Soon afterward, two young Australians, Jim Smith and Lionel Dingle, were assigned to Kerema as special pioneers. They immediately set to work learning Tairuma, the local language. “We said each word in Motu, and our Bible students told us the corresponding Tairuma word, which we wrote down,” explains Jim. “In this way we built up a small vocabulary and memorized a simple Bible presentation. The local people were amazed to hear us speaking their language, as no other Europeans in the district could do so. After three months we were conducting weekly meetings in Tairuma on both sides of Kerema Bay.”

[Picture on page 96]

Jim Smith and Glenn Finlay