Souvenirs from Haiti
By Dr. Troy Manning

Often when I travel to a country for a workshop, I try to pick up souvenirs to bring back to family or supporters, or to keep for myself. This trip to Haiti on November 7-19 was no different. I’ve wanted to collect something in particular from each country I visit, but I couldn’t decide what that item should be. Well, on this last trip I finally came to a conclusion—bookends. Since I have a fairly large collection of books at my home and in my office, I thought collecting bookends was quite appropriate for me. I had already purchased some from Togo, Chad, and Cameroon, so I thought it was time to get a set from Haiti. The set I purchased is wooden and has a man’s head carved on one end and a woman’s head carved on the other.

I also brought back another souvenir, but this one was less desirable. I began experiencing flu-like symptoms during the second week of the workshop. Since we had made such good progress during the first week, we were able to finish the workshop early so that I could spend time resting. I began to experience some recovery during that time, but then I had a terrible night’s sleep the night before my trip back to the USA. The nighttime sounds of Port-au-Prince are not very conducive to good sleep: barking dogs, crowing roosters, people partying, local church leaders directing prayer meetings over loud speakers, etc. Somehow the Lord gave me enough strength to make it back to the US, but by Monday I developed a rash and swelling of the hands and feet. Thankfully, the antibiotics helped me dispense of that souvenir!

A sobering souvenir I brought back was a reminder of the devastation caused by the earthquake of January 2010. For many people, life in Port-au-Prince is back to normal. But for many others, life will never be the same again. In fact, many are no longer with us, since they estimate that over 300,000 perished in the catastrophe. “Tent cities” are still found throughout the city. One dear Christian family was deprived of almost everything in their rented home. Another sweet Christian lady lost her husband and part of her leg. The stylist of our translation project parted with his wife. He explained that if she could have received proper medical help on that fateful day, she would have surely recovered. But some hospitals were destroyed and others were blocked from access, so he had to watch her slip into eternity with no way to stave off the impending death. This man said he and his 12 year-old daughter have the memories of that day forever etched in their memories. But by God’s grace they are picking up the pieces of their lives and moving forward. The Haitians need our continued prayers.

An encouraging souvenir also for the memory banks was the “Celebration in a Suitcase” that I enjoyed with the Haitian Creole Direction Committee and Translation Team. Since this is Bibles International’s 30^th year and since most of our overseas personnel can’t join us at the Home Office for our anniversary celebration, we take the joy to them. In addition to enjoying cakes and other goodies, we recounted together God’s goodness toward BI over the past 30 years and His goodness to Haiti over the past few decades since the Haitian Creole translation project was begun. We praised Him for all He’s allowed us to do and asked for His continued blessing on our future endeavors.

Another souvenir I carried home with me was a headache from trying to understand how the Haitian Creole definite article works. I’ve been learning Haitian Creole as I check the translation, having just conducted my seventh workshop with the translator. But I’m not sure I’ll ever master how to construct the definite article. Thankfully, I’ll never become the main translator! This underscores the importance of our methodology of using mother-tongue translators.

A Haitian Creole grammar book I purchased on this trip notes that there are four forms of the singular article. The “la” form is used with the consonants “p, b, t, d, k, g, f, and v” and with the vowels “w” or “y.” The “a” form is used with the vowels “a, i, e, è, o, ò, and ou.” The “an” form is used with the nasal vowels “en”, “on”, “an”, and other nasal syllables. The “nan” form is used with the nasal consonants “m, n, and ng” and with semi-vowels that come after nasal consonants. How would you like to master those rules?!

The placement of the article is also quite complicated; at least, it is to a non-native speaker. It occurs after the noun and any adjective or modifying phrase. That’s not necessarily complicated, but it becomes so when you understand that the word “yo” is the plural article that indicates that the noun is plural and also functions as the third person plural possessive pronoun (i.e., “their”). So, the phrase “the chambers of their kings” in Psalm 105:30 (“Their land brought forth frogs in abundance, in the chambers of their kings” [KJV]) is quite difficult to express unambiguously in Haitian Creole. The translator wrote the following for the second part: “Menm nan chanm wa yo a.” He explained that “chanm wa yo” could mean “the chambers of their kings”, “the chamber of their kings”, or “the chambers of the kings.” But it could not mean “the chambers of the king” or “the chambers of their king.” I tried to understand why but eventually gave up! I’ll let him keep doing the translation into Haitian Creole, and I’ll just have to trust him that he knows how the article in his language works.

On a more exciting note, I also took away a precious souvenir—the completed book of Psalms. Pastor Daniel Telfort, the translator, and I had hoped to finish the Psalms during this workshop. But knowing that this meant completing Psalms 83-150, we wondered if our goal was even realistic. Well, as I said above, the first week of the workshop went amazingly well. I could see that we were on track to finish the Psalms during the workshop and possibly to do so a day or two early. Rather than slowing the pace, we decided to keep moving during that first week, because we didn’t know what the Lord might bring into our lives during the second week. The translator’s wife was “great with child,” so we were wondering if the little one might make her appearance during the workshop. Thankfully, the baby was not born until December 4. Both the translator and I experienced sickness, so rather than leaping over the finish line with great joy, we crawled across with a profound sense of relief. But we finished! We are one step closer to reprinting the New Testament with Psalms and Proverbs. We hope to finish Proverbs next year and to prepare the material for reprinting by 2013.

The next workshop is scheduled for June 2012. Lord willing, the translator will be finished with Proverbs. Please continue to pray for the people of Haiti and their need for the life-changing truths of the Word of God.