For weeks, Dao translation helpers and missionaries Scott and Jennie Phillips have been in marathon sessions to finish translating the book of Acts. They have now completed about 25 percent of the New Testament in the Dao language.
"From early in the morning to late in the evening we have been working through concepts and questions such as, 'How do we describe Paul's shipwreck on Malta when the Dao people are a mountain dwelling tribe and have never seen a ship?'" Scott wrote.
Or, "How do we write down that all the passengers on the ship swam to safety when none of the Dao people have ever swam a day in their lives and there is no verb in the Dao language for 'swim'?"
"The questions keep coming and coming," wrote Scott. "Each one of these interesting questions has to be worked through one at a time, all the way through all 28 chapters of Acts. This is what the last few weeks have looked like for Jennie, our translation consultant and the Dao translation helpers."
But all of this hard work is entirely worth it.
"After two long weeks of late nights and all day sessions discussing question after question and working through concept after concept in the Dao language, the end result is that another 1,007 verses are in final form for the Dao people group."
The Phillips have flown out in the helicopter to print the new translation.
"These copies will then be carried back in for the believers so that for the first time in the history of the Dao people group, [they] will have the opportunity to sit around the fires in their own little thatched roof houses and read the book of Acts with their own eyes and in their own language!" wrote Scott.
Pray that the printing will go well, and pray that the Scriptures that have been translated will be used by God to bring the Dao believers even closer to Him.
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