Beulah Nowpakahok
lives on Saint Lawrence Island, Alaska, in the village of Gambell,
where she is part of a team that is translating the Bible for
the Yupik people, who have no written language. The team’s
work will be used in Alaska and in Russia, where there are many
Yupik speakers.
The Wycliffe Bible translators came to Saint Lawrence Island,
thirty-five miles from Russia, in the 1950s, and Ms. Nowpakahok
joined them in 1980. She writes, “Translation is challenging
work. Sometimes our team of four just zips by until we get stuck
on a certain verse. Before we start working, we always ask God
to help us, direct us, guide us, and forgive us for our misunderstanding
of the Scriptures. Just the same, we can get stuck on one verse
for a week or so. But when we prayerfully work, the Lord God
answers our prayers.
“There are times when we four discuss and argue in a
gentle way about what a verse is saying. The Holy Spirit can
prompt one of us that the verse is not correctly translated,
until he causes us to understand.
“Our team went to Israel in 2006. What a blessed trip!
We, the Yupik translators, saw where Jesus walked on this special
land. The people, cities, land . . . they opened my heart and
mind to what I have been translating and made the Scriptures
real. That was awesome. When we came back to the island, we
picked up where we left off with new insight. The New Testament
will be completed soon, and I look forward to my New Testament
Bible in the Yupik language. Praise be to God!”
The Presbytery of Yukon has 22 churches with 3,022 members. |
