Closing up #30daydietofpassion

What a month! I look back at these daily posts and feel overwhelming gratitude.

Gratitude that God saved us. That God speaks to us. That His plan for redemption is through the Church. 

Gratitude that God is growing an army, equipped with His Word, and passionate about translating themselves into other cultures and His holy Word into their tongues. Gratitude and hope that one day His voice might no longer be foreign to the millions of people still waiting to hear it speak to them.

I pray you have enjoyed these real stories, that they have tucked themselves away into your heart, irrevocably. 

And as I leave them with you, I want to ask you to pray. As members of our Lord's one holy Church, He gifts and uses each of us in different ways, but this one role of prayer is for each of us.  Speak to your local church, reach out to missionaries you know, find creative ways to know what God is up to in the world, and PRAY fiercely for this work! And if you're interested in knowing more on a regular basis, or on receiving a specific Bibleless People Group to pray for, please go to www.bibleless.org to further connect!

"..It's like finding a whole new Jesus"

We've been talking a lot about the Big Picture this month---About how one translator, traveling for one lifetime, to live among a people group and to help bring them the Word of God in their language is really just a tiny part of the story. This story that God is writing, is an intricate one, where WE get to be a part of mobilizing many parts of the Body to use many varied giftings and talents to bring Jesus and God's Kingdom to manypeople. 

Before we close this 30-day blog series tomorrow, I wanted to share one more poignant story about the vastness of God's translation-tapestry story! Jenny's story below, and the story of the Yazai people, gives a good glimpse at the prayer, human resources, food resources, community commitment, and fierce "irrational" faith that are needed for Bible translations to be completed in the almost 1,900 languages that are still left without it. I pray that we will catch these qualities from those that have gone before us, and that God would be glorified by our hungry, exuberant responses, as He invites us into this work.

In the 1930s, Jenny and her husband were planting a church among the Yazai* people of Southeast Asia. Understanding the need for Scripture in the mother tongue, they devised an alphabet and translated a catechism and the Gospel of Mark. But just three years into their ministry, her husband died of typhus, and Jenny was driven away by political unrest, never to return. Her prayers, however, did not cease. 

Jenny was 37 years old when she left the Yazai village. She was 93 years old and still praying for the Yazai and other language groups every morning from breakfast to lunch, when an SIL translator named Mark visited her. By then the church she faithfully watered with her prayers had grown to 10,000 believers...but they still did not have the Word in their mother tongue. Mark had the joy of telling her that he was working towards starting a translation project. He was studying the language with three Yazai speakers he’d met far from their homeland, and praying for an opportunity to meet church members interested in launching a translation project. 

The next year, 1997, Mark met two brothers who were Yazai church leaders. They told him they’d been praying for four years for someone to come help the Yazai do a Bible translation. “Four years?” said Mark. “I’ve been studying the language for four years and praying for a translation team related to the church!” The Yazai joyfully formed a translation committee and Mark became the translation advisor who checked the material! 

Individuals and whole communities threw themselves enthusiastically into the project. The lead translator was so committed that when he married, he and his bride spent their honeymoon at a training event! The future chairman of the translation committee, a paralyzed man, read in the Gospels that Jesus healed paralytics, so in faith he stood up and walked...and then went to work leading the committee! Villages formed their own support committees. Though poor, villagers agreed to drop a handful of rice into a bag every day. As the bags filled up, they sewed them shut and sent them to the translation team. 

The translation committee prepared books, songbooks, audio materials, and the "JESUS Film", so that everyone, readers or not, could have access to the Word. The church held literacy workshops, eventually training 100 people to serve as volunteer teachers. Each time a Scripture portion was completed, the church published it, and people carried copies around in their shoulder bags, snatching moments to read them in the fields. 

Even non-Christians became interested. Fifteen animists attended one literacy workshop; during the week every one of them found Christ and was baptized. Entire villages of non-Christians asked for someone to come read the Scripture portions to them so they could understand who this God was. With breathtaking speed the church grew from 10,000 to between 30,000 and 40,000 believers—a quarter of the entire population. 

In 2009 the New Testament was printed and, in spite of opposition, imported and dedicated. One well educated woman, having read the national language Bible for many years, said, “Reading the Scriptures in Yazai is like finding a whole new Jesus. The national language went to my head; the Yazai goes into my heart.” 

Now the Yazai have their eyes set on the Old Testament. “The New Testament is like a shirt, but we need pants!” said one man. “The Old Testament is those pants. Please help us get a complete outfit so we can be fully dressed!” The main translator is now studying theology so he can translate the Yazai Old Testament and serve as consultant for other translations. 

Jenny passed away in 2003 just a few days short of her 100th birthday, her part in the Yazai story complete. I know that by faith she celebrated the completion of the New Testament and the rapid expansion of the Yazai church, but I wish she could have heard what one old man said: “Now the light of God has come to the Yazai people. Now the Yazai people will grow and be blessed.” 

Language by language, the light of God is coming to people He loves all over the world. Sooner rather than later, the last one will be blessed. Thank you for the role you play! 

*Name changed to protect work in a sensitive area 

From ConnectUS, August 2010, Bob Creson

One Little Vowel

This week we've been specifically looking at translation stories from the field, and today I wanted to share my favorite so far! This story was first told in 2012 by a missionary couple who worked in Cameroon, and there is an exciting update about this language below, so be sure to read all the way to the bottom!

Friends, this story encapsulates why I am on this journey in the first place, and why I long to take you with me! I love the concept that God has placed his footprint/fingerprint/blueprint into the history of all of His people, and that sometimes we can find the clues He left us that lead to Him right inside of language. 

We've spoken before about how closely tied to our identity language is, and I am astounded by the way that the process of translation makes us ask questions that lead to deep and lasting transformation.  

Dangwa Pierre, President of the Hdi Translation Committee,
with Lee Bramlett, translation advisor to the committee.

Translator Lee Bramlett was confident that God had left His mark on the Hdi culture somewhere, but though he searched, he could not find it. Where was the footprint of God in the history or daily life of these Cameroonian people?  What clue had He planted to let the Hdi know who He is and how He wants to relate to them?

Then one night in a dream, God prompted Lee to look again at the Hdi word for love. Lee and his wife, Tammi, had learned that verbs in Hdi consistently end in one of three vowels. For almost every verb, they could find forms ending in i, a, and u. But when it came to the word for love, they could only find i and a. Why no u?

Lee asked the Hdi translation committee, which included the most influential leaders in the community, “Could you ‘dvi’ your wife?”

“Yes,” they said. That would mean that the wife had been loved but the love was gone.

“Could you ‘dva’ your wife?” Lee asked.

“Yes,” they said. That kind of love depended on the wife’s actions. She would be loved as long as she remained faithful and cared for her husband well.

“Could you ‘dvu’ your wife?”  Lee asked. Everyone laughed.

 “Of course not!” they said. “If you said that, you would have to keep loving your wife no matter what she did, even if she never got you water, never made you meals. Even if she committed adultery, you would be compelled to just keep on loving her. No, we would never say ‘dvu.’ It just doesn’t exist.”

Lee sat quietly for a while, thinking about John 3:16, and then he asked, “Could God ‘dvu’ people?”

There was complete silence for three or four minutes; then tears started to trickle down the weathered faces of these elderly men. Finally they responded.

“Do you know what this would mean?” they asked. “This would mean that God kept loving us over and over, millennia after millennia, while all that time we rejected His great love. He is compelled to love us, even though we have sinned more than any people.”

One simple vowel, and the meaning was changed from “I love you based on what you do and who you are,” to “I love you based on who I am. I love you because of Me and not because of you.”

God had encoded the story of His unconditional love right into their language. For centuries, the little word was there—unused but available, grammatically correct and quite understandable. When the word was finally spoken, it called into question their entire belief system. If God was like that, and not a mean and scary spirit, did they need the spirits of the ancestors to intercede for them? Did they need sorcery to relate to the spirits? Many decided the answer was no, and the number of Christ-followers quickly grew from a few hundred to several thousand.

The New Testament in Hdi is ready to be printed now, and twenty-nine thousand speakers will soon be able to feel the impact of passages like Ephesians 5:25,  “Husbands, ‘dvu’ your wives, just as Christ ‘dvu’-d the church.…”  I invite you to pray for them as they absorb and seek to model the amazing, unconditional love they have received.

As God’s Word is translated around the world, people are gaining access to this great love story about how God ‘dvu’-d us enough to sacrifice his unique Son for us, so that our relationship with Him can be ordered and oriented correctly. The cross changes everything!  Someday, the last word of the last bit of Scripture for the last community will be done, and everyone will be able to understand the story of God’s unconditional love.

Bible Translation Acceleration Update! : 

The YouVersion community has now reached a truly global milestone: The Bible App just added its 1,000th Bible version! With Bibles available in more than 700 languages, that means that millions of people are now reading God’s Word in the language of their hearts, together.

Version number 1,000 is Deftera Lfida Dzratawi (XEDNT), the first digital translation of the New Testament into Hdi (pronounced huh-DEE), a language spoken mostly in Cameroon and neighboring Nigeria. Generously provided to the YouVersion community by Wycliffe, this Bible’s translation is an incredible story of perseverance and love decades in the making!

It's the Mother Tongue that Plants the Word in Our Hearts

The Bible says, “...the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires.” (Hebrews 4:12, NLT)

This truth is most deeply experienced when a person is able to read the Scriptures in his or her own heart language. Here is another real-life example of what the difference looks like! :

In a minority language group where people are not well acquainted with Jesus, a woman was hired to translate one of the gospels. Although she was fluent in Russian (the language from which she was translating), she discovered that the words in her own language were “so beautiful—brighter, more touching, deeper than Russian.” No matter how often she read the book, it still spoke to her: “I start crying when I read about Jesus being lonely and praying during the night before His crucifixion. When I read those words in my language I can’t stop crying. The words are so alive, they pierce my soul.” When she read it to others, they also wept.
 

In another language group in the area, a mother tongue translator needed to find out if a new translation of Mark’s Gospel communicated clearly, so she read it to a group of teachers. Because she was concentrating very hard, she did not look up until she heard a noise that sounded like laughter. Was something wrong with the text? Did her listeners think it inappropriate to read in the local language when they were all educated in Russian?

Then she realized that it was not laughter but crying! She looked up to see a school principal with his head bowed and a pool of tears on the desk in front of him. The story in Mark 12 about the poor widow giving her offering had touched him deeply. When he heard it in his own language, he realized that Jesus' words carried a challenge—it is not enough just to hear the words; we must live accordingly.

If these people speak and teach in the language of wider communication, why do they still respond in this way to their mother tongue? A translator in West Asia put it this way: “We can understand the Bible with our mind in the national language, but it’s the mother tongue that plants the Word in our hearts.” After giving 18 years of his life to translating the New Testament into his own language, this man turned his attention to the Old Testament (completed in his language now and dedicated in 2012).

Some—maybe most—of the people in these language groups are proficient in a language of wider communication. But the translation in that language doesn’t always resonate at the deepest level of their beings—the place where hurts are healed, decisions are made, and lives are changed.

Edited from a ConnectUS newsletter, November 2011, Bob Creson

Freedom is the visage of a laundry-chomping donkey

This is the last week of my #30daydietofpassion, and this week I would really love to focus on some stories from the field that highlight some interesting translation issues!  The more I learn about linguistics, Biblical exegesis, and  how the two must work together to "crack the code" of Bible translation in each individual culture, the more I understand what a sheer miracle it is each time a translation team completes the Scripture in a new language!

It used to take a missionary's lifetime to learn a people group's language, and to then begin and finish the long, hard work of discovering each best word and/or phrase to convey the meaning of each Bible passage. This time has been diminished a little in many places, due to the move of working with national translators and missionaries that I've mentioned before. However, this just means that teams of nationals and ex-pats are now working together to discover those words of life that impart the right theological meaning encapsulated in each verse.

Ivy's story below shows one such example of a phrase that eluded a translator for a long while, until an incident with a donkey brought the right words to light! Enjoy:

Excerpt from Ivy Cheeseman's article, published in InFocus 2010, Issue 4

Sunday's PassionBite Video!

The Road to Transformation from Wycliffe USA on Vimeo.

Africa, the land of 2,146 living languages

The last region, rounding out this week's focus, is the continent of Africa. I love today's visual aids!--for me, it's so helpful to see the size-comparisons, putting things into perspective, and the facts about cell phone use are still surprising to me!

I also didn't know that Nigeria is the country with the third largest need for Bible translations still! Check out the facts and pictures, and check back beginning tomorrow for our last week of #30daydietofpassion!

Do you Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwymdrobwllllantysiliogogogoch?

Today, I take a look at the needs in Europe, along with some fun facts about the longest city name in the world!)

This area is perhaps the one that people think of least when they think of Bible translation needs. But there are 127 separate languages still waiting for a completed Bible in this region. Many of these people groups fall into the category of believers without the Word in their heart language---they may attend church and hear God's Word preached, but it is in a standard, "Language of Wider Communication, often the national language, but it does not meet their comprehension needs.

For many of us, this might feel similar to if we only had access to discipleship, teaching, and reading the Word on our own in a language that we once took a brief class on in high school or middle school! We would never consider this an adequate way to know Jesus for ourselves, but this part of the world lives with this as their daily reality.

Take a look at all the fun facts, and please join me in praying for Europe and the remaining language groups there--that God would move hearts and send people there, raising up teams of people for each of these regions, "until every last tongue has heard". Amen.

The translation needs of the Americas!

Today, we look at the Americas! This is often the region that people assume is completely finished! In our North American paradigm, it is too easy to forget the true diversity all around us, and that there are more than a thousand languages spoken on these continents and their surrounding islands! Have a look below at the facts, and please pray for translators to rise up to work in each of these language groups. There is a need for people willing to give their lives to the cold, huddling up in Nunavut with First Nation languages, and  for translation teams to continue working in the balmy jungles of South America until every tongue has access to God's voice...

Asia Area Statistics!

Today's focus is on the region of Asia! With almost 60% of the world's population, this region and its 49 countries contain 2,303 living languages. Gobble up the info-spread below:

Translation needs in the Pacific

Through the rest of this week, I want to showcase some beautiful graphic-representations of the needs left in five major world-regions. Today we look at the Pacific, an area dear to my heart because of Papua New Guinea! Many of the Bibleless people groups are in this area of the world, with 1,311 living languages still spoken within this region! Language varieties were often kept separate and distinct in these areas (as opposed to the expansion and overlapping of many other languages, like how English spread) due to sharp geographical features, like mountains that historically made communication between people groups much more unlikely. Take a look at these language and world facts, focusing on the work that is left to be done. 

View a clickable, larger version at http://blog.wycliffe.org/2014/06/16/wycliffe-world-highlights-pacific/

In their own words..

“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.” – Nelson Mandela 

“When God’s Word is translated into the language that speaks to people’s hearts, it transforms lives. “Swahili words aren’t deep words to us. They don’t go inside us like Zanaki words do!” – Pastor, Tanzania, East Africa

 “…Churches were for old people who only spoke English, and even they didn’t understand it all. Now they read the Bible verses in our language, and the church is growing so much they added a second service. They only have standing room at the first service!” – Jessica, an Aghem (Cameroon) literacy teacher.

“I feel a great satisfaction in Bible translation. I am encouraged and have energy to keep doing the translation because I know my people will be able to read the Word of God in their own mother tongue.” –Bernard Diatta, national translator. Photo by Zeke du Plessis

Why Bible Translation?

The ripple effect of Bible translation for families

The ripple effect of Bible translation in a community that has not had it before is remarkable. I remember sitting with a group of women in a mountain village of Ghana and hearing them discuss the effects their literacy class was having on their lives.

One woman spoke about how they were now creating a business co-op through micro-loans that were helping them all to utilize small-plot farms to provide for their families. Another spoke about how she suddenly felt empowered in the market place, that she could sign her signature mark now, knowing what she was signing for, and that no one took advantage of her anymore. A third mother spoke of all the knowledge she was newly attaining about the world around her, and that she had never had access to the health pamphlets given by the city and aid workers before! She cried as she gestured and explained examples of how to wash her baby, and that covering their food could make a difference in keeping things sanitary… simple but powerful things that had never been opened to them before. 

They spoke from the heart, blatantly choked up and moved by the impact of these practical lessons. These mega life-changes all followed the introduction of a Bible translation project into their community, and the establishment of literacy courses alongside it, so that once the Word became fully available in their variety's heart language, they would be able to read it.

My experience of these stories is not isolated, and today's PassionBite video beautifully reiterates some of the socioeconomic ripple effects that have shown communities Jesus' love for them through practical means.

Empowering Families for Lasting Change from Wycliffe USA on Vimeo.

The Boogi Waqa

Today's PassionBite contains a story from Kenya (as told by Bob Creson), involving a wily and misbehaving cow, a dream bearing a vision from Heaven, and the fulfilment of God's promise to the Borana people to provide His Word to them in their language once again… 

The hot desert day was over and a small group of Borana people—nomadic cattle herders in Kenya—sat down under the stars to share news and stories. As SIL workers Jim and Dorothea Lander joined them, an elder began to speak.

“Long, long ago,” he said, “the Borana people had a Book of God. We called it our Boogi Waqa and everyone had a copy. We read it often to learn how to please God. But as the years passed, our books began to wear out until eventually only one remained—the prized possession of an old, old grandfather.

“Those were years of drought, and our people relentlessly battled for survival. Day after day the old man and his family took their cattle out on long searches for grass and water. One day they left behind a cow too weak to keep up with them. Nosing around for food while no one watched, she came upon the last Boogi Waqa…and devoured it! When the old man came home that night, he found only a few pieces of leather binding scattered on the ground. Great sadness filled the camp.

“That night the old man slept fitfully and dreamt that an angel appeared to him. The angel promised that after many years God would send their book back to them. ‘Watch for a strange man from a faraway country,’ said the angel. ‘When he comes, treat him well, for he will bring back your Boogi Waqa.’

“Many years later, the first missionaries came into Borana land. Some of you remember them. They tried to learn our language, and one of them actually wrote a book he said came from God, but we could not read it.” The elder paused, and then with a long sigh, he concluded: “Now, my children, we still wait for the Boogi Waqa.”

Jim and Dorothea were still learning the Borana language, but they understood enough to marvel at the story. A few weeks later, they entertained some Borana men in their home. After dinner and several cups of sweet, creamy tea, a man named Galgalo picked up the Lander children’s English Picture Bible. Galgalo could read it because he’d served in the Kenyan Air Force. He read the story of the Tower of Babel in English, and then told the Borana men what it said in their own language.

Together they looked at the pictures in the Bible and exclaimed, “Look, these men dress just like we do, with flowing clothes and turbans! They pack their camels like we do! And this desert looks just like ours!”

Galgalo turned to Jim and asked, “Is this a Borana book? Is it…could it be…the Boogi Waqa?”

“Yes,” said Jim. “This is the Boogi Waqa.”

Silently the men stared at Jim and Dorothea. Slowly they turned their gaze back to the book. Long into the night they explored the book, examining the pictures and listening to Galgalo read. Eventually they came to a picture of the Israelites sacrificing a lamb, as God had instructed them to do in the Old Testament.

The men told Jim, “Our fathers taught us that the Boogi Waqa told how to sacrifice a lamb, so that God would forgive our sins. And sure enough here it is in this Boogi Waqa! We still do our animal sacrifices, but some of the missionaries say we should stop. Why is that?”

His heart pounding, Jim took the Bible and turned to the tenth chapter of Hebrews. With Galgalo’s help, he explained that God sent his Son, Jesus, to be the perfect sacrifice for sin. They no longer needed to sacrifice lambs each year because now they could find forgiveness of sin and eternal life by putting their trust in Jesus, who died for their sins once for all!

Health concerns later sent the Landers back home, but a Borana man, David Diida, drew on their linguistic research to spearhead a revision of the Bible and a very successful literacy program. Many groups of believers can now read their own Book of God all across Northern Kenya.

Dorothea says, “I believe God placed the Boogi Waqa story in Borana history and preserved it in their oral culture so that many years after the original book disappeared, men would seek after God and find in Him eternal life by reading their new Boogi Waqa.”

God left His footprint in the desert sands of Northern Kenya, and He’s left it in many other cultures around the world. Missionaries often think they are “taking God to the people” they are called to serve. But the truth is, He has already been there, preparing the way.

We Go Way Back

#Throwbackthursday to a powerful historical milestone that was one of the first miracles of Bible translation acceleration!

“It is a press. ... Through it, God will spread His Word. A spring of truth shall flow from it: like a new star it shall scatter the darkness of ignorance, and cause a light heretofore unknown to shine amongst men.” —Johannes Gutenberg

Before Johannes Gutenberg invented the movable-type printing press in the 1400s, every Bible was produced by hand. This meant only the wealthy could afford them. Gutenberg’s invention eventually made it possible for anyone to own a Bible.

God, When Will You Speak in My Tongue?

I have spoken a lot about my passion to see the Word of God translated into every person's heart language; however, there is a passion more powerful than this---that of the personally yearning---the passion that the Bibleless people of the earth have to receive it themselves. The poem below was written by a man from Southern Sudan, as he tried to put words to his desire to receive the Bible in his language.

As I've expressed here before, some of the places where Bible translation is still needed have few to no believers yet. However, in much of Africa, there are places where the Gospel was brought decades ago and there is a vibrant church, but no Bible in the language of the people! As Ed Lauber (a missionary in Ghana) puts it, "In such cases, believers long to have God’s word in a language they really understand. They know that the Bible is being translated into languages around them, and they wonder when it will be their turn."

God, When Will You Speak in My Tongue?

Far and near

It is said that you, God, speak!

How do you do that?

Is it in their tongues?

If it is truly so,

God, when will you speak in my tongue?

East and west, north and south,

The Creator speaks, it is said!

Not in the language as of birds;

But in other human tongues I cannot understand!

God, when will you speak in my tongue?

Children and grown-ups of other lands,

With their different tongues,

Know your voice.

In their tongues you speak a special message to them!

If you speak messages in different tongues,

God, when will you speak in my tongue?

In the world around, we perceive you,

Yet your language is not clear.

We want to know you personally,

We want to hear you speak to us.

If you know all tongues,

God, when will you speak in my tongue?

We search you as a treasure.

Our eyes look on mountains, rivers,

Even in caves, forest and world around us.

Many voices are heard, confused we become,

If your voice is one, as of that of the Creator of all,

God, when will you speak in my tongue?

Oh! God, Creator of all people,

You who do not segregate,

Is it possible to hear you speak?

Can you speak in my tongue?

God, when will you speak in my tongue?

—James Lokuuda Kadanya

James speaks the Toposa language of South Sudan, which is spoken by more than a half million people. Today he is operating Salt and Light Outreach Ministries in South Sudan.

This post originally appeared on July 22, 2011, at http://blog.theseedcompany.org/bible-translation-2/god-when-will-you-speak-in-my-tongue-2/#.VLbDw8aUf8E

The voice of charts and graphs

The reality is staggering. Here are the current and updated needs for Bible translation projects around the world:

Portrait of translation

This tapestry, it fills my heart now in a way more than ever before. I mentioned last week that many years ago, I didn't understand all the roles that were required for this task.. I didn't understand its vastness, I had no concept of two thousand languages spoken by 180 million people without the Bible in their language, so at that time, my mind had only two categories for this work: Bible translator, and sender.

With my interest came research though, and then the hunger for more research brought me on a trip to Ghana with Wycliffe Discovery in 2004! And adventure and knowledge were added to research, and with knowledge came fire. Through that experience and through getting to begin linguistic training, I learned of Language Survey, alphabet-writing, night literacy courses being taught in the jungle by the light of thunder-lamps. I learned about data programs being written by the tech-minded missionary that can accelerate the "code cracking" of language development and translation. And there are teachers that are needed for the families called to this life-long work. And none of it works without the rest of it.

And now, on the other side of some life-changing events for me, through health issues that, at least for now, change my ability to be a Language Surveyor in uncharted territory, I look through the prism at God's call on my life to be a part of Bible translation, and I understand this call now more than I did before. Just as He expanded my two categories of Bible translation into the more real tapestry-paradigm, replete with the many categories of roles that are needed, I now know with more certainty and trust that this is what I'm made for, and that this call will continue to surprise me, in all the many forms and roles that Abba places before me. I see a fuller picture now, and that each role is one of the exquisite colors needed to complete what He is creating, and that there is a call and a role for every believer in this commission to make disciples and bring the gospel.

Where God is but a visitor

When we speak about Bible translation needs, we're really speaking about "two groups": the unreached people groups (completely unevangelized, needing the Word and the Gospel to be brought), and then also the people all over the world that maybe have a church and are established believers, but have no Scripture in their language.

The one that people usually think about when Bible translation comes up are the unreached people groups of the world, (people in the "10/40 window"), while the second category of Bible translation needs are for the hundreds of languages that are spoken in countries that may have millions of believers, but very few with access to God's Word in their heart language. In a lot of cases, this second group includes the oppressed church, or simply believers that speak a different language than the country's nationally recognized/standardized language (this group covers people in places like Russia, First Nations tribes in northern Canada, the islands of Indonesia, language varieties in Southern Italy and other European nations, evangelized African nations, countries all over South America, and on and on an on!). These people may understand some of the national language, but it's not the language they speak at home, or in the market, and it's not the language they speak to their children, spouses, loved ones. So when they go to church, they experience the Lord speaking only to them as a foreigner would, as an unfamiliar visitor might - not in the language that speaks to their heart or makes the most sense to their minds, but in a language that is not their own. And this experience can come riffled with misunderstanding about what our Abba is really like!---Their whole experience of church, worship, and prayer may be teaching them that God is not a personal God, but a formal, standardized, political god, and that He does not understand their tongue, nor care to speak with them as a friend does. In many places, the church cannot mature as it can here, because its believers and even pastors do not have access to the Word to read and study on their own, discipleship is limited, and belief remains thin, unfed, and unfulfilled by Christ's coming.

Today' PassionBite video is about the great need for Bible translation for already-existent believers. Author and pastor, Francis Chan, speaks about the authority of the Word, and the URGENT need for pastors and believers all over the world to have it.

Francis Chan on the Authority of God’s Word from The Seed Company on Vimeo.

Bringing God's Voice to the Small - God Speaks Kwatay

In thinking this week about the marginalized people groups of the world, I was reminded of another story, from a missionary couple in Senegal:

"We went to Senegal in 1990. We were expecting that we would be assigned to a large language group, one with hundreds of thousands or perhaps even a million speakers. But when we arrived, we found that the larger languages had either all been taken, or no work on them was currently planned. The top three priorities that SIL gave to us to visit and pray about all had only about 10,000 speakers. During that trip, God seemed to be clearly leading us to work with the Kwatay, a group of only about 5,000 people. I remember walking through the village the night we were there, and I stopped to watch a full moon rise over the point of a grass-roofed hut. A voice seemed to come to me, "Is it really worth giving your whole life to bringing God's Word to just 5,000 people?" I was struggling with that in my flesh - and it wasn't so obvious at the time, as it is now, where that voice was coming from. But then I seemed to hear another voice. It said, "How many churches are there in Weed?" Weed was my home town in California, a small mountain community of about 3,500 people. I started to count and came up with 8. The "voice" then continued, "Eight pastors who are giving

their lives to bring the Lord to that community, isn't it right for the Kwatay to have one?" We never looked back. God went on to impress on us from the Scriptures that he had never chosen the strong or proud or numerous, but he was always concerned with the widow and the orphan and the outcast - those who were small in the world's eyes. The Kwatay New Testament was dedicated in 2000. I think God is especially pleased to hear such a small group of voices gathered around the throne singing, "Úsali Atambatun!" ("We praise you God!")."

The anatomy of the translation process and... cartoons?

One of the things I get asked a LOT is about what the process of Bible translation actually looks like! Years ago, I myself thought there was just this one large, all-encompassing role of "Bible Translator" that sort of did it all.. I hadn't been given a full glimpse into the HUGENESS of what needed to be done yet, and I hadn't thought critically about how necessary lots of checks and balances are in the process, so that we know that the end-product translation is accurate, clear and natural to the native-tongue speaker.

This video is today's PassionBite, and the best resource I've found for making this enormous task make a bit more sense!

Access Equals Empowerment

Yesterday I referenced the incredible fact that English speakers were once also the "Bibleless peoples of the world", that had no access to God's voice in a language they could deeply understand.

As Bob Creson, the current president of Wycliffe USA, put it, "Did you know that John Wycliffe served the marginalized people of his day? He served the peasants -- the English speakers. Royalty spoke French; the Church spoke Latin; the nobodies spoke English. 'Don't cast the pearls of the Gospel before swine.'---That was the attitude of the Church during the time of Wycliffe, but he had a vision, a mission and a passion that English peasants, who spoke an 'inferior' language, should have access to the Scriptures. He said, 'Everyone has a right, even peasants, to hear and understand the Word of God.'"

In this letter that Bob Creson wrote to encourage missionaries, he went on to draw a connection between Access and Empowerment, telling several stories of how receiving access to the Word brings empowerment for change with it. One of those stories involves the Cacua people of Columbia. They are a small people group living in the jungle, that only received a completed Bible several years ago, but the turn-around in their village is beautiful! It shows a people who have been affected by the Word, not just on a behavioral-level, but in a way that has impacted every level: their self-worth, activities, cultural identity, and the treatment they receive from their surrounding villages. Their story is below!

Passion from function and fact

When I was a small child and into my teens, I remember curling up with captivating books that told stories of far-off places, with descriptive, enticing, moving language that got my heart and my head thrumming, because understanding came to me through emotion. At the same time, my beautiful sister would be curled up with a fat volume of the Encyclopedia, and her heart would be just as enraptured as mine. My husband is this way too! I have been told tales of how he'd be found taking toys apart, piece by piece, and not out of destructiveness, like a mother might assume, but because they were his favorite toys and he needed to understand them…

For some of my dearest friends, passion comes not from simply feeling something deeply, but from understanding how it works, or from "knowing the facts” and the history.  That kind of passion gets renewed by playing, by learning and doing, tinkering or studying. For that reason, today I wanted to post this interactive timeline about Bible translation!  The sheer breadth of this task---how long it’s been going on, and how much is left to be done---blow me away. But it is also comforting to see how far it has come already, and how we now live in a society that cannot remember a time when we were the culture that had no access to the Word in our tongue. 

One day it will be that way for them all. Amen.  

http://www.wycliffe.net/BTT.html

"You say it is heresy to speak of the Holy Scriptures in English. You call me a heretic because I have translated the Bible into the common tongue of the people. Do you know whom you blaspheme? Did not the Holy Ghost give the Word of God at first in the mother-tongue of the nations to whom it was addressed?” 

-(John Wycliffe, quoted by David Fountain in John Wycliffe: The Dawn of the Reformation, pp. 45-47)