Mud-oven cookery part of jungle camp

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34129, 15 April 1976, Page 7

Mud-oven cookery part of jungle camp

Learning to cook food in a mud oven and to work a two-way radio might not be everyone’s idea of fun, but for Rosalie Bulmer it is part of her training as a ;Wyclifle Bible translator.

And this is what she will soon be doing as part of a five-month jungle training camp in New Guinea. The Wycliffe translators were started by an American, William Cameron Townsend, in 1934. He had a vision of Bibles written in the language of every tribe, concentrating on those tribes whose language was unwritten. The organisation is

based in California and is now world-wide. Rosalie Bulmer first heard of the Wycliffe translators when she was a student, at

Waikato University, where she spent four years completing a Bachelor of Education degree. She thought no more about it until about six years later when she heard about the translators again and she decided to do the first of two linguistic courses at the Summer Institute of Linguistics in Sydney “to see if she liked the work and if that was where the Lord was leading her.” I Students are taught to put unwritten languages into writing, and although it was hard • ork cramming about ione year's university work [into 10 weeks, Rosalie Bulmer loved it.

At the end of the course, she attended the Christian Life Bible College in Lower Hutt, doing a one-year course instead of the usual two. Study was done in the afternoon so students could work part-time in the morning to help support themselves.

The next summer she returned to Sydney to do the second 10-week linguistic course.

She is now preparing to go to New Guinea. She has to be in Port Moresby by the end of June. Before going, Miss Bulmer has had to organise her own financial support which came from friends. Part of her time in New Guinea will be spent in Ukarumpa in the highlands, some time in the lowlands, and the last six weeks living in different villages with the people. Miss Bulmer says her training will include learning how to swim one mile, making a house out of bush' material, working a two-way; radio, cooking food in a mud! oven, and surviving in the bush. AT the end of the course,!

she hopes to go straight to the Philippines to begin i i work as a translator. ’ Working in pairs the i ' translators choose a tribe and work and live with them as' closely as possible!, for about six months. I The translators must learn 'the language of the tribe, ; make an alphabet, learn the,! ’ grammatical structure of the I' language, put it into writing'; and make simple stories. 1 The people must be taught ,i to read, and the ultimate! 1 aim was to translate theli New Testament into the lan-1 'guage of the tribe. Miss Bui- , liter said. J I Miss Bulmer believes it!; | important that primitive!; ; people know that God I ,! speaks their language and i

they are as important as everyone else. She has always been interested in tramping and be-! lieves the experience she' now faces will be completely; (different from anything she has done so far. At 25. Miss Bulmer has; packed a lot into a short! • time. She was educated at | Thames High School, and after graduating from university spent about 18 months teaching at Helens- ; ville, north of Auckland, and iin Manurewa. ' She spent about four months at the Faith Bible ;College in Tauranga and a (year helping in her father’s Ijewellery shop in Thames before doing the first linguistic course in Sydney.