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Daily Scripture
 
"Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass."

Psalm 37:5

INAPANGS ACKNOWLEDGE NEED FOR RIGHT ALPHABET

January 23, 2006

The knock at the door interrupted an ordinary day for missionary Kelley Housley last week. As she greeted her young Inapang friend, the girl handed her a letter.

The missionaries had received letters before from people in other villages -- written in the trade language, Pidgin, to ask if the missionaries could help fix something or to ask for medicine.

But this letter was different.

As Kelley looked at the names written on the front she saw that that the writer used a couple of the new letters that the missionaries had just showed some of the school boys.
Kelley read the neatly written letter out loud in the Inapang language.

"Friends, good morning. I have a small 'talk' to send to you with this paper. I have a question that I need you to answer. I want to know where does God live? If you answer this question, I will be very happy with you. I don't know the answer so I am asking you. My talk is finished. If you are able to read this paper, send me back an answer written in my language.

"Your Friend, Ambo"

Kelley laughed and cried as she read. She then took the letter to show her husband, Bill, and their co-workers Daniel and Elizabeth Moore.

Just the week before, the Housleys and Moores met with a few of the school boys who had learned to read and write in Pidgin. To illustrate the need for an alphabet in the Inapang language the missionaries gave them some words to write. The boys struggled to spell their Inapang words using the Pidgin alphabet.

As each one arrived at a different spelling for the same word it became very clear to them that they had major problems if their village was going to learn to read and write their own language using the only symbols they knew. The Inapang language has a few different consonants and one extra vowel, so they were trying to do something they didn't have the tools for. The missionaries let their young students ponder the situation.

Sunday afternoon the missionaries realized that it was extremely quiet around their houses. They soon learned that the school boys and the village leaders called a community meeting to discuss the literacy problem. Everyone was there, even women and children who didn't know what a letter was. They spent the afternoon sounding out simple words and trying all the different vowels on the end and were never happy with the fit of a,e,i,o, or u.

The Housleys and Moores heard the results of the meeting Monday. The people were convinced that they needed more than the Pidgin alphabet if they were going to learn to read and write Inapang correctly.

As the missionaries met again with the students, they sounded out a couple of the sounds in the Inapang language that do not appear in Pidgin. Then they showed them the new symbols and the smiles indicated the lights went on.

"That is right." one of the boys laughed as he spoke. "That is just how that word sounds. That way you wrote it fits it."

The results were pleasing as the boys were given more words to spell. Instead of getting five different answers for each word, they were on the same track nearly every time.

The missionaries responded to Ambo's letter. They wrote a letter back using the Inapang alphabet that said they were happy to have read and understood his letter and that he had listened well to their talk about the new alphabet. They told him they had all read his question, and as soon as they pass this last culture and language check and get started on Bible lessons, they will talk about his question.

Pray for the Housleys and Moores as they continue to learn the Inapang culture and language, and as they prepare literacy materials and Bible lessons.