Finish Line

February 3rd, 2012 by Hannah

It’s exciting to hear about Bible translations being finished: to see the pictures of teary-eyed men and women holding up shiny New Testaments with crowds surrounding them to celebrate the launch, and to hear quotes about the life-changing impact of the Scriptures in people’s heart languages.

It takes a lot of work and a long time to reach that stage. Even if a finish line is in sight when the project takes off, unexpected battles and spiritual attacks on workers nearly always slow things down. It’s part of the reason that the celebrations are so moving. But the last few furlongs can be the hardest, and projects nearing completion desperately need prayer supporters cheering from the side lines.

Wycliffe in the US have published the most recent list of projects nearing the finish line (in the last three years before a New Testament completion). In it, you can read entries like this:

“BUROK; Africa; 45,000. A French-educated Burok pastor says, “I’ve studied the Scriptures in French for several years, but these passages in Burok go right to my heart!” Praise God for the team’s excellent headway with the project—typesetting for the Burok New Testament took place in August 2011. Pray that God will protect the translation teams, their families, and their equipment from spiritual attack, especially as they turn the project over for printing.”

This prayer resource can help you to be a prayer supporter for these communities who need the encouragement. Find FinishLine on Wycliffe USA’s website.

If you’d like to join in praying regularly for Bible translation around the world, you can receive our daily prayer diary by post, email or rss feed. Get Call to Prayer.

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Window on Wycliffe (13-18 February 2012)

February 1st, 2012 by Hannah

The Window on Wycliffe (WOW) event is an amazing opportunity for those thinking about short or long-term service with Wycliffe Bible Translators. It shows what makes up a Bible translation project and the different ways people can be involved.

Three main threads run through the week:

  • The Biblical basis of mission — looking at subjects like ‘the will of God’ and whether we are called to mission.
  • An overview of the Bible translation process — what is phonetics? what if it’s an oral language that’s never been written down? who does translation and how?
  • Non-language related roles — if you don’t see yourself as a gifted linguist there are still plenty of opportunities for you within Wycliffe Bible Translators.

This is going to be a brilliant event where I hope God will speak to us and show us what the next steps are. Currently there are 23 people from all over Europe signed up to join us at The Wycliffe Centre, near High Wycombe, for the event.

If you want to find out more about the WOW event, visit our website: wycliffe.org.uk/wow. Have a look around, and discover the many ways you could play a part in providing the Bible for someone who’s never heard God speak their language.

Blog post by Steve Thomas.

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IT matters

January 29th, 2012 by Hannah

“‘Make straight a highway for our God’ (Isaiah 40:3-5). In our own way, that’s what we are called to do—to create a highspeed digital highway, as direct as possible, smoothing the way for translators’ work flow, so the peoples of the earth can receive God’s word and see the glory of the Lord.” Rob Scebold at a JAARS conference in September.

Technology has revolutionised the way that Bible translation is done. For the early European translations, one scholar considered translation options alone, surrounded by other translations, laboriously writing a manuscript out by hand, to be printed using clunky materials over many months on a printing press. Mistakes were common and costs were unbelievable.

Many people think we still do translation like this. Certainly translations are considered, but increasing amounts of discussion are shared over the internet. Yes, libraries of resources are available, but easily available on computers. Printing can still take a long time, but to get something of a draft quality now can take just a click of a button, and publishing digitally can spread a translation around the world in a matter of minutes.

In their latest magazine, JAARS – a technological partner of Wycliffe Bible Translators – expand on some of the leaps that have been made forward in software to support Bible translation. Among them…

  • WeSay and myWorkSafe, programmes developed in the jungles of Papua New Guinea, which change dictionary making and file backup into something straightforward for mother-tongue translators who are inexperienced with computers. Dictionaries aid the work of translators and progress literacy, and in an environment where powercuts, loss of internet and computer failure are common, backing up is essential.
  • ScriptSource – an online database for linguists, researchers and font designers to share information about scripts and needs for new characters.
  • Pathway prepares finished documents for publising straight away, arranging items in the right formatting meet the highest standards of publishing at a click.

For more about the exciting and new developments in software coming along with Bible translation, read JAARS latest magazine, Rev 7.

If you are free this Saturday and around the High Wycombe area, you can find out more about how technology is changing the way translation is done at our public event ‘The Bible: the Story everybody needs’. Find out more.

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God, When Will You Speak in My Tongue?

January 26th, 2012 by Hannah

This poem is by James Lokuuda Kadanya, a speaker of the Toposa language of South Sudan. Toposa is still without Scripture.

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?

When he wrote the poem, James was studying in a linguistics school, and he now works for a mission, spreading God’s good news around the country. As many as half a million people who speak Toposa still only have a few portions of the Bible in their language. Do something so that people like James will hear God speak their tongue.

This poem has been reposted from the blog of a partner organisation, The Seed Company. Read their blog.

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Posted in Africa, Culture, Languages, People | 2 Comments »

Grab on to the Bible

January 24th, 2012 by Hannah

Many churches in the UK focused on getting back to Bible basics last year, as part of the celebrations for the anniversary of the Authorised Version. But in all the excitement, it’s easy to overlook the parts that made it hard to stay in the Bible in the first place.

There are all those genealogies, laws and prophets to get your head around. But that’s just difficult to read because we don’t understand them — sometimes the bits that we do understand are even harder to take in. How do we deal with issues like evolution, or the genocide that God appears to condone?

Last year, Biblefresh ran a series of classes and published a book called Get a Grip, made to tackle these kind of questions. The book is still available from Biblefresh here, and half of the profits go towards Bible translation.

If you missed the classes, you can still experience a bit of that too – videos from some sessions held at Kings College London are available, with experienced scholars and pastors answering some of the hard or ‘I-never-thought-of-that’ questions about the Bible.

Catch the videos here.

You know those parts of the Bible you don’t understand? There are Christians around the world longing to read them who can’t because the Bible isn’t in their language. Help translate the Bible.

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How far would you go?

January 22nd, 2012 by Hannah

One of the stories in our latest magazine was about the astonishing transformation God worked among the Pinai-Hagahai when the word of God came to them. The translated Scriptures were distributed on solar-powered media players. Read what happened when one family’s media player broke…

"Scriptures in my language"

‘What would you be willing to do to hear God’s Word in your language? Would you hike for half a day? Would you cross a rugged mountain? Would you navigate a vine bridge suspended over a raging river?

‘That’s what Wapena Mei did in order to obtain a small solar-powered device that has a recording of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Acts in the Pinai-Hagahai language. You see, Wapena knew it would be worth the trip because he had already been listening to the oral Scriptures for more than a year. But when his family’s player broke and they learned that 70 more would be distributed in a village across the mountain, his wife gave him the charge, “Go and get us another one of those MegaVoice units.”

‘Wapena was successful in his mission and he and his wife Makome will again be able to listen to the Pinai-Hagahai Scriptures in their small dwelling as they go to sleep at night. Wapena also uses it as a resource to prepare sermons for preaching in area churches.’ Account by Karen Weaver. Read more on thewordislife.net.

You can read more about the initial response to the media players in our magazine, Words for Life.

Pinai-Hagahai is a language of Papua New Guinea, the country with the greatest need for Bible translation in the world. Wapena Mei can hear God’s word in his language, but many more in his country and around the world have never heard even a single verse. Share God’s Story.

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Myles Coverdale (c. 1488 – 20 January 1569)

January 20th, 2012 by Hannah

Myles Coverdale was the translator of the first complete Bible into English, published in 1535. His work followed on from other first mother-tongue translations of Europe – French, German and Dutch – and the work of Tyndale, whose New Testament was published ten years earlier.

Coverdale began his work despite knowing that Tyndale was working on a complete Bible translation. “Why should other nations,” he said, “be more plenteously provided for with the Scriptures in their mother-tongue than we?”

Like Tyndale, his translation was executed and published in Europe, and was smuggled into Britain. In many ways, though, Coverdale’s translation was very different: he was not as proficient a linguist as Tyndale, and knew no Hebrew. Instead he worked from other translations. However, he was a great executor of the English language, and his translation is greatly admired for its literary, as well as spiritual, significance.

Despite his substantial work and impact, Coverdale was not a celebrated man. He was not born to a great family – in fact, the date of his birth is not even known. He never rose to great position in the church of his day, and died aged 81, in relative obscurity – 443 years ago today. Others thought he was humble and unassuming, a ‘very gentle spirit’. And he was phenomenally industrious: his notes suggest that he began his first translation less than a year before its publication, which meant he translated or revised on average 2,400 words a day – a remarkable feat.

He remained adamant in his belief that God used translations effectively. In response to objections to vernacular translations, he said, “The Holy Ghost is as much the author of it in the Hebrew, Greek, French, Dutch, and English, as in Latin… The Word of God is of like worthiness and authority in what language soever the Holy Ghost speaketh it.”

Today, while English-speakers are indeed ‘plenteously provided for’, more than 2,000 languages don’t have any access to God’s word in their mother-tongue. Give the Story.

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Saturday 4th February is ‘The Bible: the Story everybody needs’ day

January 17th, 2012 by Hannah

Wycliffe Bible Translators are spending a whole day (well, from 10:30) telling people all about the marvelous ways God is transforming lives through the work of Bible translation and what accompanies it, including literacy and applying the Bible to art, HIV/AIDS, trauma, church and more.

The free day will be held at Union Baptist Church, in High Wycombe. As well as spending times celebrating, learning, singing and praying, you could find out more about…

  • why a New Testament translation takes an average of more than 10 years
  • how young people can be involved with Bible translation
  • what it’s like to adapt to life on another continent
  • how computers are changing the process of translation
  • the linguistic training that Wycliffe workers undertake
  • how a language would use 26 words for ‘carry’
  • supporting the work of God’s mission overseas from the UK by finding academic journals, keyboarding, sending magazines to workers, or more.

To find out more or to sign up, go to wycliffe.org.uk/conference.

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John Bois: 3 January 1560 – 14 January 1643

January 14th, 2012 by Hannah

John Bois was a British scholar and Bible translator, playing a significant role in the translation of the Authorised Version at the turn of the sixteenth century; his notes from the translation discussions reveal insights into how the decisions for that translation were made. Today marks the anniversary of his death.

As a child, Bois was certainly remarkable. Born to parents renowned for their personal godliness, Bois was the only of their children to live through childhood. His father personally educated him, and very proficiently: by age 5, he could reputedly read the Bible in Hebrew.

When he was just fourteen, he went to study at St John’s College, Cambridge, where he learnt Greek and later taught it. He had originally settled on medicine, but his severe hypochondria meant the studies were too distressing: instead, he studied divinity.

In both his studies and his teaching, he was well-known for his extraordinary diligence, often at early hours in the morning. After marrying, and having to leave his fellowship at St John’s, he continued to return to the college to listen to regular lectures.

He was selected as one of the translators for the second Cambridge group, translating the Apocrypha for the King James Bible. The team finished significantly earlier than others, and after the death of another team leader, he was asked to work with the team translating the books of Chronicles to Song of Songs.

Although his selection was originally questioned – the London translators didn’t think they needed his ‘country’ help – he was also selected to be on the committee for the final checking of the translation. The process took the team of 12 nine months to complete. His notes from the meetings have been found, and made up part of the ‘Manifold Greatness’ exhibition in Oxford, which last year celebrated the anniversary of the King James Bible.

After the translation, Bois continued to be a model of godliness, even to the point of asking to be rebuked if he ever complained during his last illness. He preached regularly, and he would not allow his extensive knowledge of the Bible to obscure the main message of his sermons. He died aged 83 on this day in 1643.

Despite the historical work of Bois and others to ensure that English possessed a clear and accessible Bible translation, today more than 2,000 languages still don’t have any translation. Those languages are spoken by more than 300 million people. Find out what you can do to help them hear God’s word.

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The time is right

January 13th, 2012 by Hannah

John Hamilton, the coordinator of Wycliffe Bible Translators’ work in Northern Ireland, is making exciting plans for a trip abroad:

“Last week I booked flights to return to Ivory Coast. We left there as a family in July 1997 having completed an 8 year Wycliffe assignment at Vavoua International School teaching the children of mission families working in West Africa. Both our children and myself have made separate trips back to Ivory Coast quite a while ago, but for my wife, this will be her first time in Africa for almost 15 years.

“So why are we returning to the land of mangoes? To be part of a belated celebration of the New Testament in the Kouya language. Belated because the Kouya New Testaments arrived in the port of Abidjan in 2002, the day after Wycliffe personnel were evacuated due to the worsening political situation. Belated because that led to ten years of civil unrest and violence. Belated because the civil war battle lines in Ivory Coast were drawn right through Kouya territory. Belated because, for the past decade, the Kouya church leaders have not judged it wise to hold a public celebration of God’s word in their heart language.

“But now they feel the time is right.“ Read more from John’s blog.

As well as praying for John and his family’s trip to Ivory Coast, let’s praise God that the Kouya people have God’s word in their language. 350 million people do not, but you could help to change that.

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