Archive for December, 2011

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The journey starts here…

Saturday, December 31st, 2011

John Wycliffe, a fourteenth-century scholar, is credited with the first complete translation of the Bible into any modern European language. While many had translated portions into Old and Middle English, Wycliffe’s translation is the first complete English Bible.

His work was opposed by the organised church at the time. The concept of a Bible accessible to the common man was so vile that, in response, Bible translation was declared an act of heresy, and his body was burnt as punishment… 43 years after he died.

Wycliffe translated the New Testament almost entirely alone from the Latin Vulgate (no one in the fourteenth century learnt Greek). Every copy had to be handwritten, with each Bible taking up to a year to produce. But, by 1408, even reading a copy was punishable by death.

Why did he bother?

“Holy Scriptures is the faith of the Church, and the more widely its true meaning becomes known the better it will be. Therefore since the laity should know the faith, it should be taught in whatever language is most easily comprehended… [After all,] Christ and His apostles taught the people in the language best known to them.” From a sermon by Wycliffe.

A lot has changed since Wycliffe’s work. Today, hundreds of versions of the Bible exist in English. In fact, there are as many English translations as there are languages with a complete Bible. And there are more than 2,000 with no Scripture at all.

Wycliffe’s death was more than 600 years ago today, but Bible translation is not 600-year-old history. Give the Bible: the Story everybody needs.

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Posted in Languages, Missionary life, People, UK | 1 Comment »

Biblefresh: a year in review

Wednesday, December 28th, 2011

So how has all this celebrating impacted you?

In the UK this year many churches, organisations, colleges and gatherings of Christians have been recognising the impact of the King James Bible for the last 400 years, under the collective banner of Biblefresh.

Biblefresh set out to address the seeming lack of enthusiasm that exists in the church for the Bible. As the official website says…

“For many in our churches the Bible has become tedious and toxic rather treasured, trusted and true. The aim of the Biblefresh initiative is to encourage a greater confidence and passion for Scripture across the Church.” Find out more about Biblefresh here.

And so we’ve had a year of events, special programmes, talks, seminars, book launches, films productions and competitions, using the excuse of this anniversary to encourage the church to once again get excited about the Bible. But what has the result of all this hard work been? Are you more inspired and encouraged to read the Bible for yourself?

Wycliffe Bible Translators became involved with Biblefresh for two reasons. First, it was a great excuse to talk to more people about the need for Bible translation around the world. We are really pleased that Bible translation was one of the four key messages of Biblefresh, and that translation projects in Burkina Faso — which you can still give to – are going to benefit from the prayers and donations of churches in this country.

But, second, we were also keen to play a part in encouraging Christians in this country to value and love the Bible for themselves. After all, who would really want to put all the time, effort and money required into translating the Bible into other languages if the message of Scripture hasn’t first of all made a difference here at home?

biblefresh logoSo, I ask again, how has all this celebrating impacted you? Has the Bible made a difference in your life?

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God with us

Saturday, December 24th, 2011

She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins. Matthew 1.21

-E nu -a yalɛ ˈke -nɛ ˈgwlaan-do ˈle, ˈbhɛɛ- ˈe nu ˈbhɛ ˈtɔkpalɛ Zesu, ˈbhɛ ˈyi -le dɔɔ Mɛɛ -Bhee Mi, -amasrɔyi ˈyele- nu -a ˈsi mu ˈɛ golɛ waa -za ˈyɔɔ- mu ˈɛ ˈyi. Mwan – Ivory Coast

Arabic .فَسَتَلِدُ ابْناً، وَأَنْتَ تُسَمِّيهِ يَسُوعَ، لأَنَّهُ هُوَ الَّذِي يُخَلِّصُ شَعْبَهُ مِنْ خَطَايَاهُمْ

Odi tạmar molobhir ọony keḍio ạna takōl ḍien odi ạJizos, ebum obho odi tạpel rōoy odi atẹnẹmi tịkarabh eedi obho. Oḍual – Nigeria

Magabata siya sing lalaki kag ngalanan mo siya nga Jesus, kay luwason niya ang iya katawhan sa ila mga sala. Hiligaynon – Philippines

Тя ще роди син, и ще Му наречеш името Исус (Спасител); защото Той ще спаси людете Си от греховете им. Bulgarian

Nichˈan unin chipitzcˈa tuˈ, Jesús chawaco isbihoj, yuto haˈ naj chicolnilti yet con̈ob yalan̈ ismul, ẍi naj ángel. Eastern Jakalteko – Guatemala

Ea va naşte un Fiu, şi -i vei pune numele Isus, pentru că El va mîntui pe poporul Lui de păcatele sale. Romanian

มารีย์ จะ คลอด ลูกชาย ให้ ตั้งชื่อ เด็ก นั้น ว่า ‘เยซู’ เพราะ เขา จะ ช่วย คน ของ เขา ให้ พ้น จาก บาป ทั้งหลาย ของ พวก เขา. Thai

Nntseincueⁿ cwii yuˈndaa na tsaⁿsˈa. Ndoˈ ˈu nntseicajndyuˈ juu Jesús. Ee na tseixmaaⁿ na nncwjiˈnˈmaaⁿñê nnˈaⁿ na mˈaⁿ cantyja ˈnaaⁿˈaⁿ. Nntseicanoomˈm jnaⁿ na laˈxmaⁿ naⁿˈñeeⁿ. Amuzgo de Guerrero – Mexico

他 将 要 生 一 个 儿 子 , 你 要 给 他 起 名 叫 耶 稣 ,  因 他 要 将 自 己 的 百 姓 从 罪 恶 里 救 出 来 。Chinese

 

People speaking these languages have the story of how Jesus came to save us in their heart language. More than 350 million people do not. You can make a difference this Christmas by giving the Story everybody needs.

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Understanding the Scriptures resources

Thursday, December 22nd, 2011

Over the past year, Wycliffe Bible Translators have been involved in the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible. Among the celebrations has been a series of evening classes called Understanding the Scriptures.

The classes covered an array of topics about the nature, content and application of the Bible. We’ve addressed big questions, like whether we can rely on the biblical texts, or whether the Bible always means what it says. We’ve scurried into challenging thoughts about how other cultures can open our eyes to the Bible and what we do with scriptural dualities.

But now it’s the end of the year, and also the end of the Understanding the Scriptures classes. Before you get out your hanky and start bawling, hang on! While they may be gone from the schedule, the content is still around.

The most recent evening class, on applying the Bible to all of life, is online now. You can download it as a podcast from iTunes or watch it as a presentation on our website. Or, if you just want to sit back and listen now, click the play button at the bottom of this post.

And there’s more! All the classes from the last year are still available on our website and will continue being so. If you want to review, think a friend might benefit, or think it might make a valuable 45 minutes for your small group, you’ll be able to find all the classes at wycliffe.org.uk/eveningclasses.

We hope you continue to enjoy them.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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7 keys to a great missionary career

Monday, December 19th, 2011

From time to time our little Wycliffe blog plays host to a selection of potted biographies of missionary figures. I felt sure that the key to the great missionary life must lie in their stories.

So, after deep analysis, here’s my ‘missionary how-to’:

  1. Be unsuccessful. William Carey, the Bible-translating missionary to India, famously started off as a cobbler, studying languages while mending shoes. Gladys Aylward (catch her biography on January 3rd) was a domestic. David Brainerd never completed his studies because he was expelled from Yale University.
  2. If you get a good job, make sure it has no bearing on the work you will do in the future. CT Studd was a Cambridge student and a professional cricketer; James Fraser was an accomplished pianist; and Anthony Norris Groves was a dentist.
  3. Make sure that your support is generally poor. Carey’s initial enthusiasm to reach the unreached was belittled with the response, ‘Young man, sit down; when God pleases to convert the heathen, he will do it without your aid and mine.’ Groves received so little support that he ended up starting the practice now known as ‘faith missions’.
  4. When you finally wade through your lack of experience and poor support structure, test your faith more by having very little initial response. Brainerd, Fraser and Carey saw very few responses to their call to faith in the initial years. For Adoniram Judson, it was seven years before the first convert. After years working on the Algonquin Bible translation, many of the copies and manuscripts John Eliot has produced were destroyed in a fire. And Townsend and Legters (Wycliffe founders) couldn’t even get across the Mexican border.
  5. Now you’ve got around to work, compound your problems with poor mental and physical health. ‘A museum of diseases’ was the epithet one doctor attached to Studd. Brainerd was both depressed and had tuberculosis, which lead to his death aged 28. Dorothy Carey tried to kill her husband twice.
  6. Really annoy the authorities. John Wycliffe’s translation work was so hated that he was burnt as a heretic 43 years after his death.
  7. If all else fails, try a good hairstyle. Check out Robert Moffat’s and Eliot’s.

The evident truth is that the key to the proclamation of the truth does not lie in the stories of men and women but in God’s Story. He chooses the clay vessels. Share God’s Story.

Disclaimer: Wycliffe Bible Translators take no responsibility for careers failed or lives lost as a result of taking this blog post too seriously.

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The patient Kapingamarangi

Friday, December 16th, 2011

When Pam and Nico were working in the Solomon Islands, they heard about the Kapingamarangi people of Micronesia. They heard that many of them were longing to have the Bible in their language. They were even saving to support the translation financially. But no one was available to coordinate the linguistic and translation work.

Pam and Nico returned more than 10 years later, and asked after the Kapingamarangi. Were they still fervent? they asked. One man’s answer summed it up: “What do we need to do to get you to come? Do we need to pay your plane fare?”

“Finally, in 1996 we moved to Pohnpei [in Micronesia] with our 12-year-old son. We found a community prepared to make Bible translation work a top priority—and ready to work together toward that goal. With the help of 20-plus translators and more than 70 Scripture reviewers, the New Testament was completed in only four years! By then their savings fully paid the cost of publication.

“When the completed New Testament was dedicated in 2000, we heard the story of Lohete, which gave us a new perspective on the Kapingans’ accomplishment. Lohete was a Kapingamarangi man who had received a Bible in the Pohnpeian language many years before. Pohnpeian is a Micronesian language, completely different from Kapingamarangi, a Polynesian language. Nevertheless, Lohete longed to read the Bible, so he taught himself Pohnpeian and, as he read, he came to know Jesus.

“Lohete wanted others to know the good news that he had discovered, but he knew that most people would never teach themselves Pohnpeian as he had done. So he started praying for someone to help translate the Bible into his language. We never knew Lohete, and his son was already an old man by the time we came to help, but when we heard this story, we knew that God had sent us in answer to Lohete’s prayers.”

Lohete never saw the New Testament in his language, but his prayer played as vital a role in the translations as the savings of his descendants. Please join in prayer with Wycliffe and the work of Bible translation: you can reach our prayer diary here (as a pdf) or subscribe for prayer items direct to your inbox.

This story comes from Rev 7, the magazine of JAARS. JAARS partner with Wycliffe Bible Translators, specialising in transport and technology. Find out more about JAARS and read their magazine.

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Leading literacy

Tuesday, December 13th, 2011

In Asia alone, there are more than 2,300 language groups. But if you are a child speaking a minority languages there, chances are you’ll never write it. Even if you go to school, you’ll be taught only in the national or regional language. The message is clear: leave your language behind if you want to succeed. And the results are equally transparent: many children are not able even to pass out of primary school.

LEAD are an arm of our key partner’s (SIL International) work in Asia. They work with communities to develop literacy programmes in the mother language. They have seen that children who have learnt to read and write in their own language have far more success at learning another.

But LEAD don’t only work with children. On their blog, they recently shared about a woman’s literacy group in Bangladesh. The women, aged between 17 and 38, had very little support from their families but despite this, they have studied diligently and are becoming proficient readers and writers of their own language.

The effect is more wide than literacy and numeracy. New learning opportunities have opened up to these women:

‘One participant shared that, “We have learned that it is not good to share things like brushes and combs.” Another shared that she thought it was important that they had learned in a story that it is good for everyone to eat fruit. Before in their village, only those who were sick would eat fruit.’ Read more about this programme on LEAD’s blog.

The effects of the work of Bible translation are wider than you might imagine: it can help a child go on to secondary school and a mother to learn about nutrition. Join Wycliffe Bible Translators and our partner organisations in the work.

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Gift giving

Saturday, December 10th, 2011

As well as having links to lots of Christmas resources you can use, we have also collected some stories. These stories speak specifically about how the Christmas story in the mother language had an impact on people’s understandings about Christmas and Jesus.

Take Pastor Waynse, a Simbiti translator from Tanzania. On his way to distribute the Nativity story to Simbiti speakers, he found another opportunity to share God’s Story:

“To reach the Simbiti villages I must board a small boat that ferries passengers across the lake. About 45 minutes into the trip, I began my work for the Lord. I called everyone’s attention in the boat and began to explain to them that God could speak their language. I told them about my work in the ministry of Bible translation for my own people group, the Simbiti.

“I pulled out a copy of the new Luke translation and began to read it. People crowded around to listen, and one woman purchased a copy on the spot. She was so happy and told me to press on in the work!”

Find out what happened to Pastor Waynse when he reached his destination, and read more stories on our Christmas resources page.

These collected stories make a short but thought-provoking addition to an advent service or small group social event. Reading them for ourselves can help us to be thankful for the gift of God’s word in our own language, and to pray for those who have never heard the Christmas story in a way they understand.

Make giving God’s Story to the 350 million who have no access part of your gift-giving this Christmas.

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Posted in Africa, Languages | No Comments »

“We may not have much, but we want to give”

Wednesday, December 7th, 2011

More than 200,000 people living in the Central African Republic speak the Gbeya language as their mother tongue. Bible translation in their language was started as long as 80 years ago, but still no complete Bible exists in their language, In fact, there is not even a complete New Testament.

Photo by Søren Kjeldgaard (www.sorenkjeldgaard.com)

Some Gbeya spekaers have formed the Gbeya Translation and Literacy Committee. They wanted to see the New Testament translation completed in their language. And they are not alone…

Their project required financial support, so they requested the partnership of local churches. Response was substantial. One committee member brought this report back from a church visit:

“During the service, following my words, Pastor Rangba rose and encouraged the congregation, saying, ‘This work of translation is our work. Don’t think that the translators are just doing it for themselves. They are doing it for the Lord, and for us. We are responsible, and we’re the ones who are going to really benefit from this work. So let’s give to this work of the Lord without hesitation.’

“And he added to me, as representative, ‘Don’t hesitate to come and ask us if we can make offerings, because that is what we can do to help. We may not have much, but we want to give, and when we give to support Bible translation we are proud to do it!’”

All the churches that were asked contributed, despite financial poverty in the area. Many Gbeya speakers have also volunteered as translators, all wanting to give something to the translation project.

The work is not just about the translation committees. It’s God’s work. Just as the local Gbeya churches have joined the work, we in the UK can help too.

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Posted in Africa, Languages | 1 Comment »

Resources with a seasonal reason

Monday, December 5th, 2011

It’s almost clichéd how easily we can slip away from the real meaning of Christmas, as much as we may hate to confess it. A new spin on the Christmas story can catch our attention back to the real reason. Here are some of our resource suggestions to keep you focused and having fun this advent.

Paperless Christmas and Natwivity are back by popular demand. Paperless Christmas is an innovative series of nine videos, dramatizing the nativity story as you’ve never seen it before (unless you caught up with the Wise Bikers and angelic postal workers last year!). Another new spin on the old story is Natwivity: follow Mary, Joseph, Herod and more as they tweet their thoughts in the days leading up to Jesus’ birth.

There are also resources for your church services. Scripture Union have developed a free all-age service plan, complete with videos and Bible talks. Another family interaction for services is the latest music video from Friends and Heroes, ‘He chose the shepherds’.

Or maybe you’re feeling creative and want to put your own spin on the Christmas story this year. With The Nativity Factor, you can contribute your own short-film interpretation. Prizes of up to £5,000 are up for grabs.

Find these and many more Christmas resources on our website.

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