Newsletter May 2024

Newsletter November 2024

Maningrida now has a translation centre and it has been an epic journey! The Kunibídji whose name for this place is Manayingkarírra are the traditional owners. They gave enthusiastic permission for the building of a new Bible Translation Centre down near the beach next to the Church House. There are eleven languages spoken in Maningrida and it is time to have a space where language work can happen. The West Arnhem Area Council of Northern Regional Council of Congress, the UCA church elders of Western Arnhemland, were also enthusiastic supporters of the project.

Maningrida is a large Aboriginal Town where eleven languages are spoken. With support from the Kunibídji Traditional Owners and the Elders of the Maningrida and West Arnhemland Uniting Church, The Maningrida Bible Translation Centre was opened in September 2023.

Praise God for a very worthwhile workshop last month. Our thanks go to the Finke River Mission for the use of their hall once again. It is a very suitable venue for this type of activity, even though we needed to pack up on two evenings to make way for others. There was the usual challenge of unpredictable participation, but a committed group of four Luritja speakers attended every day. Stanley, Douglas, Monica, and Sonya were joined by Joseph for three of the five days. Yuminiya, a Pitjantjatjara speaker, attended on part of two days. Kerry, an Alyawarr speaker, attended on one day.

Coordinate was invited by Bible Society Australia and SIL Pacific region to attend an Oceania Gathering in Sydney with the theme ‘What do we need to get the job done?’ They asked us to present on this theme from our local context, so Margaret Miller and I put together a Power Point presentation with stories that Yurrandjil had given us permission to tell.

This is a story of incredible love, remarkable co-operation and amazing grace. On Friday 8th April (2022) two boxes of recently printed New Testaments were carried into the Yirrkala church with much ceremony. Dozens of Yolŋu men, representing Gupapuyŋu, Madarrpa, Maŋgalili and Gumatj, walked in with the boxes of bibles and sang with great reverence, as rhythm sticks split the air with their sharp ‘crack-crackcrack’ defining the rhythm and tempo of local traditional song. We had gathered with hundreds of Yolŋu at Yirrkala Church to dedicate the reprint of the Gumatj New Testament.

Maningrida is one of the most multilingual places in the world – ten plus completely distinct languages spoken every day amongst a population of 3000 people! Most of those languages didn’t have any published Scripture until now. A few months ago, five different languages spoken in Maningrida translated seven verses of the Christmas story (we’ve written about this workshop in a previous newsletter).

In the last Coordinate newsletter, Melody from AuSIL (Australian Society for Indigenous Languages) told you about a translators workshop that she was organising in Darwin, for people to work on translating the Christmas story into their languages. I was able to go to this with 6 people from 2 languages—Kuninjku and Njeppena—in Maningrida in West Arnhem land, where I live.

“I was reading through chapter 1 of John to my friend, from my translation draft that you printed for checking. And then I got her to read the next chapter to me. As she was reading, she said to me, 'It is giving me goose bumps!' We were both so happy sitting together and reading God's word in our language.”