Exciting survey

The reason I’m looking forward to this survey (we leave on Tuesday!!) is because I think we’re going to have lots of great conversations. The data collection part of language surveys is interesting, but personally I enjoy the informal conversations that inevitably follow each interview. Most interviews are group-based, with between 5 and 100 people present and we often get asked a range of questions - about why we left our countries to come here, about a particular Bible passage, about whether magic is ‘ok’, etc, etc.

And I think on this survey the conversations are going to be extra interesting. Because during the interviews we’re going to saying things like, ‘What do you have to do to get to heaven?.’ And ‘Do you know who Abraham/Moses/Paul is? Tell us about him.’ We want to ask that type of question to find out how much people really understand the Bible. When I’ve asked questions like that before, people give a response and then often say, ‘Why? What do you think?’ And voila – the chance to tell the gospel to the 20, 40, 80 people who’ve gathered from that village.

We hope to go to at least 18 villages during this survey. Although our primary intent is not to evangelise or pastor, we happily answer people’s questions. So please do pray that God would provide opportunities to minister to these Benabena language speakers.

The Madang coast, featuring a WWII gun
Picture taken by Andrew Williamson