Ed and Catherine McGuckin will speak on “Thirty Years with the Gapapaiwa: Bible Translation in Papua New Guinea” from 3:30 to 4:45 p.m. Thursday, April 9, in the Faulkner Gallery on Joyner Library’s second floor. In addition, students will have an opportunity for less formal interaction with the McGuckins at a brown-bag lunch, “So You Want to Be a Missionary?” from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 8 at the Ledonia Wright Cultural Center.
The Wellness Passport event on April 9 will include a reception and will focus on the McGuckins’ cooperative Bible translation with the Gapapaiwa people in Menapi village, Papua New Guinea. The project enabled the translation of the New Testament into the previously unwritten Gapapaiwa language in 2009 and has resulted in bilingual education up to the third grade in the local schools (previously teaching English only). The Gapapaiwa Translation Team is carrying on the Old Testament translation, with linguistic consultation during Catherine McGuckins roughly twice-yearly trips to Papua New Guinea and with computer transcription and other material assistance from Ed McGuckin in Texas. The presentation will tell the McGuckins’ story, consider the cross-cultural adaptions of the translation effort, and present the effects of the translation on the language and the people group. Attendees should RSVP Dawn Wainwright, wainwrightd@ecu.edu.
At the April 8 brown-bag lunch, sponsored by the Ledonia Wright Cultural Center, the McGuckins will tell how and why they became Bible translators, answer student questions, and respond to the prepared question of whether missionaries are colonizers. The LWCC will supply drinks and chips. Attendees should RSVP to Melissa Haithcox-Dennis at LWCC@ecu.edu.
