The Written Word Comes To The Tairora People

The Written Word Comes To The Tairora People The Story Of The Tairora Bible Translation Project

Our lives with the Tairora people, Eastern Highlands Province, Papua New Guinea 0|Page

By Lois Vincent

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The Written Word Comes To The Tairora People The Story Of The Tairora Bible Translation Project Our lives with the Tairora people, Eastern Highlands Province, Papua New Guinea

Alex and Lois Vincent

Book Edited by Chris Sanderson

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© Copyright: 2016 - Lois Vincent

ISBN: 978-0-9935468-1-5

Published in England by Christine Sanderson Edited by Christine Sanderson

Printed by Book Prinking UK Remus House, Coltsfoot Drive, Peterborough, PE2 9BF

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of the publisher.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. Used by permission.

NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION® and NIV® are registered trademarks of Biblica, Inc. Use of either trademark for the offering of goods or services requires the prior written consent of Biblica US, Inc.

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Acknowledgements This written peek into the life of an ordinary woman who married a man of extraordinary gifts was not my idea. I always said there are enough books, though one day I hoped to write a little history for our family.

Chris Sanderson, a dear British friend, thought it was time to record something of our lives. Though I did not realize it, she was collecting snippets from me and also from our newsletters for that purpose when I was doing some proofreading of her book 'Another Growing up in New Guinea' which was about her crosscultural experiences when teaching at Aiyura National High School, situated near to SIL Ukarumpa, Papua New Guinea.

Words are not adequate, but I do thank Chris who spent over a year on the computer and phone gathering material from me, giving suggestions of chapters, editing and encouraging me. Her patience was unlimited. It is as much her book as mine. This reticent writer has realized that our family will appreciate this peek into those years.

I thank Alex for the time spent doing what needed to be done with photos I chose and for the many times he answered my cry for help with computer problems.

Many thanks to those around the world who prayed for us and the Tairora people and gave financially and encouraged us through our 54 years in Papua New Guinea and since we left.

Our gratitude goes to our Evangelical Brotherhood Church friends who supported the translation of God's Word into the heart language of the North and South Tairora groups since 1966. Their prayers, financial help and encouragement meant more than we can say.

A heartfelt thanks to our fellow translators and support personnel for the innumerable ways they helped us complete the task.

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A special word of thanks goes to our three children, who experienced the happy and sad times with us, made friends, have happy memories and did not hinder the translation.

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Dedication Lovingly dedicated to our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Alex and Lois Vincent, Dale Ori, Llyn Namari, Robin Itai

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Contents Notes Foreword

Page 11

Preface

13

Maps

15

Chapters

Page

1. How It All Began

17

2. Our Tairora Home

35

3. Traditional Tairora Life

41

4. The Linguistic Challenge

47

5. Our Family Life

55

6. Setbacks and Progress

71

7. Developments at SIL Ukarumpa

79

8. Sorrows and Joys

95

9. Reaching Our Goals

102

10. Leaving

111

11. Postscript

117

All photographs are our own unless otherwise noted.

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The Written Word Comes To The Tairora People The Story Of The Tairora Bible Translation Project

Foreword: The large island of New Guinea, along with its outlying islands, was amongst the last places on earth to be colonized by Europeans. Though people had inhabited the region for many thousands of years, the terrain of mountains, swamps and islands meant that the various groups had been isolated from each other and developed into many diverse tribes speaking hundreds of different languages. When colonizers came, difficulty of access initially restricted them to the coastal areas, leaving the swamps and mountains unexplored, but still they divided the whole area between themselves. The Western part of New Guinea was claimed by the Netherlands (in 1962 it was “given” to Indonesia), the north-eastern part, known as New Guinea by Germany, and Papua by Britain. As a result of World War 1, Germany lost New Guinea and then both Papua and New Guinea were administered by Australia as a colony (Papua) and under League of Nations and then United Nations supervision (New Guinea) until self-government in 1973, when the two parts together were known as Papua New Guinea. In 1975 it became Independent.

The Highlands of what is now Papua New Guinea, rising abruptly from sea level to forbidding heights, had been believed by the colonizers to be virtually unpopulated until gold prospectors ventured there in the 1930s. Then there was huge surprise to find high altitude, mountainous plains and valleys where many different groups of people lived. In the 1950s, a road was constructed from Lae on the coast into the Highlands and called ‘the Highlands Highway’ though it wasn’t surfaced until later.

Arriving in the late 1950s, the Vincents came to the Trust Territory of New Guinea (TTNG) and were there through many changes. So, when SIL Ukarumpa was established in 1956, the Highlands were still remote.

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Lois and I met in 1978 as fellow bird-watchers in the wonderful environment of the Aiyura Valley. By this time she was speaking the Tairora language and two of her children had already graduated from Ukarumpa School; one had returned to the USA and one was in Norway. SIL Ukarumpa, though still remote, had become a comfortable place with many of modern life’s conveniences. I could only guess how life would have been for her years previously when she had arrived as a young single with very few possessions, but armed with a burning conviction that the Bible should be made available to people everywhere. I wondered how translators set about learning a previously unrecorded language through contact with the people themselves, and how they lived their family lives in remote areas far from modern amenities. In 1985 I was able to see something of life in Suwaira when Alex and Lois took me for a visit to the beautiful place they had made their home.

Though we now live on different continents, our friendship has remained and the new technology, most importantly electronic mail, has enabled us to co-operate in putting together our memories of PNG.

It has been an amazing experience for me to help Lois write this book and I wish her every success with her remarkable story.

Chris Sanderson - June 2016

The cover photo shows Mount Elandora (approximate elevation 8,200 feet)

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Preface: Beginnings “Who are you? Where did you come from? Who left you in the backseat of the car in front of the movie theatre in July 1929 during the depression?”

What a surprise it must have been when the owner of the car came out of the theatre, opened the car door and found a little bundle on the seat. Maybe the baby cried because she was hungry. What was their reaction?

They must have wondered who put that little baby there. Someone who loved her and did not believe in abortion? A mother who already had many mouths to feed? Whom did they call to take this baby to the Foundling Home in Secaucus, New Jersey where she was given the name Marie Darling from a list of names given to those who were found with no identification? Marie’s blanket and clothes gave no clues.

Her picture was put in the paper, but no one stepped forward. The exact date of birth was unknown so July 15, 1929 was chosen as being within two or three days of when it was thought she was born.

I, that baby, am very thankful that my birth mother did not abort me and, most of all, I thank God who chose to have me live and come to know Jesus as my Savior and Lord when in my teens.

I became a darling to Grace and John Heyer whose first child, a boy, was a ‘blue baby’ dying at birth. They waited over two years before starting adoption procedures. Knowing them later in my life I am amazed they did this as it was not commonly done in their families. However, they did adopt Marie Darling and gave her the names Lois Elizabeth. Lois because they liked the name and Elizabeth after my paternal grandmother.

When mother first saw me her heart went out to this little baby lying in her cot with hair worn off the back of her head because she was not turned often enough. Mother told me later, “We chose you because you looked so needy and we loved you.”

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Two years after I became part of the Heyer family. Mother gave birth to a daughter, Grace Marian on July 17, 1931, another evidence of the grace of God in my life. My parents loved us very much and made many sacrifices for us.

Because many in the small community knew about the adoption, and my parents did not want anyone else to tell me I was not their birth child, when I was five and about to go to school mother told me, “We chose you. You are special.” It did make me feel special and many years later when I needed a passport in order to go overseas my mother gave me the adoption papers I needed as evidence of my birth. I still remember her saying, “I am so glad you did not find out today that you were adopted.”

This is some of the story of what I did after mother passed those adoption papers over to me.

My mother, Grace Ware Heyer, on her 86th birthday

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Papua New Guinea (PNG): Map by Mappery.com

Map of Aiyura Valley: By Terra Nova Publishing

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Map of Tairora, by Alex Vincent, adapted from Kiap's map

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Chapter 1 How It All Began The Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) along with its sister organization, Wycliffe Bible Translators, continues to be a world-wide force whose main emphasis is literacy and translating the Bible into the vernacular of speakers of as many languages as possible. Though begun in the United States of America, through the years people from many different countries have joined to work in the entire Wycliffe world with many countries represented in Papua New Guinea (PNG).

The organization had its beginning in the United States, founded by the inspirational William Cameron Townsend in 1934, and acquired its name because the first training session was held in Arkansas during the summer. Later, SIL was invited by the President of Mexico to live among Mexican groups to study their languages, develop alphabets for them and teach the people to read their own language. During this process, the translation of New Testaments was begun. Invitations followed from the presidents of Peru and the Philippines.

In the early 1950s an invitation was extended to work in the country that is now the independent nation of Papua New Guinea (PNG) but was at that time the Trust Territory of New Guinea (TTNG), a British colony under the administration of Australia. In October 1956, the SIL Center was established in the Aiyura Valley, Eastern Highlands Province, to be the hub of a network of language projects.

The Highlands were still extremely remote in those days but Aiyura did have an airstrip constructed during World War II. The closest village to the SIL site was Ukarumpa, which is why Jim Dean, a Canadian who was the first director, decided to gazette the center as Ukarumpa. Alex, an Australian still living in Australia at that time, had an interest in languages and, having heard of SIL opening up a new endeavor in TTNG, he felt this was the direction the Lord wanted him to go. He gave up his previous dream of going to Norway to study Norwegian, which had become a hobby in his early twenties, and decided instead to become a

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translator in one of the many languages in TTNG, which also meant being involved in establishing the SIL Center.

In November 1956, he arrived in the hot and humid coastal town of Lae on a QANTAS DC4 (Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Service) airplane wearing his winter jacket which he shed as quickly as possible. After a short but pleasant stay at the Lutheran Guest House, he boarded a QANTAS Beaver aircraft which was on its regular weekly run with basic supplies to the Highlands making a few landings on the way. He arrived at Aiyura where he was met by Des Oatridge, a New Zealander and the only other Bible translator there at that time, who had arrived a month earlier.

1952 - View of Aiyura Valley from the top house at the Aiyura Agricultural Research Station (Photo courtesy of the David Carne)

The site was covered with kunai alang alang/sword grass with no buildings. The two men and Jim lived in a Quonset hut at the Agricultural Station per kindness of the manager and walked two miles each day to and from the site. They, with the help of local people, built the first three houses all consisting of bush materials - a house for each of the directors and their families and one for Des and Alex. Translators would be sent from Ukarumpa to many areas of the country by road when possible and in light aircraft and 18 | P a g e

Dr. Jim Dean, Dr. Dick Pittman and Bill Oates (Photo courtesy of the James Dean Family)

helicopter to language groups more distant or inaccessible by road. However, Jim Dean, the Director of the work in the territory, felt strongly the four language groups surrounding Ukarumpa should not be bypassed. So, Alex and Des were the first SIL personnel to begin language study in one of these, which was Tairora.

On June 14, 1957 the small group of colleagues prayed and waved as they drove off to Aupora with Bill Oates, Assistant Director from Australia, in the wartime jeep he brought with him in December. A small trailer loaded with basics bumped behind it along the rough road. This jeep was the group's only transport for a number of years, and SIL's first aircraft, a single-engine Cessna, did not arrive until 1962.

The village of Aupora was chosen because an invitation had been extended by Aapapari, the village leader. It was also advantageous because it was within walking distance of Ukarumpa. Des knew he would go to Australia in October to prepare for his marriage in December to his Australian fiancĂŠe, Jenny, a colleague he had met at an SIL course in Victoria, Australia. But those months in Aupora gave him experience dealing with some of the complexities of a highland language in preparation for the time he 19 | P a g e

Saying goodbye to Des Oatridge and Alex Vincent as they start out to their allocation. This was an important occasion because it was the first language project to be started. They beat the Nicholsons by a week. (Photo courtesy of Bruce Hooley)

and Jenny would go to the bordering Binumarien group Des had become very interested in. The group numbered only 100, having been decimated by a tribal group from the Markham Valley during the fighting years. The population increased appreciably over the years.

Des and Alex lived in Ompumpuri's house which was designated by Aapapari, the village leader, while a small house was being built for them. Ompumpuri's house was a traditional grass-roofed house with woven bamboo walls and a dirt floor. The other occupants were Ompumpuri's two wives and a baby and, from time to time, pigs coming in and out.

Though they certainly heard the Tairora language spoken in Ompumpuri's house, they were relieved to move out of the dim lighting and smoke coming from several fireplaces into their own small house. Once in that house, Des got a cat to keep the rat population down.

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Des Oatridge and Alex Vincent in the village (Photo courtesy of David Carne)

Aapapari, the government-appointed tultul1 who was the go-between with the Kiap2, became a faithful friend and later also assisted Alex with the translation of the first edition of the Tairora New Testament.

Sadly, he died before he had a chance to see it published at the end of 1979.

Meanwhile, SIL’s Ukarumpa population was growing. Bill and Lynette Oates and two young sons, Howard and Marcus, arrived from Australia in December 1956. They left the Philippines where they had been doing linguistic work when asked to be Assistant Director to help establish the work of SIL in TTNG. The adventure had begun for me also. Preparation to analyze and learn a language had been completed at SIL courses in Norman, Oklahoma and Grand Forks, North Dakota during two summers.

1

A village official who was an assistant to the village chief or Luluai Kiaps, known formally as district officers and patrol officers, were travelling representatives of the British and Australian governments with wide-ranging authority, in pre-independence Papua New Guinea.

2

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I received a letter saying that, at a meeting of the Board of Directors held at Norman, Oklahoma, on Friday, August 10, 1955 the following action was taken:

“Moved and carried that Miss Lois Heyer be assigned to the South Pacific Area. It is a pleasure for us to report this assignment and you may be assured that our prayers go with you as you make further preparations to proceed to this field of service.”

It had been thought I would go to the Philippines, but then I was asked to consider TTNG when it opened up in 1956 and I accepted. The Nicholson family and Joy McCarthy, Canadians, along with Gladys Neeley were already on board the Orsova when I boarded in San Francisco. We departed on February 15, 1957.

The ship docked in Honolulu for a day and then at midnight February 26 we set sail for Suva in the Fiji Islands and spent a day there. On board again we found ourselves pushing our way through a cyclonic storm with winds of 75 miles an hour facing us: four rough days with dishes swept from the dining room tables. Both Ray and Ruth suffered seasickness for those four days.

One day Ray decided to get up and see if he would feel better on deck. Joy was on deck talking to a young man who was asking why they were going to New Guinea. She called out, “Ray, this man wants to know why we are going to New Guinea.” Hurrying to the rail he replied, “I don’t know why we are going to New Guinea!”

It was a relief to step on solid ground when we entered Sydney harbor on March 1, 1957. A Wycliffe Board Member met us and helped us through customs and then we were taken to the Sydney Missionary Home in Turramurra for a few days. While there, we made reservations to fly to TTNG and then went by train to Melbourne changing trains at the border of New South Wales and Victoria because the size of the tracks was different.

We spent time at the Australian SIL course in Belgrave Heights in the beautiful hills outside Melbourne.

We arrived near the end of an eleven-week training course and were plunged into learning Australian ways and hearing new expressions such as 'tap' for 'faucet', ‘tea’ instead of ‘supper’ (while 'supper' referred to an evening snack). We soon adapted. We enjoyed meeting those on staff and those

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taking the linguistic course. We also met with the Wycliffe Australian Council whose members made us feel we were part of Wycliffe Australia.

Then back on the train to Sydney and the missionary home. Ray left Ruth and us there to go ahead to help with the building at Ukarumpa. Then QANTAS went on strike, which delayed our flight. Ruth desperately wanted to join Ray so we girls went into town and booked her on a flight to Hollandia, Dutch New Guinea.

She had adventures along the way with Larry and Lauren, but finally arrived at Aiyura in a Missionary Aviation Fellowship (MAF) plane a day ahead of us.

When the QANTAS air strike ended, and Joy had recovered from a serious attack of asthma, the three of us continued our journey. We were excited and thankful as the plane landed in Port Moresby on April 27 and said, “Are we really in TTNG?” before we continued our flight to Lae a few hours later.

We were asking ourselves, “What next?” when, as previously arranged by Jim Dean, we were met by Dr. Kuder, a New Yorker, who had been with the Lutheran Mission in Lae for 23 years. We were thankful he took us through customs and that we did not have to open our duffle bags.

On Sunday, we enjoyed the hospitality of folks at the Lutheran Guest House and Monday morning we were busy registering at the government office and checking about our luggage yet to arrive in Lae by ship.

On April 29, 1957 Merrill Clark, a Lutheran missionary, kindly drove us to the airport where we stepped into the single-engine Lutheran Cessna for the last lap of our journey. We had happy memories of Lae but were glad to be out of its heat and humidity, heading for the cool Highlands.

During the fifty-minute flight we flew over the Markham Valley with its flat plateaus and winding rivers and then approached the mountains draped with what reminded us of green velvet. At one point we flew from the sunshine into a sheet of rain. We were soon under the clouds and, before we knew it, on the ground at Aiyura Airfield. Just a runway with no hangars and no one to meet us.

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The pilot took off, and we were surrounded by 25 or more brown-skinned people in various degrees of clothing. Most were smiling from ear to ear at these three single women. Even so, I felt like we had returned home from a holiday.

As the three of us walked toward the nearby Agricultural (AG) Station in high heels and finery, grinning and giggling people followed us. Before reaching the AG Station we were met by a kind person who saw our plight and took us in his jeep the two miles to the Ukarumpa Center. En route we picked up two passengers - Jim Dean and Bill Oates who were walking because Bill's wartime jeep broke down on the road when he came from Lae due to a landslide a day or so earlier.

At the end of the ride we walked over the footbridge that spanned the Ba'e River and onto SIL property which covers 500 acres. As we walked toward the few houses, we noticed gardens with peas, string beans, lettuce, corn, potatoes, tomatoes and more. Then we were standing in front of two of the four completed houses built with bamboo walls. It was good to see the Nicholson family again and meet others.

Tropics? Near the equator? Why then are three blankets sometimes necessary at night? We were a mile high in the Eastern Highlands. Heavy rains had prevented the bigger planes from landing at the airstrip in Kainantu, seven miles away which delayed our getting our equipment. We were thankful to friends who loaned us what we needed until our equipment arrived. We joined Doreen Marks and Lorna Luff, Australians, in the garden for a few hours each day and before long we acquired a nice tan and some stiff joints. However, we were home and I experienced no homesickness. That was incredible to me because I felt homesickness in my first semester at The King's College in Delaware.

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Completed footbridge across the Ba’e River (Photo courtesy of Bruce Hooley)

Temporary housing at Ukarumpa (Photo courtesy of Bruce Hooley)

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(L-R) Gladys Neeley, Joy McCarthy, Lois Vincent, Doreen Marks in front of the Philippine House

At Ukarumpa, I lived with Joy McCarthy, Gladys Neeley and Doreen Marks in a woven bamboo-walled house with a corrugated iron roof. There we got to know our directors and their wives as well as Des and Alex.

The Nicholsons began their language-learning adventure among the Fore people on the Okapa Road, followed by Gladys and Joy with the Kanite people, and Doreen and myself with the Kosena along the same road. Leaders from these language groups extended invitations to Jim and Bill, and they thought it was a good idea to have three teams not too far from each other. We found it was very good because we 26 | P a g e

could walk to each other's villages, share our linguistic findings and experiences and encourage each other as well as having a relaxing time for an occasional weekend. Transport to and from the village was either in Bill or Ray's jeep.

When at Ukarumpa the singles gathered at the Oates' house most Friday nights to play games. This was where my friendship with Alex began and grew. Jim Dean felt Alex should ask for my parents’ blessing on our union, even though I was almost 29 and knew my parents would be happy and relieved to know I was going to be married. He wrote to ask them and has ever since treasured the reply he received:

“Dear Alex,

Received your very welcome letter. Sorry I couldn't answer at an early date as your letter was sent to another town. Lois has told me of the growing friendship between her and you, and I was pleased to hear she accepted your proposal of marriage. I am sure you both will be very happy together. You have our blessing, and we are sure everything will be for the best. We trust in the Lord and feel sure He watches over both you and Lois. We will be proud to have you for our son and are looking forward to meeting you.

God bless you. Sincerely, Grace Heyer for John and me.”

We were engaged in December 1957 and then, on June 14, 1958, Pastor Flierl, the Lutheran pastor whose station at Raipinka was in Kainantu, married us. It was a lovely outdoor wedding above the river at Ukarumpa and made possible by our colleagues and friends, like Ron and Joan Carne at the nearby Agricultural Station. The Oates were in Wau giving linguistic help to the New Tribes Mission, and Lynette made the delicious fruitcake in a wood stove oven and sent it to Ukarumpa. Joan Carne did the decorating and Lynette saw the finished beautiful cake at the wedding. A cake of cakes! Friends worked hard creating a delicious morning tea followed by a lovely program before we left the site in Ron Carne's new Landrover for Aiyura Airstrip where we got on board and were whisked away in the Lutheran Cessna to Wau to stay in a small house on the campus of the Lutheran Primary School for a week. Ours was the first wedding at Ukarumpa, and Jim thought a month's honeymoon was advisable. Thus, we spent the rest of the month in one of the abandoned gold mining houses in the beautiful area of Bulolo where the Oates were living at that time.

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The Wedding - Top right: Joy McCarthy, Gladys Neeley, Doreen Marks, Lauren Nicholson, Lois and Alex, Bill Oates, Robert Young, David Cummings Below: After our honeymoon, we flew back to Aiyura in this de Havilland Dragon airplane, equipped with benches on each side.

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You might ask, “Where did your wedding gown come from?� Alex's mother was a seamstress, and Alex sent my measurements and those of Joy, Gladys, Doreen and our flower girl, Lauren Nicholson to her in Australia. The other gowns arrived before the wedding day, but the Friday night before the wedding mine had not arrived. The next morning Ron Carne went to Kainantu early to see if it had come on the government plane and returned with it shortly before the wedding. I put it on and it fit perfectly. I will add that a friend in New Jersey had sent me her wedding gown in case I needed it but, though Doreen did her very best to make alterations, it did not feel comfortable. I used Louise's veil but how happy all of us were when THE wedding gown arrived.

After the honeymoon, we returned to the small cottage Alex had built at Ukarumpa and were startled early that evening when we heard what sounded like banging on metal. It was friends bashing saucepans with pieces of metal and calling out. We came to know about 'tin-kettling', something Australians did to celebrate newlyweds. The door was opened amid lots of laughter and we shared what we had for 'supper' - the one chocolate bar we had purchased when away. Nothing like the Ukarumpa family and we found that to be true as more and more members joined our small group.

The next important step was planning our future life together. I found it difficult to think of being in the Eastern Highlands so close to Ukarumpa. 'Go west by plane' was in my thoughts. However, with encouragement from Dick Pittman, regional SIL director and Jim Dean, I finally saw the wisdom of continuing with the Tairora group since Alex was already into language study. This was confirmed as God's will to me over the years.

Though contacts were maintained, Aupora village was not a good option for us so, in August 1958, we went to visit Asara village in the Obura dialect of Tairora south of Ukarumpa. We were driven to the end of the rough bush road and then hiked three and a half hours on a trail to Asara. That trip and ones following always found us climbing the long, steep hill to the Obura Patrol Post when the sun was at its highest. From there we continued on to Asara, which was as far as we were allowed to go because it was on the border of restricted territory. Only Kiaps (Australian-appointed government officers), could go beyond Asara. A pioneer at heart, I had certainly found my bit of adventure. In addition to the physical challenge of the hike, I had the experience of being the first white woman the people had seen in that area and was met with surprise and broad smiles. Best of all, I found friendship and kindness.

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We were directed to a roughly constructed round house with dirt floor, bamboo walls and kunai grass roof. This was where the Kiap set up camp when on a census trip or visiting the area for other reasons.

After a talk with the leaders that night, we decided it was a good location for us even though the Tairora dialect spoken was different from the one spoken at Aupora.

That night we visited with village leaders and were invited to live among them. By that time, we were more than ready to unroll our sleeping bags by the dying embers in the fireplace. The next day we retraced our tracks to Suwaira and returned to Ukarumpa in the jeep, which has been pre-arranged.

Shortly afterwards Alex returned to Asara with Naare and Aitutu, men from Aupora who wove the bamboo walls since Asara men did not know how to weave walls at that time. They built a simple house with woven bamboo for flooring and walls and a kunai grass roof. When Alex returned to Ukarumpa to say all was ready we gathered the basics and set off from Suwaira with carriers to where we thought we might live for many years.

Language learning began when we heard the first words and phrases. We sat with people and went to their gardens, hiked and spent time with people learning what we could. A lot of the language material gathered was the result of many hours of sitting and listening as well as acting out various things. Because the people were very helpful, good progress was made. When we could, we recorded words and phrases on paper so we could compare our findings with each other at night to determine if we both thought the meaning to be the same. The next day we would double check and sometimes found we were off course as to meaning so would recheck. We repeated this process through the years.

When we were ready for a break, Jim Dean walked to Asara to assess the situation, spent a day and night with us and then walked to Suwaira with us. From there we rode back to Ukarumpa in the trusty jeep. Not long after we got back to Ukarumpa I found out I was pregnant with our first child and Jim concluded we should not stay at Asara because there was no radio communication and no means of evacuation should an emergency arise. It was difficult for us to think of saying good-bye when we had made a lot of progress in the three months.

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Men outside our house at Asara, 1958. They are wearing the everyday dress of that time, and one is holding a bow and arrows.

In the main room was a simple fireplace on the ground, two small benches and a table made with saplings and piece of plywood as a table top. A place to store food and a bucket shower. A room with bed and place to put clothes. The house had an open room where people visited during the rain. We put down traps to catch the many rats. One night a tail and next night the tailless rat.

Outside was a pit toilet.

While at Ukarumpa we continued to process the material we had gathered at Asara (South Tairora) and spent time learning more of the Northern Tairora dialect near Ukarumpa until it was near the time for our first child to be born. We flew to Madang on the north coast in a Lutheran Cessna and then driven to the small Lutheran Hospital located in the bush outside the town at Jagaum. The homey hospital was well 31 | P a g e

staffed and it was there that Robin Itai (anglicized to Itay) was born on April 17, 1959 with her father also present. We chose the Tairora name, Itai which means 'shining like the moon and sun’ and also 'mature' regarding ripe food. It was very special that Joice and Karl Franklin who had been at the King's College with me were also at Jagaum for their first child. Joice and I shared one of the few rooms. Alex and Karl lived in simple accommodation on site and did some work around the hospital, which went toward paying for our stay. Kirk Franklin was born six days before Robin.

We were keen to see our friends in Asara again and introduce Itai, so again we hiked to Asara with Robin carried in a basket on a pole with a man supporting it at each end. Nearing Asara we heard yelling and looked up to see men and women streaming down an extremely steep, precipitous hillside making us fearful they would tumble down to the bottom. Seeing the white baby they had assumed was in that basket was worth the risk, and little Itai created a great deal of excitement with women shaking their hands up and down to express their wonder. Later the women at Asara made Itai a little bark skirt and hung a string bag from her head, which meant Robin Itai belonged.

Now we felt we were on the journey toward our end goal - giving a New Testament to the Tairora people in whatever dialect they spoke. Many years later, the Asara people did indeed receive their New Testament as well as those who spoke the Aupora dialect.

A woman carrying her load

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1961 - Front left is our home. The schoolroom is on the right and our jeep is on the road. The long house was built so the villagers could all be together when the eclipse of the sun took place in February 1962 which was frightening for them to anticipate. Sadly, we had to leave on furlough late January but later heard all went well.

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1957 SIL Ukarumpa staff – (L-R) Front row sitting: Lois with Larry and Lauren Nicholson on her lap, Vonnie and Walt Steinkraus, Roseann Dean, Lorna Luff with David Dean, Lynette Oates with Howard Oates, Tim Dean. Back row: Ray and Ruth Nicholson, David Cummings, Alex Vincent, Des Oatridge standing, Bill Oates, Marcus Oates, Sharon Dean, Joy McCarthy, Doreen Marks and Glady Dean with Gladys Neeley behind Jo.

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Chapter 2 Our Tairora Home Knowing we could not return to live in Asara, Alex considered the Nompia area, but then finally decided on Suwaira because it was the most central location for the main dialect of North Tairora and also bordered on the South Tairora dialect including Asara, which meant we had contact from time to time. In later years, a New Testament into the South Tairora dialect was translated by Alex and Taiho Nraaqakyaqa (a local Tairora man), which meant renewed contact with people from Asara, Obura and Toqukena.

Alex and I visited Suwaira on his motorbike bumping along the bush road. When it became extremely bumpy up the steep Barabuna Hill, I got off and walked. When we reached Suwaira, the name given by the Kiap for the hamlets in the area, we stayed a night in the house they had built on a large area of ground set aside for the Kiap on his visits. It was a better structure than the one at Asara because the Suwaira men were adept at weaving bamboo and wild cane while Asara men were not. The walls of their houses were made of bundles of long kunai grass bound together and stood upright next to each other.

A site was chosen by the leaders of Suwaira where Alex could build a house with the help of villagers who brought timber from the bush and assisted him. Their expertise was in building round huts, so Alex guided the construction of ours, which was rectangular.

Saplings stripped of bark were carried from the bush for the framework, bamboo was plaited by skilled men for the outside walls and wild cane was plaited into strips for the inner walls. A roof made of sheets of corrugated iron was over the living area making it possible to catch rain water in a small tank. Kunai grass was gathered by the women in bundles, which men tied skillfully on the rafters over the bedroom section, the narrow study and front room used for visiting and the small bathroom with sink and bucket shower. Water was heated on the wood stove at night and poured into the bucket shower which had a 'rose' that could be adjusted to allow just the right temperature of water wanted. I found it so much

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simpler to use than the many different showers I have battled with in various countries. A pit toilet was dug by the men who also wove the wild cane for walls and Alex made the toilet box and cover.

We had a wood-burning stove in the kitchen for heating and cooking; kerosene and pressure lamps were used for lighting. We had the only bright lights in the village, which attracted very tiny-winged insects that appeared from the ground in swarms around lights after a long dry spell followed by very heavy rain. The Tairora called them toveqi, the general term for insect and we referred to them as 'flying ants'. They made it impossible to stay in the living room reading. We tried staying at the table with a dish of water under the light, thinking all would die and fall into it and then we could read, but it did not work. Innumerable insects fell into the dish, but there were always more to take their place. No matter what we did, nothing stopped the swarming so we had to go off to bed. Later, when there was a low voltage electric light on the wood frame which held the mosquito net over the bed, we tried reading there a bit. However, we had to give up because the insects found their way inside the netting.

We took some basic supplies to Suwaira, including flour and yeast, sugar, milk powder, tinned margarine, packets of cheese, tinned meat and mackerel. Mainly, though, we relied on vegetables women brought to us at the end of the day from their gardens. They wanted to trade their food for salt, soap and matches, which were things difficult for them to obtain. Later, when they were able to sell their coffee beans to coffee buyers who came in trucks they traded for good using money.

In the village, there was taro as well as sweet potato, the staple crop of the Highlands. We enjoyed trying the many varieties and ate one kind almost daily. We also had a constant supply of fresh greens like noqu, the Mushroom Plant (Acanthaceae, Rungia klossii). When we found out the many benefits of this vegetable, we not only ate the leaves, but also drank the juice daily when in season. We also enjoyed corn, squash and some other foods in season.

Cooking bananas were a staple, and later we introduced the less dense Cavendish (sweet) banana which they and we enjoyed. Other fruit sometimes available were pineapple, passion fruit and mandarins. What a surprise it was for us when the Barabuna people who lived about an hour away brought us more pineapples at one time than we could eat. The elevation of 5,200 feet was too high for other tropical fruit such as good pawpaw. Looking back now, we realize we had 'organic' food the 54 years we were in Papua New Guinea to which we credit our continuing good health, along with the hiking we did there.

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Meat was not included in the daily diet of the Tairora, though we learned they got protein from greens and later peanuts, which they grew. Pigs were only killed and eaten on special occasions such as at weddings and funerals and then we would sometimes be given a piece of pork. On one occasion we were given lungs.

I remember this clearly, because getting the name was difficult and apparently, they thought we liked it. I cooked them in the oven and was glad to give them back, which they appreciated. A seasonal treat which provided another source of protein for everyone from October to February was kaivu, ‘pandanus julianetti' commonly known as the Pandanus nut. These are individually encased in a shell, which has to be broken open and then the nuts are eaten raw or heated. They are a delicacy and truly delicious.

Another seasonal treat, particularly for children, are the June Beetles that buzz in the Casuarina trees in the latter part of the year. We were often awakened at dawn by the noise of excited children yelling and running to catch these aari with hands outstretched. After the appendages were removed, they were put in a length of bamboo or some other container to be roasted and enjoyed as a crunchy, tasty snack.

After a few years, we rented a single sideband radio from Ukarumpa. I could now ask for a 15-minute slot to talk to friends at Ukarumpa or in other locations in the country, and that was marked on a sheet in the radio lobby by the radio operator or by me when I was at Ukarumpa. The radio operator came on at 7am each weekday to take radio ‘traffic’ and give any important news items to translators. On weekends a member, not the usual radio operator, came and took urgent traffic. It was a comfort to know that in the case of an emergency, such as the time Alex had cellulitis in his leg and needed to be evacuated by the helicopter to Ukarumpa, we had contact with the outside world.

So links with Ukarumpa were good. We were not totally reliant on Alex’s motorbike because there was also a group vehicle that could bring supplies or come in case of an emergency before the day of the helicopter. We went to Ukarumpa at regular intervals for various reasons such as when primers and other books needed to be printed or the times Alex would attend a Bible book translation workshop or do what was called “group service”. In his case, this group service usually meant helping other Bible translators settle into their allocations in various places throughout the country.

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After being away, we were always happy to return to Vaaqera, a hamlet of Suwaira. Living at the foot of Mount Elandora, climbing it and enjoying the beauty around us was a very special gift. However, we felt oppression at times of death and mourning when people blamed someone or a group for performing sorcery and killed someone in revenge known as 'payback'. While the men expressed their grief through anger and violence, the women often expressed their hurt by cutting off the end of a finger at the joint.

In times of death in the village, there was always nights of wailing. In addition, the times of fighting with neighboring villages brought death, loss of a leg or eye were not conducive to peaceful living. Still, it was very good to know so many people and be able to be of some little assistance.

People liked to come into the front room of our house where they enjoyed looking at the pictures on the wall and things written on the blackboard while learning more about why we wanted to live among them and learn their language. They liked to look also at the motorbike and sometimes it was used for an emergency, such as when Uko, the teenage daughter of the tultul desperately needed to get to the dentist in Kainantu 30 miles away. It was incredible to see Uko perched behind Alex for her first and last motorbike ride. She held on to him and trusted he knew what he was doing.

Gradually our home became more and more comfortable. After a few years, we even had some electrical power because an SIL friend came to help put up a windmill obtained from another part of the country.

With that, enough power for lighting was generated through three old car batteries and a diesel generator. The house was not aglow with lighting, but having one light on at a time was a bit of luxury.

With the passing of time, our family grew too. When our second child was due, I flew to Goroka, the capital of the Eastern Highlands, and Alex rode his motorbike on the unpaved road. Fellow missionaries, Ellis and Katherine Deibler (who were studying the Gahuku language near Goroka), built a small guest house for those who came to have their babies at the Goroka Hospital and this was where Alex and I stayed until our son, Dale Ori, was born September 21, 1960. It had a ward for ex-pat men and one for women as well as a delivery room and nursery. Dale was named for a dear Tairora friend and our earliest language helper, Ori, which means 'rock/stone' in Tairora.

Llyn Namari, our last child, was born at the main hospital in Lae on the north east coast on July 3, 1963.

Namari means 'water/river' in Tairora. At that time, I was able to stay with Uncle George and Aunt Em Cummings, an older couple who were looking after the small SIL Center in Lae. 38 | P a g e

1968 – Our family in the village - Alex and Lois Vincent, Dale Ori, Llyn Namari, Robin Itai

I was driven to the hospital by 'Uncle George', when the time came for the birth. Once Alex knew Llyn had arrived, he drove to Lae leaving the other two children with two of their 'aunties'- Joy McCarthy and Gwen Gibson, at Ukarumpa.

All three children were welcomed at Suwaira. The people were pleased they had Tairora names, and these local were always used. Our children still value their Tairora names, and Robin gave her middle name to each of her three daughters, my granddaughters.

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Around 1965 - SIL Ukarumpa Center in Aiyura Valley (Photo Courtesy of Wycliffe Bible Translators, USA Archives)

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Chapter 3 Traditional Tairora Life (Though the following describes life as we experienced it in the late 1950s, some of it has not changed)

In the Highlands of New Guinea, traditionally the only animals farmed were pigs and the Tairora area is no exception. In Suwaira, pork was rarely eaten except on special occasions - birth, marriage, funeral, initiation, peace feast with enemies and other festivities. Pigs were the only way of representing the wealth of the tribal clans until money from sale of coffee beans, the main cash crop, and employment at coffee plantations and in later years in towns. They were particularly significant in the bride price. The number of pigs was decided in exchange for a bride, and large pieces of pork, cooked and uncooked, were usually laid on banana leaves on the ground in designated piles for the clan of the bride. The same procedure took place between enemies making peace after a time of fighting that had resulted in injuries and deaths. Any special occasion included giving of pork. In later years, money was a big part of the payment. In the case of the bridal payment, over the years the price rose from one pig to many plus huge amounts of money. Pigs were highly valued and huge compensation demanded if one was killed, unless it had destroyed a garden.

Another source of meat was obtained from hunting. Men were skilled in the use of the bow and arrow and killed bush animals, but they were the ones who cooked and ate the meat in the bush and did not share any with the rest of the community. Tairora people, like most Highlanders until relatively recently, lived almost entirely by subsistence farming and put many hours into cultivating their gardens. The men did the hard work of digging the ditches which divided garden plots and erecting fence palings with sharp points on both ends. Pigs were not fenced in, but roamed freely and foraged for food. Most of the time the fences prevented pigs from routing in the gardens, but when someone else's pigs damaged a garden there was retribution to be made by the owners of the pigs. Disputes to do with pigs, women and land were the three main reasons for court cases.

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Men were responsible for Betel Nut and Pandanus nut palms and coffee trees but most of the cultivation in the gardens was done by the women who worked long hours planting, weeding and harvesting the crop. Rest periods were taken to feed the babies and socialize with other women members of the family with a snack sometimes of a roasted small rat caught in the garden.

Back in the 1950s, gardens were mostly using the traditional digging sticks, but introduced tools like small spades were highly valued. At the end of the day the women would always put sweet potato, greens and whatever else was in season, in their uta which was a handmade string bag with a woven strap that made a ridge in their thick hair. This bag hung down their backs and often a baby lying on a Pandanus mat in its string bag was added and sometimes pieces of firewood were carried at the same time on top of the head.

Usually it was a short walk home except when gardens were made in the forest on top of ridges.

Once home, sweet potato was poked into the ashes and skillfully covered with embers or boiled in a saucepan or hung over the fireplace. Traditionally, they stoked their fires in such a way that when they came home from a long day in the garden, they were able to blow on or fan the embers to produce flames of fire, but always these were kept low. Greens were put into short lengths of bamboo and rotated over the fire, generating steam that cooked the greens.

Over the years, new crops were introduced to the area, like the huge peanut species, which became for a time a cash crop that helped women to earn money. They would tie the stems in bundles to carry in huge bags on their head to Kainantu. Usually they went

by Public Motor Vehicles (PMVs) which were introduced into the area in the 1960s. However, sometimes they walked to Noraikora/Norikori and got a PMV from there.

At home, they would sit by the roadside near to the village with a few stems of peanuts tied up to sell to people passing in PMVs on their way home from town to the southern Tairora areas. Other new crops eventually came in too, like spring onions, passion fruit and peas. Avocado trees were grown too, from seeds we had given the people from our trees at Ukarumpa.

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The Tairora people owned the beautiful mountainous areas with everything the bush provided. It gave them certain foods and medicinal aids from herbs and barks, materials for building houses and making other useful things such as string bags and materials for making clothing. Women were very modest and particularly careful, when sitting down, to place their bark or grass skirts so the genital area was covered.

Even female babies wore a little bark or reed skirt between their thighs to screen the genital area, and mothers were scolded if they did not cover them in this way. No such rule applied to the boys until around five when they began to wear a small skirt in front. Girls always had the front skirt between their thighs and, as they came into teen years, they wore a sheath of leaves over the buttocks though the hips were exposed. At the time of marriage, many skirts were placed around the bride's waist by her female relatives and always more than one skirt of bark. The bark was rubbed with pigs' grease to keep the strips supple, but if pigs' grease was not available, castor oil was applied. Understandably pigs' grease was preferred as it was arduous work to extract the oil from the castor beans. Breasts did not have to be covered. Even when many began to wear second hand clothing, still there was no shame associated with leaving the breast bare. Bark skirts were not washable so skirts made of reeds were worn over them when it rained or at times of ihi dancing and singing festivities traditionally held near the end of the year and usually associated with fertility. The skirts were ideal for dancing because the swishing sound added to the music of the flicking of bows by the dancing men.

Making traditional clothes was time consuming. Some of the bark cloth was made from the mulberry tree.

Its bark was peeled off and then beaten with a toti (bark beater) to stretch it before being used to make the strips for the skirts, large bark capes for warmth and a flap that men wore over part of their buttocks.

Reeds for the rain skirts were collected from a swamp area, stripped of the water by a sharp piece of bamboo, laid on the grass roofs until thoroughly dried and then women were able to fashion the skirts.

These skirts were not washable. So, if a baby was not held quickly enough over the ground to urinate the urine went onto the skirts. Scabies, an itchy and irritating condition caused by a mite that burrowed into the skin at the women's hips on which the skirts rested, caused a painful and constant problem. Gentian 43 | P a g e

violet alleviated it somewhat when applied at the ‘one-man’ village clinic, which only had basics.

Unsurprisingly, when someone brought a bundle of second hand ‘modern’ clothing to the village, people were eager to buy them as it was more comfortable, easy to wash, and did not require the hard work of making skirts. The traditional sense of modesty continued and shorts and trousers were considered men's clothing. Gradually a change came and a few of the young women began to wear shorts under their skirts and also as sleeping attire.

Social roles for men and women were markedly different. Women cared for the garden and children and men who slept in the Men's House with the young men who were being initiated into manhood were on the alert to protect their families should an enemy attack. This initiation rite of boys into manhood started at an early age. A very important part of initiation was nose piercing at which time a nosepiece was inserted in the septum of the nose. It was very painful. but only the rare boy did not go through with it.

Young initiates in traditional dress and with their noses pierced – the first step of initiation into manhood.

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The separation of men and women was particularly marked at times of menstruation or childbirth. The men felt there was a dangerous power in the female blood, which could cause sickness or death to them.

A normal feature of each hamlet of a Tairora village was the naamura, a grass-roofed hut outside the village. Here women spent their times of childbirth and menstruation and men never entered. At Vaaqera the naamura was just outside the fence on the hill overlooking the river. After giving birth, a female relative would cut the cord with the sharp-edged piece of a bamboo sliver and usually one of the women would go down a steep hill to the Lamari River and throw the placenta into this fast-flowing river. The women's confinement after childbirth was much like being in hospital away from all the daily chores and responsibilities of the home and caring for the children.

I usually went to see the baby and have a visit with the mother and other women with her who cared for her needs. One day when I was going to the hut with some food in my uta for Tote, my friend in the naamura after her first daughter Ivaani was born. I was surprised by a warning from Kaina as I passed him on the way. He told me that under no circumstances should my small uta carry food that Alex might eat because that could make him ill. I knew how dangerous men considered blood at birth or during menstruation, but it had not occurred to me that my uta might become associated in this way, simply through having transported food to Tote. My bag was small so I was able to assure him that I would not use it for Alex’s food. He walked away relieved.

In the 1970’s a large clinic was established in the Suwaira area down the road from us. There was a house with comfortable seating for the patients, a fireplace along with a raised platform made of plaited bamboo around part of the room where patients chose their area of sleep. The clinic helped to improve the health of the people. Before we went to Suwaira, some had suffered disfiguration from yaws. In our time there, venereal disease (VD), including syphilis, was present. One of the Tairora men who contracted syphilis thought it was caused by a fetus inside a man’s body. I visited the clinic quite often and one particular visit brought home to me how much traditional attitudes were changing. Imagine my surprise the afternoon I saw men sitting in the room next to the delivery room while their young relative was experiencing a lengthy labor! Though they would not think of entering the actual delivery room, this still represented a huge change. Not many men would venture that close to the danger they felt was in the female blood.

Some naamura remained for those who preferred delivery at home or did not feel safe going to the clinic because former enemies also used it, but in time the obvious benefits the clinic offered changed their thinking.

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Top left: Casting votes, Top right and middle: Singsings, Middle left: A traditional greeting, Bottom left: Men dressed for a singsing, Bottom right: Nose piercing

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Chapter 4 The Linguistic Challenge The 11-week SIL linguistic courses we had attended before being sent to TTNG had prepared us for the language work to a large extent. We were made aware that we could expect almost anything. Because we did not know at that time which language we would learn, we studied phonetics and practiced making every possible sound known from languages all over the world. Vocal chords were stretched and throats sometimes sore with the practice of these unfamiliar sounds. In addition, we were made aware that languages - and certainly we found it true of Highland languages - had their unique features. We were also taught to write phonetically and then prepare a phonemic alphabet using the letters of the Roman alphabet.

By the time we went to live in Vaaqera, Alex had learned some Tok Pisin, the trade language, but in most of the Tairora area at that time this lingua franca had not yet taken hold. Only a few men knew it like those such as our village leader Qoqoqi who needed a rudimentary knowledge in order to communicate with the Kiaps who travelled the length and breadth of the area to oversee road construction, settle court cases and carry out the census among other things. We avoided basic communication in Tok Pisin as much as possible so that it would not deter us from learning the village or target language.

The few months Alex had been with Des in Aupora, Alex had elicited a few basic Tairora expressions like “Where have you been?”, “Where are you going?”, “What are you doing?” and “What is that?” In this way he had established a starting point from which we were able to elicit more words and phrases. However, putting it all together and speaking so we were understood was a huge challenge.

People were kind and patient, repeating words or sentences over and over, but still, after a few months, we realized what an enormous task it was going to be to master the language. We and our SIL colleagues in other Highland languages battled with the analysis of the complex verbal systems and were indebted to Dr. Stephen Wurm who put us on the right track of the ‘medial verb’ system.

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In conferring with colleagues at Ukarumpa from time to time, we learned the verbal system was unique in each language. However, it was a tremendous linguistic advance for all of us Dr. Wurm’s helped moved us from the baby talk stage.

For example, in Tairora, the suffix ‘ro’ at the end of a verb predicts the subject of the one following. Thus, in ‘Mariava vivaro Toniva aniro’ (‘Maria left and Tony came’), the suffix ‘ro’ at end of ‘vivaro’ predicts that the next subject with be third person singular. A beautiful system of suffixes emerged for all tenses.

We did not sit at a table with a teacher and elicit Tairora words and phrases, but gathered material in natural situations. Alex and I had differing opportunities for language learning experiences. In my case, it was going to the gardens, sitting with women while they made their string bags, nursing their babies, trading for food brought to the door and taking care of simple medical needs. Alex spent time with the men in various situations and both of us enjoyed being in their homes in the evening, even when the smoke got in our eyes until someone kindly fanned the fire.

We would sometimes write down what we heard and compare our findings with each other at the end of the day. Often we found we had not understood correctly what was said, so the next day we would test it out on a few other people to determine the correct meaning. People patiently repeated sentences or phrases and so we continued to make ‘small talk’ in Tairora.

It was a satisfying feeling to sit with village people - Alex with the men and I with the women and sometimes together with a mixed group to chat with them. We also has good times in the “visitors' room” in our village home where we had blackboard, pictures and other things. We were encouraged with some progress when we looked back to the early entries. With more and more vocabulary stored, we would prick up our ears when we heard a new phrase.

I do not know how many times when I sat with the women, I asked, “Nanti nanti vainti nahentie vatatera?” (“How many children do you have?”). They would respond and count on their fingers and give the Tairora equivalent of expressions such as, “I gave birth to two boys and one girl” or “I gave birth to three boys and one girl who died at birth.”

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In this way I learned not only the counting system, but refinements such as female and male suffixes. For example, Itai-namari and Itai-veva have the same basic name with the suffix namari 'water' for a female and veva 'arrow' for a male added. I absorbed a wider vocabulary because the names often had meaning.

Ori 'rock/stone', nanta 'forest' and veva 'arrow' were common suffixes for names of a boy while namari 'water' and meru 'dropwort green' were suffixes sometimes given to baby girls. Sometimes a child was named because of an event that occurred at the time of birth, as in the case of Ahaki-nanta which was the name of the area in the forest where his father, Nanori, was hunting at the time of the birth. A name could mark the introduction of something new as with Rerihi 'lettuce' or Karavuhi 'jail' when a husband was put in jail for some offense.

I didn’t feel like it was hard work because I became really interested in what I was learning. Names remained a fascination with me throughout the years. Without exception, a village person gained two or three names in their lifetime for various reasons (Nanta-veva 'forest-arrow', Vohaa-ori 'one-stone').

Parents were often referred to by the name of the child, such as Itaira no 'mother of Itai’ because an inlaw could not say the name of the woman. Special taboo terms were used between in-laws because speaking their names would cause embarrassment. We never knew anyone with one name.

In the early 90s a few children were given English names which were more easily spoken by non-Tairora speakers or a name heard by the husband when working in a town. We learned not to ask an individual his or her name after we found they did not say their own names, but had a bystander give it to us. More than once we were lost in conversations not knowing who was being referred to. It was also interesting to find that a man took the name of his father as his surname, Noto Imia (Imia was the father’s name), and his wife took his first name as her surname - Hirihiri Noto.

It was very helpful to hear an unknown phrase in everyday conversation as happened when Alex discovered the ‘contrary to the fact’ or 'if' marker, tiri. Kaina and other Suwaira men carried a wounded man a great distance on a homemade stretcher from south of us. He had been severely wounded in a battle with an enemy village and from was taken from Suwaira to the Kainantu Hospital 40 kilometers (approximately 25 miles) away by vehicle. The carriers were happy to hear later that the man lived.

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Someone commented to Alex, “Maaqaini vaitiri, qutuma vitiri”, which literally is: “He stayed at home” +tiri, “He died” +-tiri. Alex then realized tiri was a contrary to fact marker and that the expression meant, “If he had stayed home, he would have died.” 'If' was not expressed as a single word as in English, but a suffix on the end of both clauses.

Another grammatical breakthrough came when Nanori, the luluai3 asked Alex to buy some rice for him when he went to town. Alex bought the bag of rice and tied it on the back of his motorbike but unfortunately it rained on the way home and the bag of wet rice became heavier until eventually the motorcycle, rice and Alex slipped onto the wet, dirt road. Alex picked up the motorbike and bag of rice and proceeded on his way home. When Nanori heard what had happened he said, “Maaqaini variataara vaivara anira.” Alex took the pieces of the sentence apart and realized the suffix, 'taara' on the first verb in the sentence was indicating 'should' and so knew Nanori was saying, “You should have stayed at home, but you came.” By the way, Nanori was happy and dried out the rice.

Another day we were taken by surprise when our six-year-old Robin Itai, who with her brother and sister played with other children and also heard chit chat of adults, said Aniataara kia anira, meaning ‘You should have come and you didn’t.’ Though the children never became fluent speakers of Tairora they understood a surprising amount of what was said in their presence and to them. It is interesting what Tairora words or phrases they come out with in their adult years. After we were alerted to a new grammatical feature, examples that had flown over our heads settled in like birds on a perch. I am sure our Tairora friends sat around the fireside at night and wondered when we would catch on.

For many words there was no one-word equivalent, as in the case of 'if' and 'should'. Idioms were also used. While 'liver' is the seat of emotions in many Highland languages, in the Tairora language it is muntuka 'heart'. A woman would say to a man she loved Ti muntukavano ariara vairo 'My heart is for you' or Ariara muntuka vate 'I put my heart for you'. Muntuka is also used with various verbs to express sadness or hurt feelings. It is even used to express addiction to alcohol or something else: 'fasten onto the heart'. To covet or long for something, with a verbalizer, becomes 'mouth of heart closed'.

3

Luluai – A village or tribal chief in New Guinea.

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Oqekairaa and Aapapari in the Bible translation house with Alex at Baantura/Vaantura

The heart is also used to indicate shock and being grief-stricken. There are many more examples, but my favorite is the one for 'comfort' muntuka kukuqe 'stroke’ or ‘rub the heart'. I often use the literal translation when writing or talking to friends who are sorrowing. Other parts of the body like aiqi, 'nose', aiqu 'foot' and aato 'ear' are used in idiomatic expressions. For example, aiqu kaimaa vi 'without legs' means 'not want to'; aiqu kauqu tatoqero, literally 'burn feet and hands' is the Tairora equivalent of our 'work fingers to the bone' and, a classic one in my opinion, aiqu tuvuni vai literally 'along the sole of the foot' means 'keep quiet about it' or 'keep it under your hat'.

To achieve our literacy aim,which also included writing, we first needed to determine the phonemes (significant sounds) of Tairora in order to form an alphabet that was acceptable to the people. Learning a yet-unwritten language we had to use our quite brief phonetic training to develop an alphabet with one symbol for each phoneme.

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A page from one of the transfer book:

We were determined there would not be the confusion there is in English with the same spelling for different sounds, as in the sentence, ‘The rough cough ploughed him through.' We used the Roman alphabet and typed thousands of words on the typewriter. The resulting alphabet consisted of eleven consonants, six vowels and two glides. The choice of nine of the consonants was simple as there was a letter representing a similar sound in the English alphabet. Where there were phonemes that didn’t exist in English, we used letters that are redundant in English. For example, we used q to indicate the glottal stop. Many translators indicate this with an apostrophe but we chose the q to make cursive writing flow better and avoid words like varairaqe becoming varairae because of a forgotten or misplaced apostrophe.

We worked in other areas besides Suwaira and Alex recorded Tairora stories and legends from several villages on the spring-wound Butoba tape recorder which he used as another tool to learn more about the structure of the Tairora language. These were listened to many times, and important discoveries written down.

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We began to be more aware of dialectal differences also. Gradually our understanding of the language grew and we felt confident enough to start our literacy work, which was a priority for us because of the extremely low literacy rate among the Tairora. We developed a routine where the entire morning was given to classes made up of older men and women, peppered with some older teens. Alex made primers, alphabet charts, flash cards, supplementary books on different subjects and later Bible verse wall charts which were hung in the churches and at our house in Suwaira, hymnbooks and whatever reading material would encourage older people and later children to read and value the vernacular. He also developed a series of transfer books for the five dialects.

Lois teaching in Tairora Literacy classes

Both of us spent a lot of time teaching, but when Alex came to the translation stage I took on more of that and went by vehicle to different villages and various schools to teach the reading of Tairora. When the Evangelical Brotherhood Church (EBC) invited Alex to teach Tairora literacy to the upper grades at the Primary School at the Obura station he went by motorbike each week. This, of course, meant a primer in the Obura dialect. Our work grew and grew but, as years went by, we were helped by the people themselves. For example, Neli, who as a girl was a student in one of the early classes, taught older women to read when she was a married adult. Seeing our work develop and change hands in this way inspired us to continue.

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Top left: Young men’s class. Tuvaqu Vauto in red shirt and Raqia Ntuhe, bottom right, later became translation helpers.

Top right: Nanori reading a book of Tairora folk tales. Bottom: Alex’s group in the 1960s. Nanori, the luluai is second from the left wearing his badge. On his left is Oqoqi, wearing his badge of office.

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Chapter 5 Our Family Life The children were never bored when at Vaaqera. They enjoyed times of interacting with their village friends and were always happy to be present when a mumu (traditional pit oven) was opened and they were given some sweet potato, ears of corn or other food. Sliding fast down the steep grassy hill near our house sitting and holding onto a piece of dried banana bark or something else was great fun enjoyed by them and their friends who provided the bark.

Tairora man with (L-R) Dale Ori, Robin Itai, Llyn Namari Vincent

Robin taught the children how to play 'Ring around the Rosey', and the participants thought the 'they all fall down' part was the most fun. The children and their friends also enjoyed the swing Alex made, and Maari, one of Dale's age mates had a try on Dale's tricycle.

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(L-R) Dale Ori, Llyn Namari, Robin Itai Vincent

In the evenings I sometimes read books to them, and there was often music when they played their recorders with their dad. Many happy hours were spent at the dining room table reading books, doing puzzles and building various things with Lego blocks with Dad often joining in.

On weekends there was wading and swimming in the Lamari River near Suwaira and further south to places we drove to. In another direction, the children took turns for a short distance on a simple raft made from what was at hand. One time when we had visitors, we drove south to Obura Patrol Post to show our friends the beautiful scenery and say hello to the Kiap. At the same time, we realized Dale had fallen into the pond our friend, Ken Davis, jumped in and lifted him to safety.

One of our biggest adventures was the climb to the top of Mount Elendora (5,200 feet) which involved tramping through the bush with the four of us encouraging Llyn, the youngest, to keep going. She was very happy she did not give up and enjoyed the panoramic view with us while we ate our lunch. There were also other steep climbs to the forest and one of those we did more often. One morning we set out with Nanori who kindly offered to take us on what was supposed to be short walk to see a cave. We ended 56 | P a g e

Our village house

up returning home late in the afternoon after having climbed 4,000 feet. It was all very interesting and we collected plants, toadstools and mushrooms. We also saw varieties of nettle leaf, which we did not bring home - they were left for those who hit their bodies with them to relieve pain. They found the resulting welts and burning a good remedy. We heard calls of the illusive Bird of Paradise but did not see one. There was a more normal hike every day unless it rained. The children also collected small bows and arrows, and their friends laughed when they tried to hit a pig, knowing it would not be harmed.

For the first few years Robin and Dale were home schooled in the village. The lessons came from Australia, which worked well though sometimes there was a delay with the mail. One morning in February 1967 when I was with the children in the house, and Alex and Kaavau were in the school house after classes, I heard Arauviri yelling, “Arekio, Kaavauo! Arekio, Kaavauo!�

I knew something was wrong so I left Robin and Dale with their school lessons and went outside to find that where there had been a school roof there was nothing. The roof had neatly dovetailed into the

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Our village prior to the schoolroom collapse

school, smashing some of the desks Alex had made as it descended. Thankfully and most importantly, it had not smashed the two men who had heard a creaking noise. Just in time they had looked up and squeezed into what turned out to be the only safe corner. YES, the crowd that had gathered outside was much relieved when Kaavau and Alex emerged. The three young men putting the kunai on the roof thankfully jumped to safety when they heard the ominous creak.

What happened? The main heavy pole going the width of the building had slipped off the sidewall perhaps because of short nails used. The roof was too heavy with kunai grass and thus not sufficiently braced. All these factors contributed to the collapse. As there were no injuries, everyone seemed to realize God had protected. When the long bench-desks were passed through open window spaces one after another of the pupils outside said, “That's where I would have been sitting.� Yes, if it had happened an hour or two earlier it might have killed or injured those in classes; if a day sooner, some men working on the apex of the building could have been seriously injured or worse.

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Our village after the schoolroom collapse

Taking the grass off the roof was a major task and took the rest of the day but many hands made lighter work of it. The near tragedy seemed to draw the people and us closer together, and literacy did not stop as it might have done. A week of translating Mark was lost, but in the years ahead many who escaped harm that day were able not only to read Mark, but the entire New Testament as well. In the mail received earlier that week from Ukarumpa there was a notice of an unexpected and timely gift and the friends who sent it to our headquarters in California were happy with the way it was used. Alex bought corrugated roofing iron from Ukarumpa, and the roof went on very quickly and lasted until the schoolhouse was torn down in 2009 at the time of our leaving Vaaqera.

Unless getting bogged down in the mud, it usually took just over an hour to come to Vaaqera, so we had a number of visitors. One of those visits brought an unexpected message from our director, Al Pence, asking us to come and look after children in Teen Manor Children's Home for six months from June to the end of the year 1966. It was not easy to leave Vaaqera at that time, but we knew it was what God had planned so we agreed to do it. We enjoyed being with children attending High School, and our three 59 | P a g e

Teen Manor Children’s Home (Photo courtesy of Craig Campbell)

children also liked having a bigger family. It was during this time that Alex took Robin and Dale to Angau Hospital in Lae for tonsillectomies.

Apart from these six months, our time was always divided between Vaaqera and Ukarumpa. Most of the children’s school years we lived in our cottage at Ukarumpa during the week and went to Vaaqera Friday afternoon with macaroni salad or something else ready for the evening meal when we arrived. The children were happy to have the weekend in the hamlet of Vaaqera, which was one of two main villages comprising Suwaira, the name given to Vaaqera and Orena with their smaller hamlets, by the Kiap. We held literacy classes Saturday morning and caught up with the week's news and did other things.

One time we pulled into our yard to find preparation for a singsing in full swing next to our house and knew there would be no sleep that weekend even if Alex put in his earplugs. He had even donned his motorcycle helmet on a previous time to no avail.

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Our house at Ukarumpa (Photo courtesy of Craig Campbell)

Weekends sometimes brought sad events. When we arrived Easter weekend 1974, we found people mourning the death of Hore, a young married friend with a wife and two daughters. We had spent quite a bit of time with him in the village and at Kainantu Hospital during his battle with liver cancer. I remember the family putting banana leaves on his body at one stage to help cool his fever and make him comfortable.

I marveled at his spirit of acceptance despite his suffering. Wailing continued through another night and when they carried his body, wrapped in a bark cape, to the grave near our house with body fluids seeping through the cape. This was stark death. We were glad he was free of pain and with Jesus. His older brother, Mai, looked after his daughters though did not follow tradition and marry Ovara, his wife.

Of course, whenever we left Ukarumpa to go to the village for the weekend or during school holidays, all the animals we had at Ukarumpa had to be taken in the back of the Land Rover. Two chickens were given Norwegian names here anglicized: Herna Perna, Haana Paana and Grandma. It was a sad day when 'Dr. Dad' performed surgery on Haana Paana's crop to remove a piece of foil and she died. It seemed as though Grandma was not going to lay eggs like the other two, so the 'vet' once more operated only to find eggs would soon have been laid.

I forget what happened to the ducks, Yellow Bill, Dirty Bill and Snowy, but Wompy was still with us and later the guinea pigs. Wompy was a Japanese Alsatian dog given to the children by 'Uncle' Jim Wan, a dear Chinese friend who owned the Korona Coffee Plantation situated in a Tairora area. Indian Runner ducks came along later, but were not transported to the village. They were not only pets, but usually laid a huge 61 | P a g e

egg each day which would be used for omelets and baking and given to Ukarumpa friends. The first furlough after the children had the hens as pets we were staying at dear friends and chicken was served.

The children couldn't understand why anyone would eat chicken, but I think they did after a lot of persuasion.

While we were at Ukarumpa, the children attended the small primary school two miles away in the Aiyura Valley. Ancie Schindler, wife of Aub who was the manager of the Agricultural Station nearby, started this school in the fifties for the expatriate children, including her own, in the vicinity. When SIL came into the valley their children were welcomed and rode their bicycles or rode on the old bus that SIL had acquired.

The school was put into the hands of SIL about 1974 when all the teachers were SIL members.

In 1962, Ukarumpa High School began with five pupils from Canada and the USA, and three teachers. The students did correspondence lessons from Blackfriars in New South Wales, Australia. The building was a 10 by 12 foot bamboo-walled building situated on the oval across from our house. In 1963, when numbers had grown to thirteen, the first permanent building was built on another site that it still occupies today.

By this time, as it was the only 'international' school in the area, it started to attract expatriate pupils from Kainantu and Aiyura. The enrollment increased when Aiyura National High School opened in the late seventies for Papua New Guineans to complete grades 11 and 12. The government initially funded the children of expatriate staff to attend the Ukarumpa schools.

Of course, as they grew the children’s interests changed. When they were in High School, Alex put up a table tennis table, in the Literacy House after desks were put aside. Some others enjoyed it, too.

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The first school building at Ukarumpa (Photo courtesy of Gail May)

The primary school in the foreground and the SIL Aviation Department and airstrip behind the school (Photo courtesy of the SIL PNG Archives)

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The high school (Photo courtesy of the SIL PNG Archives)

The original school bus, which took children from Ukarumpa to the primary school about two miles away (Photo courtesy of the SIL PNG Archives)

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In 1966 when we were at Teen Manor, Alex had a small house built in Vaantura/Bantura village up the mountain from Ukarumpa and rode his motorbike for 15 minutes to work with Aapapari and Oqekairaa on the Tairora New Testament translation each weekday morning. During this time Robin and Dale went with Dad to Lae Hospital to have their tonsils removed. The neat little cars Dad gave them and the ice cream they had helped, but even though we did our best to prepare them there was not much talk about it for many months afterwards.

Sometimes village life helped the children with their yearly high school Science projects or Cultural Arts.

For example, Robin collected and researched information about various stones and rocks. One year Dale collected samples of wood from the forest and identified them. For this he had the help of the literature put out by the Forestry Department in Lae and also an older Tairora man who told him the uses of some of the wood.

They learnt a great deal also in Pinata. Alex had been holding literacy classes with the men, travelling regularly there on his motorcycle, but at the end of 1973 we decided to spend three weeks of the children's holiday together there. Alex rode his motorcycle from Vaaqera for two hours and then trudged five hours through the bush to reach the village. The children and I had a choice. We could drive from Ukarumpa, where we were at the time, three hours in the Landrover to the end of the road and then walk five hours to the village. Alternatively we could fly in the helicopter bubble for twenty minutes. Naturally we chose the latter, with Roger Dodson as pilot, and the journey was a thrill for us all.

It was here that Dale spent time with the men learning about the various bindings on arrows and wielding a sharp knife to do some carving on the arrowheads. This became his Cultural Arts project. While he was doing that, Robin and Llyn learned how to make traditional bilums. First they had to roll string from the raw bark and then they made their small string bags. I joined those classes too but my ‘mother' completed my feeble effort lest her reputation as a teacher be ruined. Robin's research into string bag making was her Cultural Arts Project for that year.

Llyn now remembers those days as amongst the best times of her life and I think she speaks for Robin and Dale too. She felt we were living simply like the people - sitting around the outside fire in the evening and going on many hikes with young and old, sitting on the huge rocks looking down into the gorge. We also loved walks down and up the steep hill to the river to bathe and wash clothes. Once we took time there 65 | P a g e

cooling some cans of soda that a friend of Llyn's thought we needed for Christmas, knowing we did not usually drink it.

We were impressed with the unique irrigation system set up in Pinata using lengths of bamboo. This was not done in the northern areas. There were no pigs, but we saw small bush animals cooked on sticks and enjoyed sweet potato cooked in hollow lengths of bamboo.

At the outset, this dialect sounded foreign to my ears, but soon I could make small talk with the barkcaped women who were either smoking their bamboo pipes or crocheting string bags from virgin bark. I enjoyed seeing fifty keen men gathered twice a day with Alex to continue to learn to read the primer Alex had made in the Pinata dialect, and once in a while we heard them reading with the moon as their light.

That holiday was an enviable experience and we enjoyed it again as a family for another two weeks in May of 1974. Parting was not only sad for dear 'Grandma' who cried, with outstretched hands, as the helicopter bore the children away. I, who had been hesitant going without being able to have a continuing a relationship with those I had grown close to, left part of me there but came away with my faint heart encouraged and felt better equipped for future encounters with Tairora people. I had learnt to feel that the whole family now ‘belonged’ and I thought of some words Alex had shared with me when, prior to the first Pinata trip, I had felt discouraged:

“Listen to me, you stubborn-hearted, you who are now far from my righteousness. I am bringing my righteousness near, it is not far away, and my salvation will not be delayed." Isaiah 46:12 -13

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Pinata - Top right: Robin with raw bark and a friend with a piece of beaten bark ready for a cape. Top left: Lois with women below: men fascinated with helicopter.

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When access by road became more difficult, the Vincents flew by helicopter to the village. On this occasion, visitors were brought by helicopter from Ukarumpa.

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Helicopter at Ukarumpa (Photo courtesy of Wycliffe Bible Translators’ Archives)

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Chapter 6 Setbacks and Progress There were some discouraging times and one example was the outbreak of Cargo Cult. Cargo Cult was a belief common in Melanesia that the white man had appropriated goods that should belong to Papua New Guineans.

As we drove up the road to our house the Easter weekend of 1973, we noticed the area around the cemetery had been cleared revealing many sunken graves. On the knoll above the cemetery a house was being built which made us wonder what was going on.

Singing came from some of the houses for several nights so Alex walked to the village square the second evening quite late and discovered through Mai and another young man that the spirit of an ancestor had come upon Eve/Evay and told him to have the graves cleared, make a huge feast and sing so the 'cargo' would come. They believed the white man received all the material possessions and good things by mistake when they were misdirected on their way to the Tairora people. The next morning several men came to our house, and Alex shared some words from John 8 about Satan being the father of lies and so on. They seemed interested and wanted to meet together to hear more but the air was very oppressive.

We left for Ukarumpa and returned ten days later on a weekend when our children were once again not in school.

We saw that the house posts on the knoll were gone. What did it mean? Some people came each morning to hear portions of Genesis and the Gospel of John read and discussed, but the singing continued along with eating a certain type of bark which induced trances in the spirit mediums like Aunu, a young married woman. One evening Alex visited one of the houses and saw Aunu jiggling about. She spoke to Alex in a brazen voice while in a trance and said, “I am doing Jesus' work.” Alex said firmly, “Be quiet in Jesus' name” and after a little while she talked normally. People listened as Alex told them, “You cannot communicate

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with the dead, but Satan and his messengers can speak and make you think you are able to.� Aunu was her normal pleasant self the next day.

Two older women and a man were also spirit mediums, but all became Christians in later years. One day we took a walk up to the foot of a mountain and found very old graves cleared. Near one we saw a bottle one-third full with pigs' blood indicating some kind of sacrifice and cleansing ritual was taking place in the nearby village though we never found out exactly what was happening. Although there continued to be bark-eating and people in trances once in a while, it seemed people had given up Cargo Cult for the time being since no 'cargo' had come.

The saddest times were when death came. On March 15, 1974, Alex was returning from Obura in the South Tairora where he had spent several days of intensive work preparing language lessons for Evangelical Brotherhood Missions missionaries when he was hailed by a man at Vaaqera and was told that Mai's 29 year old brother, Hore, was ill. Alex entered the house where Hore was lying on a mat on the floor and his first thought was that he needed medical help quickly.

Hore said he wanted to go to the hospital, which indicated how desperate he was after being sick off and on for three months. Before Alex could start procedures to get Hore into the back of the Land Rover one of the leaders recounted how Alex had brought Hore and Mai's sister, Humaa, home from Goroka Hospital just a few weeks earlier after she had died as a result of a blow on the head in a village fight. They expressed their trust and appreciation, which is rarely shown though might be felt. They wanted Alex to talk with them.

He then had one of those rare opportunities to share about Christ. He told Hore that trusting the barkchewing and the ancestors to help him only seemed to give an answer, but eventually led to death because the source was Satan. Trusting Christ, he continued, meant life now and forever. Talking went on for over an hour among the men present and Hore, though in much pain, agreed that all Alex had said was true.

Alex prayed for Hore's spiritual and physical healing and marveled at the openness there was to hear about the Savior, Jesus Christ.

They arrived at Kainantu Hospital an hour or so later where Hore was quickly admitted even though it was 4:30 pm. It was interesting to find a Christian nurse on duty. As Alex left Hore in the care of those who 72 | P a g e

had come with them from Vaaqera, Hore said in a weak voice, “Ti eqara”, 'my white man’, which carried with it affection and thanks saying 'You look after me - you're my friend.' Alex was deeply touched.

Having heard no word about Hore for several Days, I went to the hospital and was told he had cancer of the liver and had less than a week to live. Hore asked for Alex to take him home so he could drink his own water and die. I was broken up and could say very little to Mai who was there. I put my hand on Hore and asked God silently to touch him where needed.

Just the day before Alex had felt impelled to translate 1 Corinthians 15 for Hore and gave it to Mai to read to him. We continued to pray and asked others to do so also.

Ten days later we had two good visits with Hore as he lay outside in the shade on a mat with banana leaves on his chest to cool his body. Alex again read 1 Corinthians 15 and explained that the most important thing for Hore was to be ready to meet the Lord. To Alex's questions and statements Hore responded with a soft 'hmm', which was all he could muster and Alex knew he understood. We laid our hands on him and prayed. We left that day thanking God for lengthening Hore's life and giving us another time together. There was sadness and peace side by side in our hearts.

Hore died the Thursday before Easter Sunday so we did not see him again though we fully expect to see him in Heaven. However, the crying and wailing, clay-covered faces, torn clothing and look of utter hopelessness was around us. Such an oppressive feeling with women crying out, “Hore, come outside!”

All night it continued as ones and twos came and wept beside the grave into which the crudely-made box containing Hore's body had been lowered with body fluids falling to the ground. Death in the raw. No sweet-smelling flowers or songs of hope. We wept because we will miss Hore, his quiet manner, his smile and sense of humor.

Of course, our children were affected by deaths also. In 1976 our good friend Ori's daughter, Paaqi died.

She had been in our lives a long time, married Aive and had one daughter Elizabeth who was crippled in one leg. Robin was so moved that she wrote a poem which was a great comfort to me, coming from my daughter at that time of sorrow:

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Dear Mother,

God sometimes gives us very hard times, We don't know why; we can't understand.

At times like this only God knows.

Who are we to say 'Why?' We must accept it as part of God's plan.

Times like these are meant for testing, strengthening, to see how we can stand up.

To see if we really can praise the Lord, no matter how hard.

Nothing happens with God's children that wasn't planned.

There will be times when memories hurt.

There seems to be no rhyme or reason, but don't give Satan victory - Praise the Lord!

Think of all the good things that will come of this.

Let God do all your worrying for tomorrow.

He can take the sting out of every pain.

Praise the Lord, again and again."

I love you, Robin

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(June 11, 1976)

In August, 1976 Alex's mother, Stella meaning 'star’, made her first airplane flight from Sydney to Lae where she boarded a Cessna single-engine airplane for the first time to come to the Eastern Highlands to see first-hand where her second son, Alexander Ralph, had lived since November 1956. He had seen her each time we were on furlough, but now she was visiting us and we and her three grandchildren were excited to have Grandma with us for few weeks.

Grandma Stella at Vaaqera

During this time she experienced travel on the rough roads in the Land Rover and a helicopter flight to Pinata with Al as she called him. She also went with us to Vaaqera village and met many of our Tairora friends and saw how they and we lived.

One thing bothered her - the children with runny noses so much of the time did not have tissues or handkerchiefs to wipe their noses. However, she had had a far more dramatic introduction to village life.

Having arrived at Vaaqera late afternoon, we had just finished unpacking the car when I received news from Nanori in the almost-deserted village because people had not returned from their gardens, that 75 | P a g e

Auta, the third of the four wives of the tultul and mother of Rupi had been in labor for many hours on the floor of the smoke-filled naamura, unable to deliver the baby. Of course, Nanori did not witness this, but the women attending her relayed the message to him.

There was no medical help nearby and Alex realized that a quick turn-around to Kainantu Hospital, 30 miles away, might be necessary. He climbed the stile and went outside the fence around the village to the maternity hut despite the fact men never went near where women were in labor. When told a hand was visible he retreated quickly knowing the baby was dead. He told the few women there to prepare Auta for the trip. Then he and Dale readied a stretcher, took out fence posts, helped Auta onto it and carried her to the Land Rover.

Most people had not come home from their gardens and so there was no woman relative to accompany Auta and care for her basic needs as was usually the case. Not even her Qoqoqi would go had he been home.

When I asked of the few present, “'Who will go?�, no one stepped forward. There were just blank looks and no cajoling made anyone step forward. What could we do? I was frustrated. Auta lay with her blanket pulled around her and a small string bag beside her with a couple items in it, Alex was ready to go, but there was no-one to accompany her. Then suddenly she was not alone. Robin Itai offered to sit in the back with her arm around Auta giving whatever comfort she could. So off they went hoping to get home before it was too dark.

At Kainantu Hospital she was put on an intravenous drip and perked up. Alex prayed for her and soon she was off in the back of a yellow Toyota, the ambulance being out of order. Again over a rough road of sixty twisting miles to the Goroka Main Base Hospital. Alex and Robin Itai returned to Vaaqera before dark.

Thankfully, the next morning someone went to be with Auta in Goroka. The baby had to be cut from her body by the ex-pat doctor, but Auta lived. She later went by herself to Goroka for a hysterectomy. She was from the Orena hamlet and before this dramatic event seldom came to visit us, but from that day on she was grateful to Alex who prevented her death. She visited often and yes, a bond between us was formed.

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This kind of frustration took place again and again because of their being used to accepting the inevitable and not wanting anyone to go to hospital lest they died away from home. However, I continued to push those I thought would benefit from medical help into action and ever so slowly they began to go to the local clinic and hospital. Still there were many times they waited too late to seek the help that would bring healing, the result being death at home when the rituals of the shaman did not work.

The most depressing times of all were when battles took place with neighboring Tairora villages or when someone killed someone from another area. At such times all our work stopped.

Vaaqera was one of the two hamlets comprising Suwaira, the other being Orena a twenty-minute walk away at the foot of Mt Elendora. Although there was intermarriage between the two hamlets they remained traditional enemies. It only took a spark to ignite the smoldering feeling of old grudges when a Vaaqera man killed an Orena cassowary causing Orena to revive a year-old sorcery charge. Then one thing led to another and in January 1981 the men of the two hamlets picked up weapons. Several men at Vaaqera died and Ntaavo had to have a leg amputated. Because no Orena man had been killed, revenge was uppermost in the minds of the Suwaira men. A few tried to maintain peace, and the police came but to no avail.

One Sunday towards the end of October, about 25 men from Vaaqera with bows and arrows, hid themselves in a secluded spot along the river on the road to Obura and ambushed the unsuspecting young men from Orena who were returning from a sports event at the Obura government station south of the Suwaira area. One young man died and others were wounded and fled into the grasslands and home to Orena.

Back home at Vaaqera the victory chant, “We killed one of yours� was sung on Sunday and continued all day Monday. That Monday many people from the entire area were gathered at Obura for the celebration of provincial day when an Orena man stood and shot an arrow into Kapi's back. He was young man from Vaaqera taking a medical course with the Evangelical Brotherhood Church who never suspected anything like this. He was hidden by the missionaries until a government helicopter could evacuate him to Goroka Hospital. He survived and later became a nurse and served in remote areas of the Highlands.

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Our house and school house stood alone after the Vaaqera fire in 1981. The villagers were scattered to small hamlets.

A couple weeks later a Vaaqera hamlet was burned down and precious coffee trees cut down close to the ground. Thankfully, the people were aware there could be reprisal so had moved elsewhere. Eventually several other hamlets were established on the hills of the area, but Vaaqera hamlet was never rebuilt.

When the Orena people made peace and some retribution was paid, life regained its old rhythm though we were the only ones who continued to live at Vaaqera. Our lives returned to normal with people coming to visit, work with Alex, learn to read and for other reasons. After a time the Orena and Vaaqera hamlets again interacted as they had before, which included intermarriage between the two.

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Chapter 7 Developments at SIL Ukarumpa November 22, 1986 marked Alex’s thirtieth anniversary in Papua New Guinea. The previous week, those of us who had come between 1956 and 1966 gathered in the Meeting House at Ukarumpa to reminisce and thank the Lord for the years He had given to us. Because Alex was the only one there who came in 1956, he was honored and even got a cake. By that time, translators were working in 198 of the more than 700 different languages and 53 of the 1998 had a New Testament. The first edition of the Tairora New Testament had been completed in 1979.

The Meeting House in the early 1960s (Photo courtesy of SIL PNG Branch Archives)

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A typical house at Ukarumpa (Photo courtesy of SIL PNG Branch Archives)

Those thirty years had seen huge changes at Ukarumpa, which seemed luxurious compared to how it had been at the beginning when Alex saw only two houses, both non-permanent. The young casuarina trees planted in the late 1950s were now tall. People had built their houses, though modest and economical, in very individual ways so that each was attractively different. Their gardens had become well-established with flowers and trees. As a result, the air was loud with the calls of exotic birds like the flocks of brightly colored lorikeets.

In addition, there had been all kinds of structural developments. Our three-room house now had running water and electricity. There was a well-stocked store within walking distance and a clinic with a doctor and a dentist. The total number of Wycliffe members in Papua New Guinea (PNG), which became an independent nation in 1975, now numbered approximately 700 and included people who offered many different skills. In addition to translators, there were pilots, teachers, medical staff, engineers to service vehicles, primary and secondary schools, clinic, print shop, children's homes and a larger Meeting House.

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The store at Ukarumpa (Photo courtesy of Charles Micheals)

The clinic at Ukarumpa (Photo courtesy of Charles Micheals)

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Lois Vincent at the Linguistic Center at Ukarumpa (Photo courtesy of Charles Micheals)

The Meeting House at Ukarumpa (Photo courtesy of Craig Campbell)

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Inside the new Meeting House (Photo courtesy of Wycliffe Bible Translators’ Archives)

It was a happy community with members coming from all parts of the world. It was a community that shared joys and sorrows and thus became a closely bonded group.

The Meeting House was the social hub of Ukarumpa. Needless to say, we were thankful when the larger one replaced the original small building. That had been by the sawmill and had a sawdust floor with pressure lamps providing the lighting for evening meetings. Now we had a large hall with electric lights and a raised “stage� area at one end. Besides church Sunday morning and evening, there were gatherings on many occasions.

How we looked forward to High School Choir and Band concerts, along with piano recitals and one time a violin recital by a visiting artist! Someone donated a grand piano which was enjoyed immensely both by those playing and those listening with the only payment being 'take a seat'. We did not feel we missed out on music or plays and often said we would rather see and hear performances by the High Schoolers and others than professional productions.

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There was even a little shelf made high above the stage to the side where the fiddler sat and played when Fiddler on the Roof was performed. There were plays too numerous to remember, but we recall Robin sang in the chorus of Pirates of Penance. The High School teachers and others did an excellent job of directing and we were thankful for the artists among us who made beautiful backdrops.

The Pirates of Penance (Photo courtesy of Craig Campbell)

1991 - Grade six musical “Road Code� (Photo courtesy of Charles Micheals)

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1986 - Primary School - Colby The Computer Musical (Photo courtesy of Charles Micheals)

1977 - High school choir concert (Photo courtesy of Bruce Neher)

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1994 - High school outreach group – Light Force (Photo courtesy of Charles Micheals)

The Meeting House was also where Conference was held, at first once a year, but then biennially and later by representation when our numbers increased. It was a time when translators came from various areas and renewed friendships with fellow translators and support workers. As people sat listening to discussions their hands were busy with handwork like knitting, embroidery and cross-stitching or addressing envelopes for a current newsletter. It was interesting to see the skill of one of our male members creating a tapestry.

We are very thankful for the many lasting friendships formed over the years with many stories to be told.

One of my best friends was an Australian, Mary Stringer, who had come to the country as a missionary translator in 1962 with another young woman Joyce Hotz. Together they had trekked up the mountain from the Markham Valley to Kusing, one of the few isolated villages in the small Waffa language group.

Later they were able to go by helicopter. I also hiked into Kusing from the South Tairora with a friend from the Evangelical Brotherhood Church who was doing a Bible course in Kusing and I later made two trips by helicopter, once to be with Mary and another time with Joyce. Mary and I often enjoyed a Scrabble game in the evening.

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Mary Stringer and Joyce Hotz in Waffa village doing Bible translation work. (Photo courtesy of Wycliffe Bible Translators’ Archives)

In her spare time, Mary had developed her wide knowledge of Australian birds to in-depth knowledge also of the birds of Papua New Guinea. While at Ukarumpa, she organized a bird watching group, which I joined. Bird watching with members of the Aiyura Bird Watching Club, was a Saturday morning experience. We trekked through the bush and, with binoculars to our eyes, waited as silently as possible to see various birds including some of the Bird of Paradise species. We were also directed by nationals to bowers of several different species of bower birds.

It was a good time together with Mary Stringer and Chris Sanderson and others, each one knowing more than I did. There were the evening meetings where I learned some Latin names and other facts about birds, those fascinating and beautiful creations of God. Several members of the group created a list of the local species and then wrote a book called ‘Birds of the Aiyura Valley’ for use in schools. When we were looking for birds we sometimes were in a Tairora area near Ukarumpa, and on a few of those Saturday mornings it helped that I was able to ask local men in Tairora where such and such a bird might be found.

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In addition to my early morning walks up and down the hills at Ukarumpa and running around the High School Oval, I also ran around the oval in front of our house many late afternoons with friends Kathy, Carol, and Gwyneth. Sometimes for a change we took walks up a steep grassy hillside and enjoyed the beautiful view of the valley on the way down or chose to walk up and down the hills of Ukarumpa Center.

Susan, not a runner, often joined us on those. Running or walking we were getting exercise while we shared about our work, plans, family or discussed a current issue. It is often mentioned in our correspondence though we are divided between two continents now.

When having lunch with David and Andrea Mathieson and their family oneday I saw a paraglider floating in the air from a high hill and knew I would also like to fly with the young man doing it, Rob Lithgow. He was the son of translators on Woodlark Island and was a pastor in Australia where he learned to paraglide and became a licensed instructor. He came to Ukarumpa several times to instruct people who were interested and to give rides in tandem to people like Alex and me.

Lois paragliding at Ukarumpa

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That day I said to David, “I would like to fly like a bird”, and his reply was, “Go for it, Aunt Lois.” We adults were 'aunt and uncle' to the young people.

A time was arranged and, one late afternoon when the winds were favorable. I was strapped into a soft seat and then strapped to Rob's behind me. We ran a few feet and then off we went silently for a short ride with the canopy billowing above us. Rob mentioned I was the oldest person (70 )to paraglide with him. I was very thankful for this ride and another later on, though I had to carry the seat back up the hill each time. They were never-to-be-forgotten experiences and to think David and Rob were classmates of Dale, our son, during their school years at Ukarumpa. The second time Alex also had the opportunity to paraglide.

We were very grateful to our friends, Jim and Rowena Wan, for the small piano they gave us. Jim was the owner of the Korona Coffee Plantation a half hour's drive from Ukarumpa but his father owned a store in Lae where they also spent time. The piano was in Lae and, due to the moisture from high humidity there, the keys did not work. Alex wasted no time going to Lae in the Land Rover to get it. We were all excited the next day when it was unloaded from the back of the Land Rover. It fitted perfectly in our small living room. A member who had been a piano turner loaned Alex an instrument to squeeze out the moisture in each felt. Yes, a laborious but satisfying task. It gave our family hours of relaxation and enjoyment playing it, and our children were given piano lessons by friends.

The SIL secondary school changed almost beyond recognition from the 10 by 12 foot bamboo-walled building situated on the grassy oval in front of our house. In 1963, when the number of pupils had grown to 13, the first permanent building had been built on the site that it still occupies today on a lower level.

As it was the only ‘international’ school in the area, it started to attract expatriate pupils from Kainantu and Aiyura and a few from further afield. When Aiyura National High School, for Papua New Guineans to do their 11 and 12 grades, opened in the late 1970s, the government funded the children of expatriate staff so they could attend the High School at Ukarumpa; a happy arrangement.

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Ukarumpa High School (Photo courtesy of Gail May)

Ukarumpa High School had pupils working towards both Australian and American examinations while it encouraged many social activities. The Senior Banquet took place in the Teen Center in May of each year for the graduates and third year High Schoolers. Their parents decided on a theme unknown to the attendees until the Friday evening when they walked into a transformed Teen Center.

One year, I was conned into being the president of the committee by friends who said they would do the work. They did. Many hours were spent by parents and others preparing for the evening, including painting scenes on the walls by the Ukarumpa artists. I remember Fairy Tales, Swiss Alps and visits to various countries and other themes. I enjoyed doing a little of this and that even when my children were no longer at Ukarumpa as it was a fun time with parents and others seeing the transformation. There was always a specially decorated area where photos were taken of the couples or a group that decided not to date. Fathers were the servers dressed appropriately for the theme. I recall cummerbunds one time. The whole event became a lovely evening and delicious food enjoyed by all.

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1983 High school Banquet (Photo courtesy of Bruce Neher)

One by one, each of our three children graduated from High School and left Papua New Guinea. Seeing them off was one of the hardest things we ever did, knowing we would not see each other for a few years.

When Robin left for Norway Alex and I just sat and looked at each other all day. I think I read a book when not doing household things. Preparing meals for the other two, I found myself setting a place at the table for Robin. We found it hard to say good-bye to Dale who went via Norway and had a little time with Robin before going to New Jersey.

Then, a few years later, there was Llyn leaving and that was difficult also, though it brought some comfort knowing she would be with her siblings, as Robin was then living in Texas after a few years of schooling and working in Norway. We knew each one was ready to leave the nest and, of course, they never left us in one sense. Alice Harder whose husband Dick taught at Aiyura Primary once said to me how good it would be when their kids were on their own. She loved them but meant there was less responsibility.

However, like Alice, we found the children still wanted us to be there when they had a need though we did not hover over them.

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As I said, the first edition of the Tairora New Testament was completed in 1979. It was a time of joy and thanksgiving when we held the first copy of the New Testament in our hands. Then there followed a dedication organized by Tairora people on the village square of Ahaunkira on the hill above Ukarumpa with Tairora and some of their SIL ex-pat friends rejoicing with them.

After some speeches by various Tairora men to give some history and express their thanks for the New Testament there was singing and reading the Word, ending with prayer. Men and women bought their personal copy of the New Testament with its red cover that day. Then there was time to visit and enjoy afternoon tea with sweet potato and other food plus the cakes the SIL women made for the occasion.

Oqekairaa who helped with the translation alongside Aapapari was present, but not Aapapari, the tultul at Aupora, who had died not long before. He had believed what he read and looked forward to having his own copy so he could learn more. That was another event with sorrow and joy mingled.

The main focus during times at Ukarumpa was going to Tairora Primary Schools and other venues to hold literacy classes for children and adults. Many miles were covered with adventure as well. On one occasion, those of us inside a schoolroom at Tuvukaira heard angry shouting followed quickly by a 'grandpa' coming into the room saying he was not going to stay out there with arrows flying. However, anger was soon vented, the group dispersed, and I went out and got into the Land Rover and headed home. Not until I was almost home did I realize an arrow had strayed and pierced the tire tube causing a slow leak.

Another adventure was after teaching two classes at Evangelical Brotherhood Mission as my son Dale and I headed home. He had graduated from high school and was going to New Jersey in the USA shortly. I was very thankful he was at the wheel that afternoon when we saw a series of fence posts placed upright between two bridge planks blocking our way with men yelling as they came toward us. “What should I do?” Dale asked. “'Mum, I could ram the posts.”

Not wanting anything to happen to him, I told him to turn and head back to the mission station. I was thankful young hands were on the wheel as he expertly backed up and was able to turn around in a limited space just as one of the young men grabbed the handle of my door. Land Rovers in those days did not have lockable doors.

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Lois Vincent with Araa Vahi in the literacy house at Vaantura (Photo courtesy of Wycliffe Bible Translators’ Archives)

We returned to the mission station where the Swiss ladies, Esther and Elizabeth, contacted a station in the Western Highlands that stood by for such events and they in turn contacted our SIL Director who came out with a policeman. We were told to meet them at the bridge which we did.

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The young men who yelled at us were not to be seen, but we learned from the older men that they accused us of killing a baby pig on the narrow bridge above the stream. We did not see how that was possible and there was no blood on the tires.

Gordon Bunn, our director, gave the older men a small gift of money. They were satisfied and home we went. I was again very thankful to have a young man at the wheel who acted so quickly and well. Alex did not know about this because he was at Vaaqera, but when he came home the next day he drove out to the village and had a talk with the older men and found out raskols 'crooks' were dominating the village.

I was thankful for the many times the Lord looked after me on the road, and, though I was cautious, I did not have fear.

Alex and some Tairora men early in the translation project (Photo courtesy of SIL PNG Archives)

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Chapter 8 Sorrows and Joys One of my saddest memories is of a young girl, Ose, with ulcerous sores eating away the flesh between her thighs. Her father would not allow her to be taken to the Kainantu Hospital again, so her mother, Aivake, dressed the sores with rags she had to wash and reuse, doing the best she could for her daughter.

One day I visited Ose as she lay on her section of the sleeping area smiling and then commiserated with Aivake. After leaving, I stopped among the coffee trees away from the hut crying and praying, overcome with helplessness. Not long after, Ose was relieved of her pain and wen to be with Jesus and life went on as normal for Aivake and her other children.

Another very sad time was when fire from falling embers swept through a small two-story hut in the middle of the night. Ianti woke, picked up the baby and tried to make her way out of the inferno, accidentally dropping the baby. People helped her make the half hour or so walk to the village clinic through the river and up the hill and down again.

I heard the news the next morning and went to the village clinic and saw her charred body though she was still alive and speaking a few words. Her mother Raaqu was there with others, watching fluid flow through the intravenous tube. There was no transport available to the larger Health Center at Obura, so I hurried home and told Alex who drove down to see the nurse.

The nurse had a plastic-covered mattress put in the back of the Land Rover and Alex then drove back to the village clinic and placed Ianti on it. Some family members and a nurse hopped in and Alex drove the seven miles as carefully as he could to the Health Center at Obura so as not to cause any more pain, though maybe Ianti was beyond feeling it by then. The staff at Obura sent her by plane to the main hospital in Goroka hoping for survival, but it was only a few days later that a vehicle appeared at Vaaqera and placed a black body bag on the ground. My heart ached as I saw Raaqu come and just stare.

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No tears at that time, but I knew they would come. I told her maybe it was not good for her to see her daughter and suggested the bag not be opened, but even as I said it I knew it was unthinkable she would not have a last look. I never asked. We lay in bed that night listening once again to the wailing until dawn, this time for Ianti and her baby.

There are other sad memories too. For one, a nephew and uncle were putting in a fence when an argument developed and the nephew picked up an axe and split his uncle's head open over the dispute instead of sitting down and talking. So many times the weapon was wielded and then there followed the weeping which could not bring the person back.

There were tragic accidents as well. One afternoon in November 1990, Rupi Oqoqi, who was happily working for the Evangelical Brotherhood Church (EBC) and enthused about the future, was a passenger in a truck loaded with coffee bags on its way to Kainantu when the brakes failed and the truck rolled backwards and ended up off the road. It turned over as it tumbled down the steep incline. One passenger was killed and Rupi became a paraplegic and was taken to Goroka Hospital.

He was all smiles again when the wheelchair came in May 1991 through EBC and others. Many people pushed him up and down the hills and he continued to teach preschool children to read Tairora four days a week at his home. Pressure sores, which eventually were the cause of his death, were a constant source of pain even with the special cushion made possible by a Rotary Club in Queensland through the kindness of Ruth Burgin, our friend who had lived in the Highlands.

I was touched that Rupi invited Rauvarai, who was blind, to live with him and his family in his big hut. They gave each other mutual support, sitting facing each other over the fire, sharing stories and memories and reading God’s Word. Sadly, Rupi died on June 21, 1991 at the age of thirty five, just a week before he and Timoti’s father would have been baptized with 78 others at the first baptism at Suwaira. He left a wife, Okiri, and Esi, a teenager and only child. He told Esi he was going to Heaven, and she answered, “That’s okay, Papa. You go.”

In August 2006, Timoti Uhaa lost his leg in a car accident coming down the mountain when all the passengers in the open back were thrown out, including him. This was a terrible thing for a young married

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man living a life that depended on physical activity. He was able to get around much more easily when a wooden prosthesis was made possible through a doctor at the government hospital in Goroka.

Sometimes tragedy came from tribal fighting. Arauviri was wounded in a battle with Orena, a neighboring Tairora village, and taken by road to the hospital at Goroka 70 miles away where he died due to infection in the wound.

It was never easy to find someone who was willing to carry a corpse in the back of their PMV (Public Motor Vehicle), but one was found. When I saw it had arrived down the road at a little side road to the hamlet where Arauviri lived, I went down to find Manuhi, his daughter negotiating with the driver about the cost before the body coud be taken from the back of the truck. I thought it was heartless, but like it or not, I was to find how the system worked. I spoke up because I felt so sad for Manuhi, but to no avail. The price was decided, much higher than usual and the message was shouted out across the fields. Soon the money requested was put in the driver's hand. I walked up the hill feeling very sad.

I could go on speaking about so much sorrow, such as Unto killed by a bullet, children dying from dehydration, and Tuvaati putting an arrow in his little grandson Jethro because he was angry over something that had nothing to do with little boy. I heard about it and went to the village clinic and found it hard to listen to his crying out in pain as the nurse removed the end of the arrow. Such cruelty was hard to take.

And so it was time after time with injuries incurred and death by arrow, axe and later bullets. These are, but a few of the times when my heart ached. In times of mourning, women made themselves necklaces from bark (after western style clothes were introduced they were sometimes from cloth) and wore them until they fell apart, which would be a sign that the time of mourning was over. I saw a few women who had cut off a finger joint when a member of the family died, but the practice had been discouraged before our time.

Very seldom was death accepted as being from natural causes except in the case of the elderly. Sorcery would be suspected immediately and efforts made to determine the source. People would go to women and men spirit mediums to seek answers. I was talking to Omai, a tultul and spirit medium one day during

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the time a number of people died as a result of a virulent flu. It was as though a curtain was between us when nothing I said penetrated her thinking.

One time, when I was very discouraged because there seemed no response to the Tairora Scripture they heard and read, Alex wrote out on a very small piece of paper a word from George Mueller: 'The beginning of anxiety is the end of faith and the beginning of faith is the end of anxiety.’ Other passages in the Bible confirmed this and I then knew results in the hearts of Tairora were in God's hands, not mine. I could not take credit for any success and nor was I to carry a load of guilt if I saw none. It is His work and not mine to change hearts.

Each time there was a death of a Tairora friend, the Lord led me to His Word and sent words of encouragement from family and friends. Once it even happened that someone who had no idea of my state of mind at that time wrote something exactly suited to my need. This happened when we lived at Vaantura, and Ori, one of our first Tairora friends and helpers, lost his wife, Toqera.

I had been close to her and was actually in the operating theater with her at Kainantu Hospital when she had minor surgery; this was to tie her tubes to prevent another pregnancy for fear that her heart might fail during delivery since she had given birth to a premature baby who did not live. A few days after surgery Toqera died, possibly due to infection because the windows in the theater had been open. When I drove Ori to the hospital for him to arrange for the ambulance to take her body to the village it was a time of crying together on the way. Then, on one of the days of the funeral a man more or less asked, “Is there anything more, any hope?” Ori replied that he believed in Jesus. That was a beginning for him and a great joy for us. His faith was tested later and held strong when his married daughter, Paaqi, died unexpectedly.

As in the past, God’s Word always encouraged and comforted me.

One of our greatest joys was when a group of adults, after instruction about the reason for baptism, was baptized. This took place either in a pool or more often in a stream that was blocked off for the occasion and the surface strewn with flowers. At Suwaira, these baptisms were overseen by Tairora pastors with the Evangelical Brotherhood Church.

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Baptisms overseen by Tairora pastors with the Evangelical Brotherhood Church

Dreams were important and one time when Vuari, a married man, was sitting with me on the ground outside our house. He expressed his fear that God had forgotten him because He had not spoken to him through a dream in a long time. This led to talking about God now speaking through His Word, not discounting that he might also hear from Him in a dream as Joseph, Mary's husband, and so many did.

For me a satisfying and favorite time was when a person learned to read so they could enjoy reading the God’s Word independently. Alex and I had started teaching literacy classes right from the beginning so, by the time Alex, with the help of Aapapari and Oqekairaa at Vaantura and Tuvaqu and Raqia at Vaaqera had completed the first edition of the North Tairora New Testament in 1979, many people wanted to read it.

What a thrill it was to see Tairora people being able to sit and open their Bibles anytime and anywhere!

We would come upon people sitting by themselves outside their huts reading their Bibles: a young man, sitting in his doorway in early morning with an open New Testament, Timoti lying on his bed with one leg amputated, reading God’s Word, Uko, an older woman who later became a deaconess reading John 15, a favorite chapter of many. It is a wonderful thing to see people becoming strong in their faith instead of

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Nraku cupping her hands to show how she was held by Jesus

being dominated by fear of sorcery and threats from neighboring enemies though that never ceases. It was sometimes a step forward and one back but for most it happened.

Some, like Nraku/Naku did not come to the literacy classes though, being a very intelligent woman, she would have learned to read quickly if she had. After she became a Christian, she would come and sit with me and recite Bible verses she had memorized and would cup her hands and say vehemently, “I am held in Jesus' hand.� And she was.

Another latecomer was Winnie Qoqoqi, a single woman who always had trouble with her vision. Her mother, Vova, had taken her to a doctor when she was a child because of a problem with the sight in one eye. However, for whatever reason, he could do nothing to prevent her losing sight in that eye. Even so, she attended the first literacy class Alex taught, but did not continue. Looking back, I wonder if it was because it was hard to see the blackboard and flash cards or if it was because of shyness.

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Reading the Tairora New Testament: from left to right, Taututai Vuari, Avi Eve and Winnie Qoqoqi

After she became a Christian, her desire to read Tairora so she could read the Word of God in her mother tongue brought her to my door one quiet afternoon. I thought it was just one of her usual visits until she said, “I want you to give me private reading lessons.�

I was hesitant because of her being forty years old and wondered how to fit this into my schedule, but she was determined so I asked the Lord to help her and me. It was a real joy for us both when she succeeded.

She went on to read for her own pleasure and to read to nieces and nephews and her Christian mother for twelve years. Then, a year before we left Suwaira for the last time, she learned she was losing the sight in her remaining eye. After consulting doctors, it was found there was nothing to be done to save her ability to read, though she retained enough sight to move around. Now her nieces and nephews read to her and her mother. She came often to look at the Bible verse Alex had outside the front door and asked me to read it as she recited it. Yes, she stored a lot of God's Word in her memory and heart.

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I could say so much about the joy of seeing many turn away from darkness and come to Jesus, the Way, the Truth and the Life. Looking back, I think the friendships, acts and words of kindness and the joys we experienced through the years living with Tairora people outweigh the times of sadness.

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Chapter 9 Reaching Our Goals We continued to be based in Ukarumpa and Suwaira, but worked on dialects of Tairora spoken in other areas too. The Pinata dialect was the most inaccessible of the six dialects south of the Suwaira area.

As mentioned earlier, I was completely lost the first time I heard it. Alex set to work on it earlier than I did, having visited in 1960. In 1972 he did further investigation of this area comprised of 800 speakers.

In 1974 the Pinata men, at Alex's request, built a small one-room hut for Carl and Pat Whitehead who were in initial training and needed to have village experience before they would choose which language group to live among. Though they did not choose to remain with the people and translate into that Tairora dialect, they did collect some data and established good rapport, which paved the way for us. It also provided a home for us when we were there on two occasions, as described in Chapter Five. Shortly afterwards, Alex produced more literature at Ukarumpa and took books on subsequent trips in the helicopter.

The advent of portable computers made a big change to the way we worked. Alex, very thankful for an early Kaypro computer, began working in a little shack at Bantura, assisted by Oqekaira, who was from Bantura himself, and Aapapari, an Aupora leader. This first Tairora New Testament revision was completed in 1994 with Raqia and Tuvaqu at Suwaira. I read through and checked with a group after it was translated. The men that Alex translated with did not know English, so it needed this additional checking with other Tairora speakers. This revision was completed the same year as the Obura New Testament was published.

We did not officially train anyone to carry on with our work, but both North and South took it on themselves to do literacy. Earlier we had trained teachers in one area.

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The translation of the South Tairora Old Testament has begun, and a team has started to work toward completing the remaining 48 % of the North Tairora OT. Progress could be summarized thus:

North Tairora Testaments: 1 - 1979 - 1000 copies 2 - 1994 - Revision and reprint – 500 copies 3 - 2005 - 500 copies 4- 2008 - Old Testament 50% - 250 copies for testing 4- 2009 - Jeremiah - 50 copies for testing 5 - 2012 - NT and 52% of OT - 500 copies

South Tairora Testaments (Omwunra-Toqura, commonly known as Obura or South Lamari) 1 - 1994 - 500 copies 2 - 2000 - 1,500 copies 3 - 2016 - 1,000 copies

The Tairora-English Dictionary with a purple hard cover was published in December 2010 in Finland. We thought the 250 copies were ordered would be adequate for a first edition, but in the providence of God we learned too late that 700 copies were on the ship. We are thankful that most of them are in hands of individuals and in schools.

The dictionary is by no means an exhaustive recording of so rich a language as Tairora. Ever since mid1958, data was gathered from everyday conversations, observations and later from texts written by Tairora speakers from various areas of the North Tairora, all checked and double-checked. It is hoped that there will be some who will use this as a base to produce a fuller dictionary.

As well as the dictionary helping to preserve the language and culture, it is hoped it will encourage school children and the community at large to value their mother tongue and not consider it inferior to Tok Pisin or English. Likewise, it is hoped it will benefit non-Tairora speakers such as health workers and teachers living in the community. The dictionary includes example sentences for most of the entries in Tairora and English. There are also appendices of some scientific names and the grammar written by Alex.

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Tairora Dictionary

Over the years we made many close friends among the Tairora people. One of them was Rauvarai, who could best be described as a helping hand, with a kind word and a friendly smile. We were impressed by his perseverance in walking uphill though he needed a cane to navigate the uneven road. He usually arrived with an agenda, such as asking a question about a Bible passage so he could understand it more clearly before teaching his Sunday School class.

Sadly, in 1997, Rauvarai incurred an illness that left him permanently blind. Even though he cannot see any longer, he trusts God and continues teaching the children in his community. He enjoys listening to preaching, but cannot read God's Word for himself. But now, with the advent of AudiBibles, God's Word in audio format is available to Tairora.

Rauvarai and his daughter came to the Ukarumpa Training Center to join hundreds of others in celebrating the dedication of the Tairora AudiBible. The raised circles on the front of the audio player make it easy for him to manipulate. His wrinkled fingers quickly find the button for turning on the recording of the Tairora 105 | P a g e

Scriptures, forwarding to a new chapter or book of the Bible, or playing one of the Tairora Scripture songs that are also on the AudiBible. Rauvarai no longer needs to ask others to read God's Word for him. His face alight with a smile, he exclaimed, "Now the children and I can listen together to God's Word being read aloud on the AudiBible!"

The AudiBible recordings are wonderful for people like him and meet the needs of many other people too. Still, though, we remain totally convinced of the importance of the written WORD. We will always be so thankful the Evangelical Brotherhood Church for working with us on the translation. They encouraged pastors to use the Tairora Scriptures.

By 2005 there were no more Tairora New Testaments – they had all been distributed. So, we began work on another to include some of the Old Testament. The edition that was published in 2012 and includes 52% of the Old Testament and is called KOTIRA UVA (God's Word). We are thankful for computers, which certainly helped us save a lot of time editing.

Rauvarai with his AudiBible

It should be pointed out, though, that they did not make the translation task itself go faster. This remained a matter of slow, careful work with our local assistants.

On February 28, 2007, we flew to Port Moresby with Carol and Neil Anderson good friends over many years to receive the Logohu Award and Medal from Sir Paulias Matane, the Governor General of Papua New Guinea. We were given it for our contribution to the country in literacy, New Testament translations and dictionary work. It was a very special occasion when over a hundred people received awards for various reasons. Most of the recipients were citizens of PNG and had made an appreciable contribution to their country.

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We four were sitting below the Governor-General Grand Chief's home waiting to be called to Sir Paulias Matane's verandah to be given instructions about the protocol of the occasion when we had an anxious moment. Alex and I thought our names were not on the list and realized our coming had not been confirmed when the Andersons were called and we were not. Then Carol and Neil noticed someone else there whose name was not on the official list of recipients and inquired about us, and an official beckoned for Alex to come up and get in line on the verandah. While waiting and wondering I opened the Tairora New Testament we were going to give to Sir Paulias and read Philippians chapter 2 where it speaks of the Lord humbling Himself, and I knew that was the attitude I was to have. So, I left the receiving of the award in His hands.

Sir Paulias Matane, the Governor General of Papua New Guinea and his wife, Lady Kaludia with the Vincents

An hour passed and then Alex beckoned to me as he came down the red-carpeted stairs and I joined him.

As we sat with others under the shade of the branches of a huge tree, we waited to be called to receive the Logohu Award. It was a memorable occasion. When we were called, I curtsied as I met Sir Paulias 107 | P a g e

Matane and his wife, Lady Kaludia who were so gracious to us. All was a blessing. We four received the awards on behalf of all our colleagues because we knew we had not done anything more than anyone else to have been suggested for the award by our director, Brian Hodgkins.

Buying Tairora Bibles and AudiBibles (Photos Courtesy of Brandy Ingle and Karen Weaver)

The Tairora AudiBible Dedication at Ukarumpa (Photo Courtesy of Lindsey Alexander)

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Top left: Vuari Oqoqi looking down at NT he was very excited about, Middle left: Vohaa Uva Nanori happy with his NT, Bottom left: Lois and women proofread what Alex and the men translated, Top middle: Uvaintai Raariri bought each book as it became available, Top right: Philip, son of Vuari Oqoqi and wife Anna, who work with young people, Middle right: Tuvaqu Vauto, Raqia Ntuhe and Alex at translation desk

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The final farewell: Top left: Pastor Deri and with wife Kokaahi, Top Right: The choir ladies

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Chapter 10 Leaving And so we left Vaaqera for the last time in 2009. There were many tears as the choir sang us farewell songs, accompanied by the old accordion that I had first taken out in 1957. The proceedings were led by Pastor Deri and it was a comfort for us to know that we were leaving behind many who loved God's Word.

When we said goodbye to our village friends for the last time before retiring to the US, Rauvarai gave us a verse of assurance: "Even to your old age and gray hairs I am He, I am He who will sustain you. I have made you and will carry you; I will sustain you and rescue you." (Isaiah 46:4) Every day we find this promise to be true. Some of our friends could not be there, like Ivani, working away from Suwaira at that time; she wrote us a letter we have cherished saying:

May our Heavenly Father continue to bless both of you in your work for His service. 1 Corinthians 15:58. You brought the Good News of Jesus Christ to the people of Suwaira which will be greatly rewarded up in Heaven and not long and you will reap the harvest. I also would like to take this opportunity to thank both of you for your love and concern for the people at Suwaira. Soon you both will depart from Suwaira but your care and love will still linger in our hearts as a memory.

After the stresses and joys of the last two weeks in the village it was so good to be with family at Ukarumpa who loved us and understood. We were occupied with many things at Ukarumpa until the end of 2010 as Alex was busy with finalizing some projects, and we were burning things, giving away others, and packing what we wanted to take with us in a small crate. We gave our cottage at Ukarumpa to good friends, Ray and Cheryl Gibello, translators and church builders who are with Papua New Guinea Missions living in an isolated area. It was needed by them for many reasons, including translation consultations and fellowship before returning to months in the village situation.

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Here is the letter I sent out on November 30, 2009:

TO GOD BE THE GLORY… This was the hymn that was sung, while the HS Band played, the morning of November 20 at the Ukarumpa High School oval when we stepped out of the helicopter and walked on the red carpet to chairs provided for us and were given a beautiful bouquet of flowers. We were overwhelmed by the love shown to us by our colleagues, children and PNG employees. Thus began the healing of our frayed emotions. Rich Mattocks, our Regional Area Director, who spent a lot of time organizing the event, and Tim Scott, representative of the Directors, made comments and shared some Bible verses. Lynn Wood prayed for us and then some people lined up to give us hugs.

Full circle: With Larry, MAF pilot and engineer, giving Aunt Lois a farewell hug. In the photo on page 34, he is the little boy on my knee.

That morning we got up from our mattresses on the floor in the living room at 4:00 am, and at dawn people surrounded the house wailing, followed by some of those ‘monsters’ mentioned by Des in the October Update. Our time at Suwaira spanned 49 years, and I believe what we did with the years our Father gave us was more important than the number. We are thankful for His forgiveness and love the times we did not reflect Him. AND thankful for our Tairora friends who also forgave our blunders.

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It became the norm to hear a knock or cough outside very early in the morning with requests for the diesel generator, solar panels, furniture, bedding, roofing iron, doors, flooring, wood stove, windows, computer and on it went as though we had an inexhaustible supply and could meet every request. Old friends and those who worked closely with us got priority, and we did the best we could for others. Most were happy but some were not. It was nice that there were a few who never asked for anything, or asked in a nice way like Uko, an older Christian woman, who was very pleased with the blanket given to her, and dear Winnie with small bench and cushions.

THANK YOU for praying for us during those weeks from October 14 to November 20. We had hoped the schoolhouse would be used as a reading room and our house given to Lena, a mature Christian woman with Bible School training who has worked at Obura for many years and is soon to retire. She would have held Bible courses and sewing classes with women, but very early it became apparent that it would only result in quarrels and the wrong people getting everything.

During our second week the schoolhouse was dismantled by four Christian men in four hours in an orderly manner. Some of that roofing iron, two windows and a blackboard will be used in the first Sunday School building. The day before we left Alex had the roofing iron taken off the house except for the kitchen/dining section. Before we were out of the house Friday morning men were swarming over it tearing the rest of the roofing iron off with our permission. Gavin Jones, the helicopter pilot, arrived just after 8:00 am and I know the people were pleased that he circled the area twice before we turned toward Ukarumpa.

Darkness and light are always in contrast. Sauai and Rebecca recently became Christians after many years of going their own way. Sauai’s non-Christian father made demands, but was finally satisfied with what he was given. Philip and Hanna, a young couple who are prayer warriors, youth co-ordinator (Philip) and Sunday School teachers asked for prayer and our blessing. Nelly Isaiah walked a few hours from Obura to bless us. After reading about Elijah’s mantle being passed to Elisha, she mentioned that Traudel (EBC missionary) had left and now we were leaving and she wanted us to pass on the literacy work at Obura to her though she has been doing it for a number years and told us 144 women are reading their New Testaments. I held her hands and did as she asked and then she prayed for us.

We are thankful that the man who had written lies about us to our director in May admitted before the senior pastor and two others that he had lied because he wanted money. Fellowship was restored.

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The Tuesday of our last week it was a joy to see 40 more people baptized. It poured the whole time, but I got some pictures with one hand while holding the umbrella in the other. Grey-headed Mai and Kuvaira were the first to do casual work for us in 1961 and they were baptized along with their wives.

On the last Sunday, church was held outside our front door instead of at the church and we heard singing from many groups and a short message plus farewell speeches by a few. A monetary gift was given to us along with many colorful bags women had made with wool/yarn. Mai Iomi, our friend from Day One, spoke appreciation and slipped a K50 note in my hand.

It was not easy to leave friends at Suwaira, but we hope we can see some of them again before we leave PNG though the matter of the two murders committed August 4 have not been resolved. This means that very few venture out of the area for fear of being killed by relatives of the two murdered men.

Monday morning after our return we realized we needed a time away before the dictionary is prepared for publishing and archiving is done of valuable Tairora materials. Alex also needs to complete a paper he began years ago on the six Tairora dialects.

We are very thankful that we can fly to Cairns December 3 on our SIL King Air plane and return December 18. Accommodation at Tree Tops Lodge also fell into place that day. Obviously, our Father had put it all in place even before we knew our need. While there, we will make a trip to Townsville to see if that is where we are to retire. The plan is to leave PNG in March 2010 and visit our family and friends before settling some place in Australia. (NOTE: no decision about where to live in Australia)

THANK YOU. So much more we could share but we wanted you to know we are focusing on the kindness shown to us over the years and the good things God has done at Suwaira. We felt buoyed up by your prayers and be assured that we pray for you and send our love. Lois

‌FOR THE THINGS HE HAS DONE."

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November 20, 2009 we stepped out of the helicopter at the Ukarumpa High School oval and were greeted by the helicopter pilot’s wife, Carrie Jones. We walked on the red carpet to chairs provided for us.

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Retirement Home We arrived in Waxhaw, North Carolina in February 2011 and a month later we were thankful for a twobedroom apartment which opened up for us at Waxhaw Creek Apartments, a Wycliffe retirement complex with 30 ground-level apartments in a country setting. It is just across the road from the JAARS Center, which provides many services. In this comfortable setting we are able to interact with colleagues from PNG and other parts of the Wycliffe world.

Waxhaw Creek Retirement Apartments at the JAARS Center in Waxhaw, North Carolina (Photo courtesy of Chris Lou)

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Chapter 11 Postscript After our retirement to Waxhaw, USA, our work still continued. The edition of the Tairora Bible that was published in 2012 includes 52% of the Old Testament and is called KOTIRA UVA (God's Word).

On February 25, 2013 we received five copies of this Tairora Bible in the mail. We were told that five hundred copies were at customs in Lae, a seaport city in Papua New Guinea, and might even then be on the road to Ukarumpa in the Highlands. There it would be stored in the Hansens’ house for distribution until they left on furlough in June 2013.

When Alex opened KOTIRA UVA which means "God’s Word", he and I both shed tears of joy and thanksgiving to the Lord for this beautiful book, a reprint of the Tairora New Testament plus Old Testament books and portions. It contained all of the New Testament and the complete books of Genesis, Ruth, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, Nehemiah, Esther, Psalms, Proverbs, Jeremiah and Jonah. It also included selected chapters of Exodus, Numbers, Joshua, Judges, Isaiah (1, 2, 6, 40, 52-55) and the first six chapters of Daniel. There was also a glossary of certain terms, a time line chart from Adam to Christ and eight maps.

Though we wished all the Old Testament and not only 52% could have been included, we were thankful for this book with its 1,240 pages of the precious Word of God for Tairora speakers in their mother tongue.

The printer in Korea did an excellent job and we were very happy with the production. We were pleased with the embossed gold letters on the hard black cover and the two bookmarks (blue and red). Alex continued to pour over it and said, “It is good.”

In the preface of the book we have expressed our thanks to God and to all those who prayed and gave finances to pay Tairora men and women who helped with the translation and checking of it for accuracy.

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We give thanks to God for the many prayers and gifts of God’s people who have helped in the production of this book, which is dedicated to God and His glory.

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(Back Cover: Alex and Lois Vincent with their children Llyn Namari, Dale Ori, Robin Itai)

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(Back Cover: Alex and Lois Vincent and their children (L-R) Llyn Namari, Dale Ori, Robin Itai)

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