the Word in Oasnon

This article from Christianity Today describes the immediate need to translate the Bible into every dialect and language possible. Less than ten percent of the world's languages, it says, have a translation of the Old Testament.

I know that there's a PBS-published Bible in standard Bicol, but the latter, the lingua franca in our region, is still hard to understand for the folks who live in the most secluded barangays of my hometown, Oas. Indeed, if we are to fulfill our mission to preach the Gospel to the nations, we need to translate the Word into a form could be understood by everyone. So here's my shot at it:

"Sa kapinu'nan, ginibo ning Diyos kan langit ni kina'ban." (Genesis 1:1)

Believe it or not, it took me more than a minute of racking my brains to find the most appropriate translation for "earth." (kina'ban). I knew it started with "k" and ended with "an" but I didn't quite get it until after a while. I practically grew up in Daraga and in neighboring Legazpi City, and I spoke Oasnon only at home. Hence this tragic ignorance of my native dialect.

But come to think of it, Hebrew was virtually a dead language a hundred years ago. Now the national language of the state of Israel, it's used by more than fifteen million Jews all over the world. If He could resurrect the language of His chosen people from the ashes of the centuries, couldn't He enable me to re-learn Oasnon? Who knows, maybe Bible translation really is my calling. Hehe. Only time will tell.