  This just in from Mark Penner and the ViBi (Visual Bible for Japanese Deaf) project. Webcam sessions with our translator in Japan are going well. Long distance communication is sometimes frustrating, not to be able to point to a word in his Hebrew interlinear, draw a map or write out a character, but we're making good progress nontheless. Last night, we finished our first draft through Genesis 15. I work evening/night hours to adjust to Japan time, and try to catch up on sleep in the mornings. One big challenge we face is making or finding Sign Language place names for the many towns, cities, and countries in the Bible.
For the genealogical lists and passages like Genesis 10's "List of Nations", we will run the names across the screen in Japanese, but where place names are not part of a list, we need sign names. Names of people are sometimes a problem too. Deaf people make names for each other based on prominent physical characteristics or events in their lives. As long as we know something about the person, we can usually find a way to make a viable sign name, but when we know nothing at all, we have a problem (as in Adah and Zillah in Genesis 4:19-23).
Perhaps someone is looking for a way to help our project. If you are willing to look through the whole Bible for non-list people with no information about them in the text, that would help us prepare. If this sounds like something you'd like to try, drop me a line. Thanks. Anybody want to take him up on that? 
