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GREENSBORO — The two men greet each other in a foreign dialect at an old house in one of Greensboro’s aging neighborhoods and make their way up the winding stairs to the attic.

Soon, they are busy writing on laptops, and chatting in one of the more than 54 languages found in Vietnam.

For six hours most weekdays, Gene Fuller and Pastor Samuel   pore over the materials on their work table, knowing they have an important mission to accomplish as soon as possible. Samuel asked that his real name not be used because he fears for his safety if he returns to his homeland.

Samuel, 44, and Gene Fuller, 69, are Bible translators, translating more of the Bible into Samuel’s native language. Some of the Bible was published in this language as early as 1955. “The whole New Testament has now been translated. But, work remains to check it for accuracy,” Fuller said.

With a translators notebook, Greek dictionary, various versions of the Bible on computer files, Fuller’s expertise in translations and Samuel’s knowledge of his native tongue, they labor over each word in Matthew.

They check for accuracy of meaning and whether the tribal people would well understand  the verses in their language.

“We want to get the best understanding that we can,” Fuller said.

Samuel is the key to that understanding because it is his language. If there is a question about how the tribal people express a word, phrase or sentence, “I defer to him,” Fuller said.

Gene Fuller and his wife, Carol, are Wycliffe Bible Translators, who worship with the Montagnards at Rankin Baptist Church, where the First Montagnard Baptist Church has been established.

Samuel is a Montagnard .  Montagnard is a French term which means “mountaineer” and refers to the tribal people in the highlands of Vietnam.

“God has called me to study His ways and Word,” Samuel said. “That has prepared me to serve Him in Bible translation. God called me to this work.”

The  Fullers  live with relatives of Samuel.

“(Bible translator John) Wycliffe’s policy is for you to live with the people you serve as much as possible,” Carol Fuller said.

Samuel started  a number of house churches in Vietnam. He  immigrated to the United States with his wife and two children and has been in Greensboro for a year. He mentored two elders in each church to serve in his place and hopes to make trips back to Vietnam, Gene Fuller said.

Both of his children are in college, and Samuel and his wife are enrolled in English as a Second Language class.

The Fullers are Ohio natives who met while seniors at Asbury College in Wilmore, Ky. They became missionaries and Bible translators in South Vietnam in 1968.

Both said they grew up in churches that were “very missions minded” and were inspired to become missionaries.

“We both were so burdened about the ethnic languages of Vietnam,” Carol Fuller said.

“We arrived in Vietnam the day before the Spring Offensive in 1968,” she said.

“It was at the height of the conflict,”  Gene Fuller said.

“I was scared to death; I was just trying to be obedient to the Lord. He comforted me,” Carol said.

The Fullers were in Vietnam for 6½ years, working in the Central Highlands and on the coast, translating the Bible into the tribal language. They also were teachers who put together science and civic books and a dictionary for the tribal people.

And all of that time “there was war all around us,” Carol Fuller said. “Our daughter, Christa, was born there in September 1970.”

The couple left Vietnam for the Philippines in 1975 because of the turn of events. Carol Fuller was eight months pregnant. “Five Montagnard men were living with us, and they urged us to leave. They said they could make a way for themselves, but not for us,” she added.

Shortly after they arrived in the Philippines, their son, Daniel, was born. During two years in the Philippines, Gene Fuller made tapes of Scriptures in the tribal language for Far East Broadcasting Co., which broadcast them to listeners  in Vietnam.

Fuller was asked to help open Wycliffe work in Thailand and spent a half year there before returning to the United States for more study.

After Gene Fuller earned his doctorate in educational linguistics from the University of Pittsburgh in 1982, the Fullers were off to Sabah, East Malaysia, on the large island of Borneo.

He became director of Wycliffe there, traveling in the jungles to help tribes get the Bible translated into their languages. “He administered 14 (translation) projects there,”  his wife said.

In 1991, the couple left Borneo.

They got an invitation to teach at the Open University of Ho Chi Minh, where they stayed for one semester. Gene Fuller became director of the North American branch of Wycliffe, where he spent nine years. He was administrator of Vietnam projects for a couple years, before developing serious heart problems.

Since 2003, he has been working on the current project. They have made some trips back  to Vietnam. “They are precious people,” she said.

The Fullers don’t speak of retirement. In their minds and hearts, their work is not done.

Contact Bob Burchette at bburchette@triad.rr.com