Tag Archives: Bible translation

The Drive Home, We Never Forgot

Posted on by

The Drive Home, We Never Forgot

During a school vacation in Belem, Brazil, Jo and I decided to take our three teenage daughters and two of their friends on a quick trip to visit the Canela village. They were very excited since they hadn’t been there for a long time. After ten days of visiting and work, we started the two-day trip back home to Belem in our little quarter-ton pickup truck. Jo and I rode in the cab while the kids sat on the baggage and boxes in the cargo bed.

On the second day, Jo and I looked forward to arriving home by late afternoon. But the evil one had other plans. I was driving as fast as our little four-cylinder engine could push the truck along and slowly caught up to a large gravel truck. There had been no oncoming traffic for quite a while, and I saw nothing up ahead, so I pulled over and slowly began passing the big truck.

When our cab got even with the truck cab, the driver looked down, saw Jo, smiled, and waved, she smiled and waved back. Then, as we pulled ahead a little more, he saw the teenagers in the back and apparently wanting to have some fun to break the boredom of a long drive, he accelerated to keep his cab window even with them. Since we were now going up a long slope, our little truck couldn’t go any faster, so I gestured at him to slow down and let me pass, but he just grinned and kept even with us.

Then, up ahead, a large truck suddenly appeared over the top of the hill we were climbing. I leaned on the horn to alert the gravel truck driver to let us pass, but he, not noticing the approaching truck, kept looking at the girls and maintained his speed.

As the oncoming truck barreled towards us, I slammed on the brakes to get behind the truck. To my horror, he, too, suddenly seeing the disaster about to happen, slammed on his brakes, and we stayed side by side.

I immediately swerved to the left side of the road and crashed into the bush and saplings filling a shallow ditch. The huge five-ton truck, loaded with machinery, roared between us and the gravel truck with inches to spare. Our adrenaline level, already high, spurted over the top as the driver blared his airhorn, venting his fright and anger at us.

Heaving a sigh of relief, I backed out of the ditch and started driving again just as the gravel truck driver opened his door and looked at us. I gave him the universal ‘What were you trying to do?’ hand signal, both hands open and shaking my head.

Later, we all thanked God for preserving us through another hateful attack of the evil one who would do anything to stop the Canelas from receiving God’s Word in their own language. All seven of us could have been killed, but even if only Jo or I had been killed, the Canela translation project would have been terminated. Jo and I worked as a team, and neither of us could translate without the other. We were encouraged that God showed us dramatically that He, not Satan, was still in control.

An excerpt from our book From Adventure to Spiritual Warfare, which is currently being published. It is a memoir of the twenty-two years the Popjes family lived and worked in Brazil focused on working with the Canelas to translate the Bible into their language.

Focus on Writing Ministry

Posted on by

First Mention of Jabez
Two weeks ago, in my first blog post of the New Year, I mentioned that decades ago, I read a booklet, The Prayer of Jabez, and prayed his prayer, “Oh, that You would bless me and enlarge my territory!” 1 Chron. 4:10
The result was that God granted my request, vastly expanded our speaking ministry, and even got us started in writing and publishing books.

Focus Prayer on Writing Ministry
I reread this booklet in December, and instead of the traditional “New Year’s Resolution,” I wrote a personal update of Jabez’s prayer and read it daily. Here it is:

“Please bless me abundantly in the writing ministry you have given me. Use the blog posts, stories, and books you lead me to write to expand your Kingdom on earth greatly. And keep me from the evil one’s temptations.”

Praying First
I have prayed this writing ministry-focused prayer every day since early December. The reason for this new focus is that Jo and I cannot travel long distances anymore, and I find it nearly impossible to think of the next thing to write when I have a speaking engagement looming on the horizon.

I look forward to continuing to work together with Jo who reads everything I write and always gives helpful suggestions for improvement. We expect to work together like this for whatever years God still grants us in life and health. We are already beginning to recognize some of God’s blessings in this ministry.

The first five books we wrote and published were collections of blog posts I had written in previous years. The next three books were short memoirs, of a child, a teenager, and a family man leaving for Brazil. These eight books were processed by volunteers and published cheaply through Amazon.
The current memoir, however, covers the twenty-two years our ministry was focused on Brazil. Those decades turned out to be a spiritual battle for the souls of the Canela people.

Result of Prayer
I was pleased to discover that God had already begun to answer our daily Jabez prayer and blessed us financially to the point that we now had money to have this memoir professionally edited and published by a highly experienced publisher.

The book will be going through several edit levels, and we are still constantly making significant improvements to it. We are excited, however, to know that God continues to bless not only the writing ministry of this book but four other writing tasks we are working on.
One of them is to write the explanations under photos of a large Canela photo book being compiled and published by our oldest daughter, Valorie, and her husband. It will make an excellent companion piece for the current main book!

 

The Art of Telling True Stories

Posted on by

Keep the Hearer in Mind: The Art of Telling True Stories

“Why did God create people?” The answer, according to Yiddish tradition is, “Because He loves stories.” Who doesn’t love to hear a good story?

The Criticism
One day, after hearing me tell a story at a meeting, a friend said, “I remember the situation you talked about. I was there and it was not like you told it. You left some things out.” He then told me of several elements that I had omitted or de-emphasized and hinted that I had lied. He was right, they were facts, they were true, and I had left them out and thus changed the story, putting a different twist to it. But lying? I needed to think about that.

Driving home alone that night, I retold the story to myself several times, adding in all the missing elements and undoing the changes. This time, however, the story felt flat, the details distracted from the point. So, I continued to tell that anecdote with things left out. Was I holding back on some facts? Yes, I was. Was I telling lies? No, and here is why.

Photographers and Storytellers
One year while on furlough in Edmonton, I took a fantastic course on photography taught by Freeman Patterson, a world-famous Canadian photographer. I also studied his book “Photography and the Art of Seeing.”

A good photographer does not just snap a scene, she studies it, knowing her purpose and her viewers. She isolates what is irrelevant, or might distract her viewer, and focuses on what she wants people to respond to. So does a good storyteller. The storyteller needs to know his purpose, his audience, what to leave out, what to contrast, and what to focus on, so that his point will get through clearly to his audience.

Who would criticize the photographer for asking a family group to move slightly to one side to eliminate the power pole in the distance that looked like it was growing out of Grandpa’s head? We are grateful when she tells little kids to look up instead of down at their shoes. No one would ever say, “You have to leave it in! There really is a power pole in the background, and the kids were looking down at their shoes!”

One Rule for Photography and Story Telling
My storytelling rule and my photography rule are alike, “Never let the facts stand in the way of a good story, or a good photograph.” Power poles are facts, but I eliminate them, focusing on the people. Good storytellers, like good photographers, get rid of distractions and focus on the main point. All good stories, just like all good photographs, are changed in some details, but they tell the truth.

The same is true in Bible translation. As a Bible translator for the Canela people of Brazil, I had to remember, “Never let the facts of culture or language stand in the way of a good translation”.

I always asked myself, “What does this passage, illustration or metaphor mean?” And “What is the best way to translate that into the Canela language and culture?” I never hesitated to change the Jewish culture-based metaphor into one based on Canela culture. It may look like a lie, but it is the only way to tell the truth. Happily, I am in good company.

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were the first Bible translators of the Christian era. Jesus often spoke of the kingdom of heaven in Aramaic, the language commonly spoken in Palestine.

Matthew, who translated for the Greek-speaking Jewish people living in Asia, Europe, and Africa, simply translated the words kingdom of heaven straight into Greek. He knew his Jewish readers would know exactly what Jesus meant by that term since they still maintained their Jewish culture although they spoke Greek.

Following the Apostles’ Example
Mark, Luke, and John, however, translated Jesus’ stories, from Aramaic into Greek for non-Jewish people who lived in a Greco-Roman culture. They kept the culture of their readers in mind and did not hesitate to change the very words of Jesus to suit their purpose.  They knew that the term kingdom of heaven would instantly bring to their readers’ minds the rather tacky group of gods like Zeus, Aphrodite, and Hermes—not at all what Jesus meant.

So, they unhesitatingly changed the words kingdom of heaven to kingdom of God. While Matthew used kingdom of heaven thirty-one times, Mark, Luke, and John never used that term even once. Instead, they used kingdom of God, Mark fifteen times, Luke thirty-eight times and John three times. Paul, also, in his letters to non-Jewish believers never once used kingdom of heaven but used kingdom of God eight times.

Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the original gospel writers changed the actual words of Jesus and could have been accused of lying to tell the truth. Just like all good photographers, Bible translators, and storytellers.

Note: My Next Blogpost will be published Thursday, January 4, 2024. Have a great December filled with Christmas and New Years celebrations!

God’s Secret Weapon

Posted on by

God’s Secret Weapon

The Problem
Each time Jo or I told a story to the Canela people about Jesus performing a miracle, they told us a story of the great exploit of some Canela culture hero from their legends and myths. We tried to tell them that the stories we told them were special, true, real, and unique. Our stories were about the Great Father’s Son. They didn’t understand the difference. We prayed that someday they would.

Then it got worse. The Brazilian government changed, and the new officials would not allow any missionaries to live and work among any indigenous peoples. We felt like we lived in exile away from our home and friends in the Canela village. We prayed that God would intervene.

 The Permit
We kept on working at the mission centre in the city, completing seven easy-reading booklets and the books of Luke, Acts, and 1&2 Thessalonians. When the newly printed books arrived, we made a formal request to the government to visit the Canela village to deliver these ten books.
We praised God when we received a notice that permission had been granted but with exceptions. I had to fly to Sao Luis to see the government official. He gave me the permit and asked me to read it, paying careful attention to the last sentence. “The books of sacred Scripture are not  included in this permit.”
“Sign this permit,” the official said, “to promise you will not leave the Scripture books in the village.” I shot up a prayer and signed the document. At the centre, we all prayed for God’s solution.

The Excitement
The next day, John, a fellow missionary, and I loaded a steel drum with seventy-five sets of books packed in plastic bags onto his pickup truck and left for the Canela. They received us with great joy and excitement especially when they saw the seventy-five parcels of ten books in their language. The chief and elders immediately ordered me to the central plaza to report.
I showed them each of the seven reading books. The elders were pleased to see several of their favourite legends in print. When I finished, the chief pointed to the three remaining books, the Scripture books. “What about those books?” he asked.
“Oh, those are different. I can’t leave them here, even though we made them for you to read.”
“Why not? What are they about?”
“One is about Jesus, the Son of the Great Father, when He lived on earth long ago. And the other is about what the followers of Jesus did, the thin one is the counsel of Paul, one of the elders of the Jesus group.”
“Well, you can at least tell us what is in those books,” the chief said.

The Explanation
So, for the next hour, I read excerpts from each of the Scripture books.
“We really want those books!” the chief exclaimed, “Why can’t you leave them?”
“I promised not to leave them. But I’ll leave them with my friend Sr. Duca in Barra town,” I said, “You can go there and pick them up and bring them in yourselves.”
The Canela elders complained, “It’s seventy kilometres to town. That’s four days of walking!”
“Do those government people have these stories in their language?” the chief asked.
“Yes, they have. All the stories about Jesus were translated into Portuguese long ago. Brazilians have been reading them for many generations.”
“Then, why can’t we read those books and choose whether we want them or not? They did!” the chief exclaimed.
“Just leave them here,” one of the elders advised, “We won’t tell anyone you did.”
“No, I’m sorry, I can’t do that,” I said, showing them my copy of the document, “I promised the government chief that I would not leave them in the village and signed this paper.”

The Chief’s Anger
Suddenly, the chief sprang up, pulling his machete from its sheath. He laid the sharp edge on his forearm, and, with his face inches from mine, shouted, “If I cut my arm what comes out? Blue stuff? No! Red blood. We Canelas are human beings just like those city people! Why do they treat us as if we aren’t people? Why can’t we have what they have had for a long time?”
I couldn’t answer, and we sat quietly for a while. Then the chief said, “The elders’ council will talk about this some more, and in the morning, we’ll tell you what we have decided.”

God’s Reveals His Weapon
At sunrise, the chief ordered, “Put all those books back into that steel drum on your truck. Then, drive back up the road through the gate where the Indian land ends. My son will follow you on the government tractor and will bring the drum back and distribute the books. You will have kept your promise, and we will have all the books.”

We heard later that the first books everyone wanted to read were, of course, the special books, the forbidden ones. It was a clear example of Psalm 76:10, “Human defiance only enhances your glory, for you use it as a weapon.” (NLT). God used the government’s angry prohibition to draw attention to the uniqueness of His Word. From then on, the Canelas considered the Bible stories as special, true, and unique.

When, over ten years later, the Scriptures were published the book was called, Pahpam Jarkwa Cupahti Jo Kahhoc. God’s Highly Respected Word.

(This is an excerpt from the memoir of the Canela Decades we are currently completing, From Adventure to Spiritual Battle.)

God Arranges Another Divine Co-incidence

Posted on by

God Arranges Another Divine Co-incidence

The Problem
“BAM! PRRRRRR!” Now what? I thought. “What’s that?” my wife asked, looking as worried as I felt. I stopped our severely overloaded fifteen-year-old Dodge at the side of the northern California road, opened the hood, and asked Jo to step on the gas.

PRRRRRR!! Aha! The fan. I turned on my hazard blinkers and drove slowly along the shoulder of the road. I explained the problem to Jo, and our daughters Valorie and Leanne whom we were taking back to Biola University in LA before returning to Brazil and the Canela translation project.

“The specially fitted bolts that hold the motor tight on the motor mounts on the left side of the frame have broken off. Each time I accelerate, the engine revs up and tilts, pushing the fan into the radiator housing.”

The Prayer
We needed help, so we quoted two lines from Psalm 121:1-2 “Where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord.” We also reminded God that although He had provided that car for only $300 at the start of our year’s furlough and we had already put 30,000 kilometres on it, we still had over 1,600 kilometres to go, much of it over mountains which would need the engine to run at high revolutions, “So, Lord God, please help us get this fixed.”

In the next town, I stopped in front of the first auto repair shop we saw. The mechanic shook his head when he saw the broken bolts. “I’d have to go to a junkyard to find those special bolts. I don’t have time to do that. I can’t help you. I’m sorry.”

I didn’t have time to do that either. I reviewed the two basic techniques of home and auto repair. 1) If it’s stuck, use WD 40 to loosen it. 2) If it’s loose, use duct tape to hold it. Hmm, not duct tape, but what about a piece of chain? Aha! Plan B.

The Solution
I looked up and right there, across the street was a small hardware store. What a coincidence! After spending ten minutes and three dollars, I slipped the end link of the three-foot-long chain onto a large bolt holding a bracket at the top of the engine, tightening it with a borrowed wrench. I looped the rest of the chain around the frame below the motor mount, then tightened several bolts through the links to increase the tension on the chain.

Jo started the engine and revved it up. No movement. No rattle. No problem!
When I returned the wrench, the mechanic came out to have a look. He saw the piece of shiny chain securely holding the engine in place, shook his head again and muttered, “That works. Hmm, I learned something.”

The Lesson
So did we. My family and I learned, again, that we can turn to God to help us solve problems, even automotive ones. We thanked Him for giving me the chain idea and for arranging the God-incidence to have us stop exactly there – a hardware store right across the street from a mechanic who loaned me his wrench.

We drove on to Los Angeles and delivered our girls to Biola where they drove that old Dodge during the entire school year with no rattling fan. When God arranges His coincidences and works with us to solve a problem, it stays solved.

Yes, just one more essential God-incidence to move the translation of His Word into the Canela language. God, not Jack or Jo, is the Mover and Shaker, the Protagonist of the Canela translation story.

NOTE! This is another excerpt from our next memoir, From Adventure to Spiritual Warfare

God Arranges a Life-Saving Coincidence

Posted on by

“Hey, Chuck!” I yelled above the noise in the cockpit of a well-used, older Helio single-engine bush plane.
“Look! Up ahead, to the right, is that a road down there?”
The pilot banked the plane slightly to see where I was pointing. Sure enough, it was a road—at least the beginning of one—where no road had ever been since God created the Amazon rainforest.

After leaving the Wycliffe Bible Translation centre near Belem, we had flown for three hours on a straight course for the Canela village, 600 kilometres to the southeast. From a height of three kilometres, the trees, reaching up from five to ten stories high in the vast jungle, looked like broccoli.

A new road was being hacked through the thick jungle starting at the Belem-Brasilia highway and going east. Chuck reported it to the operator at the mission centre right away, and carefully drew the road on the map on his lap, happy to add another checkpoint. Good thing he did. Toward the east, the road quickly ended in a bulldozed trail, which petered out into a thin line cut by surveyors.

Four hours after taking off from Belem, the Helio STOL (Short Take-Off & Landing), bush plane skittered to a stop on the mini airstrip alongside the Canela circular village.  Jo and I unloaded quickly, as hundreds of our friends came running to see the plane take off. Chuck flew a half hour to Barra do Corda to refuel the plane, stay overnight, and fly back to Belem in the morning with a missionary family as passengers.

Two days later, the early morning short-wave radio contact told us that the Helio had crash-landed safely on a bulldozed trail on the way back to Belem. Jo and I looked at each other and exclaimed, “That new road! Another God-incidence!”

We both knew that a small plane crashing into that thick jungle is almost impossible to find. Those giant jungle trees close over the crash site. Another pilot later told us that when a small plane crashes in that jungle, the site is not found until days later when circling vultures indicate the presence of dead bodies far below.

A month or so later, we heard the full story. Chuck had taken off from Barra do Corda with his passengers, climbed on course and all was well for about an hour. Then, suddenly, a loud bang startled everyone, the engine shuddered, rattled and quit.

Chuck at once made a thrice-repeated MAY DAY emergency call reporting an imminent crash into the jungle. It was picked up by the centre operator and the international airport in Belem.

He was near the survey cutline for the new road. Turning west to follow the cutline both the pilot and the missionary family prayed that God would keep the powerless plane gliding long enough to reach the bulldozed trail. When it was in sight, he assured the radio operators that he planned to crash land safely at a slow speed. Losing altitude and slowing down constantly, he glided the Helio to land on the roughly bulldozed track. The trees damaged the wings and broke radio contact, but the cabin stopped safely, with no one hurt. Thank you, Jesus!

Chuck asked the road-building crew to give his passengers a ride on one of their trucks to the main road where they could flag down a bus to Belem. He stayed with the wrecked plane until the next day when a fellow pilot arrived with a salvage truck to haul it back to Belem.

For many years, a piston from that plane’s engine sat on my desk—pieces of the broken valve still jammed in the scarred top. It was a mute reminder that God still arranges His coincidences, especially in the spiritual battle for the souls of the Canela people. Yes, there could be serious damage and the possibility of casualties, but God always has the final word.

This is an excerpt from the memoir of the Canela decades Jo and I are currently writing. I will share more stories of God-incidences over the next few months.
This true story was created with 100% human content. (No Artificial Intelligence was used.)