Tiang Sunday School Workshop II

The Tigak team working on their translation (H.Schulz)

This year’s trip to New Ireland echoed and expanded on my trip last year. Both times we followed up Tigak hymns with Tiang Sunday School materials. Last year we ran a Sunday School workshop on the main island of New Ireland. This year we went out to Djaul Island and ran the workshop in a Tiang village, Piliwa. We expanded the team as well as the workshop, going from two coordinators  to five and inviting all the villages on the island, which includes two Tigak villages. Not only did we do Sunday School materials production, but we also did teacher training for the Sunday School teachers. All in all it was a full but good time.

Our workshop venue (the
open sides catch the breeze nicely)
and our VIP transport- the ambulance
(H.Schulz)

Each morning we started our workshop with a devotion and a time of translation skills training. Each language community was working on translating a different book of Sunday School stories and activities. The Tigak were starting with Genesis and the Tiang were onto book 3, the Israelites in Canaan. We taught the skills to translate the material and then we put them into practice. Each language divided into smaller work groups that drafted, edited, back translated and checked their work. As workshop coordinators we circulated among the groups, helping as needed and doing all the typing as drafts were completed, edits readied for entering and the final product ready for formatting.

Each afternoon we would return from lunch with a time of teaching the teachers. Many of these teachers had had little training, so appreciated anything we could share with them. We taught using dramas and games, in both the morning and the afternoon sessions, and enjoyed seeing people catch on to new ideas and gain deeper understanding. In teaching games, everyone was involved. It was hilarious to see mature adults enjoying duck-duck-goose as much as any kids I’ve ever seen!

 Our amazing house! (R.Drew)

Over the course of two weeks, with about 40 Tiang and 7 Tigak attending the workshop every day, we completed the entire Tiang book and half the Tigak book. As we were at the far end of the island to where the Tigak live, there were fewer of them at the workshop and they’d done an amazing job of getting that much work done. Since then they’ve drafted the rest of the book and it waits to be seen when checking, editing and printing can be completed. The work that was completed during the workshop we already printed in Kavieng and should be back with the people by now.

The day we left the ambulance
was not available, so we all piled
onto the tractor’s trailer with our
cargo and rode to the beach
that way (S.Pederson)

Village workshops are always full of unknowns. Some things are normal, such as that the workshop will include at least one chicken, some flea-bitten puppies, a pig or two and some half naked toddlers. Other things, like the gift of a regulator from a Kavieng businessman and a reliably working village generator  are extra blessings. Then there is the entirely unexpected, like living in a new house that was fancier than almost any other village house I’ve seen, having a generator there at night and being transported about in the ambulance (one of only a few vehicles on the island- it was real VIP treatment)… these things are the icing on the cake! We were so very blessed by the people of Djaul, and hope that through our training we were also a blessing to them.

Workshop group photo (R.Drew)