I wrote this article for our church’s monthly newsletter, and thought I’d stick it in here to share with you all …

“You guys must desire the face of the Above‑One, your Great Above One, with your whole liver, and your whole vision, and your whole strength, and your whole ingenuity. Then also you must desire the faces of other people, like you desire the face of yourself.” (Luke 10:27)

Is this the Newer King James Version? The Revised Alternate Bible? The Fruity Backwards Translation?

Nope. It is the “back translation” of the Sera New Testament – a translation of the Bible that my husband’s parents spent 25 years completing. When a translator translates the Bible into a new language, he has a Scripture consultant check his work to make sure he’s not changing the original meaning of the Scripture. Since the consultant knows the Bible but does not know the new language, the translator does something called a “back translation” – he turns the new version back into a literal English translation (or whatever the consultant’s native language is), so the consultant can see exactly what it says, and in what ways it is different from the original.

So you’ll notice a few things that are different about Sera from English. One is the use of the word “liver.” In Sera culture, the seat of the emotions (what we’d call the “heart”) is the anatomical liver. This also makes for some interesting idiomatic expressions (like the English “conscience” is translated “liver’s fat or liver’s meat”, and to be “touched” – as in by something poignant – is to “have your liver rubbed”). Another difference you might notice is the phrase “desire the faces of other people.” This is how the Sera say “love others” – if you “desire someone’s face,” you have mercy on them or love them. It means you seek intimacy and good relationship with them. If someone hides their face from you, something is wrong, and you do not have a good relationship.

When I first met my husband Daniel, I was fascinated to hear about this culture in which he’d grown up, so different from my own. The most foreign place I’d ever traveled from my hometown of San Diego was Tijuana. But as Daniel’s parents worked to translate the New Testament for the Sera people, he had grown up in their jungle. He sang with the Sera, danced with them, hunted with them. In his baby pictures, it’s easy to pick him out – the only tow-headed, white face in a sea of black skin.

So you can imagine my excitement when I got to travel with the family back to Sera land (country not named due to security issues) in December 2004 for the dedication of that New Testament! I finally got to meet the women who’d pinched Daniel’s cheeks and helped raise him, the men who used to take him fishing, and the boys with whom he’d chopped down banana trees with machetes. I got to walk through his old house there, taste his favorite fruit (snakeskin fruit), and listen to the love songs the Sera had written to Jesus, using pieces of the translated New Testament set to their traditional rofitas and tenggianas.

It was exciting for me to join in the celebrating of the finished New Testament, but I knew my joy was small next to those who had themselves walked the long, hard journey, and who knew first-hand how much God had done. One of the older men, Andrew,* told me stories about this journey – how the Sera had first heard of Jesus from Dutch missionaries, and how these missionaries had even built them a church and taught them hymns in the national language, set to Dutch melodies. But once the missionaries left, the Gospel was like the seed that fell on shallow soil – it couldn’t produce fruit for lack of root. Most of the Sera still feared the spirits to whom they sacrificed, and only went through the motions of Christianity. After all, if God only spoke to them in the national language, how could He really know the first thing about them – their lives, their needs, their fears? These are things expressed and experienced in the language of Sera, not the national language.

But a handful of the people believed there was more to God than this. It was their sense that God deeply cared about the Sera – that He very much desired their faces … but they recognized that the people could not understand this so long as they only heard His Word in the national language. It was actually Andrew who finally wrote a letter to Wycliffe Bible Translators, asking them to send the Sera someone who could help them translate the Bible into their own language.

Enter the Peckhams. Over the next 25 years, Daniel’s parents discipled a small group of interested Sera men, learning their language, their traditions, their deepest concerns and desires. The men wanted to learn Greek, so they could more deeply understand what Jesus said in the Gospels. I particularly like the story of one particular Sera man, Benjamin,* who was known for walking through the forest on numerous hunting trips, bow and arrows in one hand, Greek notecard in the other (don’t forget the usual loin cloth), repeating with vigor: “Alpha! Beta! Gamma! Delta!”

Over the years, Jesus has done much among the Sera. They’ve slowly begun to learn, firsthand, that not only does He know these spirits they fear – demons who literally take the lives of their children or wipe out their crops if they do not sacrifice enough pigs or chickens – but that Jesus is more powerful than these spirits. They are learning that He offers freedom from the knots of anger that bind them inside. They are coming to experience that He loves them deeply, that His ways are life and peace, and are better than drunkenness.

But the spread of this kind of faith and intimacy with Jesus among the Sera has become limited by geography. There are about 4,200 Sera people, many living in villages or cities on the coast, while others live more rurally in the inland areas. Since the Peckhams lived in a coastal village, much of the discipling took place among the coastal people. The dedication of the New Testament in 2004 took place in a coastal city (most easily accessible to all Sera), and Christianity has mostly been spread among the coastal people. Thus, many of the inlanders not only are more removed from civilization, but also from the Good News of Jesus. Animism (belief in the spirits) and drunkenness still dominate their lives. In many ways, it is they who need this translated Bible the most.

Over the last several years, as industrialization and modernization have increased on the coast and in the cities, the difference between inlanders and coastal has only intensified, and many of the old relational connections have not been kept up. Some of the inlanders are starting to feel indignant about this fact, and, feeling forgotten and unimportant, a general feeling of resentment toward the coastal people has begun to smolder.

Unfortunately, this rift not only has a “horizontal impact” (on the relationships among the Sera), but also has a “vertical impact” (on the inland Sera people’s view of Christianity and of God). With the New Testaments partially distributed among the coastal Sera, the remainder sit in boxes in a warehouse – rather than in the hands of inlanders, where they belong. There has been talk among some of the coastal Sera of delivering these remaining Bibles, but impetus has slowed down since the dedication ceremony two years ago.

It is Daniel’s and my desire, along with his two brothers Andy and Joe, to somehow help these people who are like family to us. So after much prayer and discussion, we’ve decided to return to Sera land this summer, bringing with us two things. First, we will be hiking to some of the inland villages, bringing them the remaining New Testaments. The coastal Sera could do this, but since motivation has waned, we believe it won’t happen and we’d like to help get momentum going once more. The Sera inlanders are largely illiterate, but a survey trip a few years ago showed that there is at least one literate person in each village. These individuals could read the Bibles to others or even teach some of them to read, and we believe putting the Bibles in their hands would be well worth the effort.

Secondly, and perhaps more significantly, we desire to love the Sera inlanders through our presence to them. Although our parents’ official work with them is complete, we still care for them and cannot easily forget them – especially knowing of a need such as this. Based in what we know of the Sera after many years’ friendship with them, we believe that a personal visit would convey, in a way that well-meaning words cannot, that both we and God truly do care about them. In particular, we feel God has placed us Peckhams in a unique position to convey this to the Sera, as they already have a deep connection with our family after the years of translation work. To visit the inlanders would be to show them that they matter to us too, not just the coastal people.

We see many obstacles on the horizon – raising funds and preparation for the trip are two that are close-at-hand. Then will come some of the logistical complications, as well as health threats and discomforts. All 4 of us - Daniel, Joe, Andy and I - have done some hiking in the rainforest and are somewhat aware of the dangers and discomforts it will bring. But leeches, snakes and malaria are things one can only prepare for, and never fully rule out.

Thank you so much for your prayers and support as we walk forward in this. We look forward to sharing with you what we see God do in the coming months – both in us and in the Sera people.

Daniel, Joe & I, with two Sera friends.

Jn 3:16 – Yesus Kristus, died on the chest measurement wood (or, cross) because Great Above One desires the face of all the people in the world with the result that He sent down His One and Only Child to this world. Therefore whoever believes His Name his spirit/breath will not die but he would see life‑fruit (salvation; everlasting life).

*pseudonyms used for security reasons.