Recently, I was part of a choir that had to sing a famous hymn.
We began with a verse in English, followed by a verse in French. The next verse was in Swahili, and the final one in Igbo. Apart from the English verse, none of them were easy, and some were considerably more difficult than others.
A Rangi girl recites the story of the Prodigal Son Which got me thinking: how easy is it to learn and memorise Scripture? In your own language? Fairly easy. In another language? Much more difficult.
Last year, a group of children had the opportunity to memorise some verses of the Bible. They attended a Sunday school programme, and were given the challenge of memorising Scripture.
So far, so normal.
But that’s where the normal stops. Until recently, they would have had to memorise the verse in Swahili, the main language of the region. It would have been okay, they probably would have managed it, but it would have required a lot of extra effort.
The Rangi New Testament is presented at its launch More crucially, it wouldn’t have touched their hearts deeply… because Swahili is not their language.
But now, everything was different: the children had the opportunity to memorise Scripture in their own language, Rangi.
That was because the translation of the Rangi New Testament had just been completed.
The evidence of that difference became apparent when the children were given the opportunity to recite their memorised verses at the launch of the Rangi New Testament in Tanzania in August 2024.
As Paulo Kijuu, one of the Rangi Bible translation team, commented at the end of the event:
Memory verse: one of the children recites her Scripture ‘I have travelled a lot, but I have never seen children who have memorised the word of God as they did today. Those children, they were speaking so fluently. They don’t need to think, it’s just coming.’
That’s the effect of having Scripture in your own language!
The launch of the Rangi New Testament was a seminal moment for the Rangi people. For the children, it was their first opportunity to show their ability to read and memorise Scripture in their own language.
Plenty to celebrate! They had been using booklets on Jesus’ parables in their Sunday school classes, with a view to ‘performing’ at the event. One by one they recited their verses. One girl recited all 22 verses of the parable of the Prodigal Son.
All this happened with them just having the parables. Now, after the launch event, for the first time they have the whole of the New Testament in Rangi to read, learn from – and memorise!
The impact of those children reciting their verses was not lost on Paulo. He continues: ‘It’s a joy that the Rangi now have the Bible in their language. It’s something to thank God for a lot because having the Bible in our Rangi language, it means when God created the world, he wanted to communicate with us. So God is now communicating with them in a way that is very easy, in the language they really understand.
‘So, I am very happy and deeply moved. I believe that the Rangi community will change.’
At last, able to read the New Testament in her own language Rangi speaker Emilia Issaka, a literacy and Scripture engagement worker, explains what having the New Testament in Rangi means to her:
‘The difference between me reading Rangi and Swahili is that when I read Rangi the words enter my heart more than when I read the Swahili Bible, because in Rangi there are many words that touch my heart because those words are very deep in Rangi.
‘I think it will change the Rangi people, and then society and churches in general. A large percentage of people show the desire to read God’s word in Rangi.
O happy day! A day of joy and laughter for the Rangi people ‘So, when many people get the word of God in Rangi and read it for themselves, it will change their thinking a lot because the Rangi words will go deep into the heart.’
This is what Bible translation is all about: people being able to access (and memorise!) God’s word in their language, so it touches them at the deepest level, becomes foundational in their lives, and transforms them as they come to know Jesus.
