopted me into His family,” Jaco said, using the same term that described what Jo and I went through when our Canela families adopted us.
“You and I are now brothers because Jesus is our Older Brother,” I said.

We had not yet translated Romans and Hebrews, but I explained that Jesus is God’s Son, and he died and rose again so that God would adopt men and women who believe in Him (Rom. 8:15) and so that Jesus could call us younger brothers and sisters. (Rom. 8:29, Heb. 2:11).

The privileges and rights that Jo and I acquired when the Canelas adopted us were forever. They reminded us of Eph. 1:3, “the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.” God’s spiritual blessings were forever, not having anything to do with wealth and health on earth, but of treasure and new bodies in heaven.

A Long-Lasting Effect
Jo and my adoption took place in 1968. We lived among the Canelas for twenty-two years to complete the literacy and Bible translation program. Scores of Canelas became Bible reading believers. We were away and out of touch for nineteen years. Then we returned for a visit, not just with our three now-grown daughters but with their husbands and their children—eight of them. When the sixteen of us walked to the central plaza, forty-one years after Jo and my adoption, to greet the chief and elders, they immediately received us all with great delight and ceremony. It was as if we had never left. Even kids and young people who had never met us greeted us as long-lost relatives, which we were. The Canela blessings, rights and privileges were still in effect.

In the same way, when God the Father adopted us as His Sons and daughters, making Jesus our Older Brother, he conferred eternal, unchanging blessings on us. Let’s remember that all the spiritual benefits we receive through our relationship with Jesus are forever, not to be confused with good health, a great job, a large bank account, and a pleasant life on earth.

 

International Mother Language Day

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Turn the Canelas into Portuguese Speaking Brazilians, Get Rid of Their Superstitions
A German researcher frequently visited the Canela village in the last eight years that Jo and I worked there. We invited him over for a coffee, and he jumped at the chance to pick our brains about the Canela and their way of life. Since he spoke fluent Portuguese and English, we had no problem communicating.

What Do Canelas Fear?
He wanted to know what the Canelas were afraid of since he had heard about their fear of ghosts of recently deceased people.

“Yes,” I said, “These ghosts tend to appear at night to haunt the living. They have the power to kill sick and elderly persons or babies by staring at them. They are also afraid of evil spirits. For example, there is good soil for planting gardens out in the hills. But although the Canelas tried to make fields there, they abandoned them after several months, telling us, ‘Cupe jaroti jahto’ many evil spirits. They are afraid these spirits will hurt them or their kids.”

“But there are no spirits and ghosts!” he exclaimed. “That’s all just superstition. So why are you talking as if these are real?”

My Story
“Well, remember I am a Christian missionary-linguist. I believe in God, who is a Spirit. There are good spirits like angels and evil spirits like demons. I’ll tell you how I first learned about this fear of evil spirits. One day when I walked back to the village from Barra, night fell and thinking the village was still hours farther, I lay down alongside the trail to sleep. A Canela man jogging home found me there. ‘The village is really close; follow me, we’ll be home soon,’ he said. As we jogged the last twenty minutes to the village, he asked me, ‘You were all alone, weren’t you afraid of the evil spirits that roam at night?’

‘No, I’m not afraid of any ghost or spirit since the Great Spirit of our Father in the sky lives within me and protects me.’

“But you’re highly educated, a college graduate!” My German friend exclaimed, “I have never spoken with an educated person who believes in God and these superstitions.”

The Language God Gave the Canelas
We also talked about the Canela language, and I described its beauty and design and how we were fascinated by its complex grammar. When I told him we were teaching the Canelas how to read and write in their own language and were in the midst of translating a large part of the Bible into their language, he was amazed.

“Why don’t you just teach them to read and write in Portuguese?” he asked. “Wouldn’t that be a lot simpler? Besides, it would do away with a lot of these superstitions if they turned into Portuguese-speaking Brazilians.”

Yes, I thought, that was the “Kill the Indian in the child” philosophy behind the old residential school system in Canada, which forced indigenous children to speak English only.

“Here’s the reason,” I said. “We are translating God’s love letter to the Canelas. He wants to speak directly from his heart to theirs. That requires speaking their own mother language.” He just shook his head in bewilderment at my beliefs.

The Goodbye Speech
Our friend made many visits to the Canela village. After one extended stay, he was preparing to return to Germany. I saw the truck arrive at his house, so I ran over to say Goodbye. When he saw me, he jumped off the back of the truck.

“Jack,” he said, “I have learned a lot about you and the work you and your wife have done in this village. I need to say something to you, and you will understand why I have to say this in German.” He then laid both his hands on my shoulders and looked directly into my eyes. Since German is similar to Dutch, I could understand most of what he said. He thanked me for the nearly twenty years Jo and I had worked to help the Canelas; for all the lives we had saved and our educational teaching. He went on and on while tears trickled down his cheeks. Then he hugged me and climbed back on the truck.

I waved Goodbye as the truck drove away and thought, “You got it! You needed to express your deep emotion, and you could not do it in either English or Portuguese. You had to say it in your own mother language.”

Next Monday, February 21, is International Mother Language Day.
Bible translators like Jo and I are, of course, naturally pleased that this day is given special significance. But for all the thousands of Bible translators currently at work, and their many thousands of ministry partners who pray and give to support them, every day is Mother Language day.

And so it is also for God. He loves the multi-millions who are still waiting for his Love Letter to be translated into their Mother Language.

 

The Surprise in Church

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A group of us Wycliffe Bible translators from different countries sat around the lunch table, enjoying our coffees and conversation at a speaker training seminar. Having recently completed our translation projects, we were taking turns around the table practicing telling anecdotes of our translation experiences. The next one to tell a story was a translator from Mexico or maybe some other Spanish speaking Latin American country. I am writing this story thirty years after I heard it, so I don’t remember his name, nor the name of the indigenous people among whom he worked, but his story impacted me. Here is his story as I remember hearing it:

The Story
My wife and I worked with a sizeable indigenous group that had been Christianized in Spanish many years earlier. One of their own people served as a pastor and preached from the Spanish Bible, explaining the meaning in their language. Although they had a building, the church was stagnant, showing no growth, and little evidence of the fruits of the Spirit among the churchgoers.

This is the only photo I could find of a white-hatted, possibly Latin American man.

The local culture did not allow men and women to sit together at meetings, so even in the church service, the men sat on one side of the aisle and the women on the other side. Another cultural distinctive was all the adult men wore white western hats—no matter where they were, at home, at work, or in public. I sometimes wondered if they slept wearing them. Even in church, all the men wore their white cowboy hats and removed them only when the pastor said, “Let us pray to God,” Having shown respect for conversation with God, after the Amen, the hats went back on.

After my wife and I had been there for a year and had learned quite a bit of the language, we did some experimental Bible translation. The pastor told us he would be preaching from 1 John 3 the following Sunday, so we worked all week with some men who were known as good storytellers to translate as much as we could. We completed 1 John 3:1-11, I typed it up and gave it to the pastor on Sunday morning to use for the Scripture reading.

“Let’s surprise the congregation,” I said, “Just announce the Scripture reading reference, open your Spanish Bible and start reading from the typewritten translation.”

That morning, as usual, the church filled up with the white-hatted men on one side and the women on the other. After the singing, when the pastor announced the Scripture reading, the attendees opened their Spanish Bibles, the pastor opened his and began reading the typed passage in their indigenous language.

He hadn’t even finished the first verse when, suddenly, like a great white wave, every man took off his hat. For the first time in their lives, they heard God’s voice talking to them. The hats stayed off as they heard about God’s love, how He wants to treat them as sons, and how they should love each other.

In the same language in which they scolded their kids, argued among themselves or told their spouses ‘I love you,’ they now heard God speaking to them. As the pastor finished reading, the women were teary-eyed, and many of the men wiped their eyes as they replaced their hats.

The Result
The pastor never again read God’s Word from the Spanish Bible. That Sunday marked a turning point in the life of the church. People crowded into the church to hear God speaking to them in their language. Some years later, even before my wife and I had finished translating the New Testament, the believers had tripled in number and built several more churches in other villages.

To read more stories like this one:
Buy Jack’s Print books:
https://www.jackpopjes.com/category/books/
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Comfort in Culture Shock

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Comfort in Culture Shock
Most of us experience some form of anxiety when we travel outside the comfort zone of our own country, language and cultural setting. This feeling of unease is called culture shock and although unpleasant, it is not life-threatening. Or is it?

Our first missionary term in Brazil was filled with multiple opportunities to experience culture shock. We adapted to two cultures, learned two languages and invented a writing system for one of them. Living with the Canela people in their jungle villages, we learned to live without clean water, plumbing, electricity, mail, and phone service. That’s fine during a few weeks of vacation camping, but a strain for six months at a stretch with three pre-school children.

The society to which we were adapting found comfort in a woven palm-leaf mat for sleeping, sitting cross legged on the hard clay floor, a pair of shorts for the men and a piece of wrap-around-the-hips cloth for the women. We learned to do without most things we had been used to for the first three decades of our lives. In all this, we experienced the fact of the Holy Spirit as our Comforter. We often needed to feel His comforting peace and Presence to relax the tensions we felt.

Back to Canada
After four years of adjusting to these stresses we returned to Canada for a furlough. I thought I had it all together. My motto was, “Bring it on! The God of all comfort and I can deal with it.” That is why it was such a surprise when one culture shock situation nearly cost me my life. Right in my own country!

My brother Henry had bought a used car for us and now accompanied me to the government registry office to register it and get the license plates.

A Major Culture Shock
I was surprised when, instead of waiting for an hour in a long line, it was our turn and the clerk called us to the counter, “We’d like to register this vehicle,” Henry said, handing the clerk the bill of sale and the certificate of insurance. She glanced over them, mentioned the fee which I handed over in cash. She worked her typewriter for a few minutes, then reached under the counter and clattered the license plates on the counter. She dropped the registration card, bill of sale and insurance certificate on top of them, looked over my shoulder and called, “Next.”

My mind still flooded with memories of enduring endless hours of Brazil’s bureaucracy, I picked up the papers and license plates and in a shocked daze slowly turned away from the counter.

“Let’s go,” Henry said and started walking to the door. I followed him wordlessly as nightmare remembrances of endless red tape whirling through my mind. I walked through the door, reliving the frustrating, sometimes day-long standing in multiple lines in Brazil to accomplish what I had just done in five minutes.

I was in full-blown culture shock as I crossed the sidewalk, stepped off the curb and took the first step to certain death. That’s when Henry grabbed my arm and yanked me out of the way of the oncoming bus.

His brusque life-saving action broke through my home-country, re-entry culture shock. As Henry drove me home, I explained to him what agonies I used to endure when dealing with bureaucracy in Brazil.

The fact that God had prompted Henry to grab and jerk me out of harm’s way so brusquely was a great comfort to me.