Darasi, the national Agarabi translator who has been working closely with Julie on the audio recording of Mark, was back at the center yesterday morning. We bumped into him just before lunch and invited him home for lunch. It's always educational asking him questions.
We had heard that there is to be a Adventist (Christmas) camp in his village and we asked him about this. Normally in December, it has been moved to January because 2011 is the 10th aniversary of these camps for the Agarabi people. His village of about 800 people will be hosting about 4000 Agarabi people who will being their own tents and camping equipment (such as it is). Every year Darasi has classes to teach the people how to speak Agarabi, keeping it pure from further influence of English and Tok Pisin (the two official languages of PNG).
It's normally a highlight for him but this next camp is even more special. The Agarabi New Testament will be dedicated next May and Darasi is going to focus on beginning to teach the people at the camp how to read their own language. Because he is probably the person who knows the most history about the Agarabi people and the alphabet was even developed by him, he says he is called Doctor Darasi. (He grinned.)
Towards the end of our lunch, he asked us how he could get some special material used to process/collect gold dust from dirt. Because no one in his village and none of the Agarabi churches provide any money for his translation work, he has had to take time to create and tend gardens to feed his family. (There's been very little rain and most of his last crop died.)
His wife lives where there is gold dust in the ground. They have a process where they take a pan, dump dirt with gold dust into it, and add this "very thick liquid" which collects the gold dust. They then put this mixture into a cloth and squeeze it many times. Darasi says the gold collects in small clumps in the cloth allowing them to take the gold and sell it to buy food.
He called the liquid merkri. We had no idea what it was. He then said it was the color of aluminum.
"Mercury!", Julie and I both exclaimed. We then both told him it's poison and can kill if absorbed into the skin. Darasi said "We wear long gloves so we're okay. We wash the liquid off into the river."
Oh boy, I'm not going to drink the water from his river.... no way.
I don't like his way of mining gold from the ground but I'm so thankful for his ability to mine gold from God's Word.
We had heard that there is to be a Adventist (Christmas) camp in his village and we asked him about this. Normally in December, it has been moved to January because 2011 is the 10th aniversary of these camps for the Agarabi people. His village of about 800 people will be hosting about 4000 Agarabi people who will being their own tents and camping equipment (such as it is). Every year Darasi has classes to teach the people how to speak Agarabi, keeping it pure from further influence of English and Tok Pisin (the two official languages of PNG).
It's normally a highlight for him but this next camp is even more special. The Agarabi New Testament will be dedicated next May and Darasi is going to focus on beginning to teach the people at the camp how to read their own language. Because he is probably the person who knows the most history about the Agarabi people and the alphabet was even developed by him, he says he is called Doctor Darasi. (He grinned.)
Towards the end of our lunch, he asked us how he could get some special material used to process/collect gold dust from dirt. Because no one in his village and none of the Agarabi churches provide any money for his translation work, he has had to take time to create and tend gardens to feed his family. (There's been very little rain and most of his last crop died.)
His wife lives where there is gold dust in the ground. They have a process where they take a pan, dump dirt with gold dust into it, and add this "very thick liquid" which collects the gold dust. They then put this mixture into a cloth and squeeze it many times. Darasi says the gold collects in small clumps in the cloth allowing them to take the gold and sell it to buy food.
He called the liquid merkri. We had no idea what it was. He then said it was the color of aluminum.
"Mercury!", Julie and I both exclaimed. We then both told him it's poison and can kill if absorbed into the skin. Darasi said "We wear long gloves so we're okay. We wash the liquid off into the river."
Oh boy, I'm not going to drink the water from his river.... no way.
I don't like his way of mining gold from the ground but I'm so thankful for his ability to mine gold from God's Word.
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