# LCMS Convention Workbook_St. Louis Missouri_1969_S12 # Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration) 12 MISSIONS teacher graduates each year. Meanwhile the government is reexamining the whole education development and may shortly exercise greater control over the staffing and operating policies of both mission and administration schools. The task of extending education throughout New Guinea is so vast that the few teachers available will have to be placed with greater care than before. Christian teachers must learn to witness and teach as Christian persons, even though their schools are not parochial schools in the sense that that term is used in America. f. Scripture Translation. New Guinea is a Babel of tribal languages. Linguistic scientists expect that New Guinean pidgin will become the lingua franca of the territory. English will remain the language of education, international relationships, and much of government. Possibly five or six other strong regional languages will continue to be used for a long time to come. From the first the NGLM-— Missouri Synod has been in the forefront of research into language trends and in efforts to translate Scripture into native tongues. The NGLM-— Missouri Synod works primarily in one lan- guage area, Enga, with a few missionaries working also in Ipili and Duna. It is estimated that there are more than 180,000 Enga speakers. Three men now work full time in Scripture translation, with another doing part- time work and training new missionaries in the language. In order to complete the task as early as possible, NGLM - Missouri Synod took the initiative in calling together other denominations doing translation work in Enga. Scripture translation is now a joint task in which Lutherans, Baptists, and Roman Catholics participate. The Gospel of Mark. translated into Enga by Dr. Burce, was published 2 years ago. Several other New Testa- ment books are ready for publication. Each book is extensively field-tested before publication, using mimeo- graphed copies of the translation. Dr. Burce was also on a team that translated the New Testament into New Guinean Pidgin. The publication (by the British and Foreign Bible Society) of the whole New Testament in this language in February 1969 was an occasion for great rejoicing among Christians throughout the island. Dr. Paul Brennan, linguist and anthropologist, was recently called to New Guinea and has begun research in paralin- guistic communication and ethnomusical features of the Enga language. g. One Heart and One Way. Six years ago the Lu- theran Mission New Guinea and the New Guinea Lu- theran Mission— Missouri Synod, as well as the New Guinea churches they served, began doctrinal studies toward the formation of one Lutheran Church in New Guinea. A statement of the teachings of the Lutheran faith has been drawn up and will be used as a resource for teaching doctrine in the Wabag Lutheran Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of New Guinea (which now numbers some 350,000 baptized persons). With God’s leading the Lutherans of New Guinea will shortly form one Lutheran Church. Sad to say, the difficulties (chiefly organizational and stylistic) that have attended every stage of negotiations have arisen more from the expatriates than from the New Guineans. The New Guineans, long divided by tribal allegiances and isolated by mountainous terrain, also have their problems. But there can be no mistaking their “Lutheranness,” as those who heard the two New Guineans who came to America on a tour with Rev. Max Scheimann in 1968 can testify. The problems that sending churches have in expressing Christian unity dare not be allowed to impede the expression of the unity God has given His people in New Guinea. h. Getting the Word Out. Adult literacy efforts have gone hand in hand with the spread of the Gospel in New Guinea. Lutherans have jointly established a rather large publishing venture, Kristen Press, at Madang on the northern coast. In connection with the islandwide publishing endeavor, the Lutheran missions hope to open a creative writing center where New Guineans can be trained to write for the New Guinean market. National literacy can be achieved much more rapidly by creating attractive, appealing literature as a tool for increasing the desire and ability of New Guineans to read, as well as for acquainting them with God’s love in Jesus Christ. The isolation of Highland peoples makes the use of radio for educational and evangelistic purposes attrac- tive. To date, however, no Christian organization has been able to obtain a license from the administration for a transmitter, and little has been done to make better use of a growing number of administration stations. The NGLM — Missouri Synod is studying how best to make use of this means of communication since it is common- place to see New Guineans walking along with transistor radios slung over their shoulders. i. Forward into the ‘70s. New Guinea has a population that seems small compared with other countries in Asia (three million). But in no other country does our work contribute so directly to the manner in which a whole nation will develop. Will it be a truly Christian develop- ment? The future looks bright. But there are problems that should make us reflect on the way we think and the way we do things in our culture. For example, the New Guinean has a completely integrated world view. He sees everything as part of a total-life situation under God and does not divide life into sacred and secular segments. Do sending churches of the West become agents of a destructive secularization when they address themselves too exclusively to “religious’’ concerns and divide into sacred-secular components what New Guineans (and the Bible) do not divide? Is the Gospel of God’s love for all of life then heard as a Gospel for one small segment of it? Will the New Guinean make the same separation and assume that a lot of life that he used to understand as subject to the whims of the spirits is outside the control and the redemption of Christ? Will he then conclude that it is still under the reign of his ancestral spirits and therefore still in need of manipula- tion by magic? Or will he lose interest in the Gospel be- cause it pertains to such a small segment of what he knows and wants life to be?