Twice is Nice

Rukia, the Ikizu translator, recently returned from a trip to a village. As soon as she came back, I sat down with her and asked all about her trip. I am not able to go out with the translators on their village trips very often, but I love hearing about them when they come back to the office. (If you're thinking carefully, you'll figure out that the above picture is from a previous trip when I was able to go with her.) She gave me all the basic information of her journey first, then at the end she got a little smile and leaned forward to tell me the following story (which I've changed into 3rd person so it can be an independent unit for reproduction elsewhere).

When Rukia, the Ikizu Bible translator, went to a village to read a chapter of her draft of Genesis aloud to get feedback from community members, several people gathered to listen. They were quite surprised to learn that Scripture was being translated into the Ikizu language, but even more surprised to learn that their language could be written.

Rukia began reading and everyone listened very carefully. They were nodding and smiling, following along with the story. She continued reading all the way through the end of the chapter. But as soon as she finished, they suddenly asked her to go back and read the final paragraph again. Rukia immediately thought, “Oh no, what did I mess up in my translation?”

After hearing the final paragraph once more, one man in the group leaned back and said, “Thank you, Rukia, for repeating that part of the story. It was just such good Ikizu and so sweet to our ears to hear our language being read that we all wanted to hear it again! We’ve never heard Ikizu being read aloud before!”