Several years ago we took a group of about 30 young adults to Papua New Guinea to discover for themselves what Bible translation is all about and why people like us give our lives in service for those still waiting to hear the Good News in a language they truly understand.

Two of the participants, Tom and Cassie, had the privilege of spending 4 weeks in a village in the Madang Province with a local translator – Martin Barang and his wife Miriam and their 3 children. Martin and 3 other men from the Gwahatike language worked on the translation of the Bible into their own language. And now, (more…)

There are 45 living languages in Uganda. Wycliffe is currently working in four, but there are more that are still waiting for Bible translation.

I don’t know what you think about when you hear the name “Uganda”, but I think about rebirth and opportunity. Birth isn’t easy – especially for the mother! And opportunity often comes in the midst of change, trauma or calamity.

Listen to these stories below:

Issac

Amber

Eleven language communities – hundreds of thousands of people – now can hear God speak to them.  Lives and communities are being transformed.

Earlier this week we participated in the celebration of the publication of newly translated Scripture in 11 language communities. Enjoy the abridged celebration here. (It is large, so it takes a minute to start once you click it.)

You’ll notice that Ruth is leading worship for the group of several hundred attendees. We are meeting at Wycliffe USA’s Mobilization Center in Orlando, FL.

Sebastian was 50 years old, an alcoholic with a second grade education, when he trusted Christ as his Savior. He was 55 – quite elderly for his small Mexican community — when he began translating the Scriptures into his Tezoatlan Mixtec language. He had no training, no help, not even an alphabet beyond the Spanish one he’d learned in school, but he saw a need. While he could understand a fair amount of what he read in his Spanish Bible, his wife could not, nor could many others who attended the Bible study in their village. His heart burned to help them.

Finally one day he decided he had to try. He bought a notebook and set out to translate the resurrection story in Luke 24. It was hard to spell Mixtec words using only Spanish letters. It was even harder to understand the biblical concepts and express them in his own language. It made his usual work plowing rocky fields and hauling firewood down mountain trails seem easy. Nevertheless he kept at it.

He took his beloved notebook to every Bible study, but he didn’t read from it out of fear that he might have mistranslated the precious Word of God. Then one night as he watched his neighbors sleeping, wiggling or whispering to each other through an unintelligible service, he knew he couldn’t wait any longer. He slowly stood up, (more…)

Nard Pugyao grew up in an isolated village in the northern Philippines. The year he was born, God moved in the heart of Dick Roe from Vermont to become involved in Bible translation. Financed and sent by Christians in the USA, Dickspent 25 years working on the translation of the Bible into Isnag, the language Nard spoke.

In this story, Nard talks about going to school as a child. He had to walk an hour over the mountain to get to school, and was taught in a language that was foreign to him. He hated first grade so much that he skipped school for three months! But by the next year, Dick has prepared literacy material in the Isnag language. When Nard encountered books in his own language, he fell in love with learning.

Nard goes on to talk about his life, how he helped Dick learn Isnag better, and how he eventually became a missionary pilot himself. Never did that barefoot jungle boy dream of flying!

In October of this year, Nard spoke to the staff at Wycliffe’s headquarters in Orlando, FL. Below is his talk. While his focus was to encourage the office staff to persevere and not give up, the message is just as relevant to each of us who are an active part of Bible translation. It is well worth 35 minutes of your evening.

We have been born at an amazing time in history. Our generation could see the Word of God come to every last people group in the world – the fulfilling of Jesus last words to his disciples, “go and make disciples of all the nations.”

God wants us to be intentional about the Great Commission.

You remember, I’m sure. Paul, the apostle, had been warned many times that he should not go back to Jerusalem. There were even prophets who warned him. He was so well known as the man who was defiling the Jewish faith, that his life was in danger. Stubborn, he went anyway – and almost got killed. In fact he would have been killed if he didn’t choose to speak the right language to the right individuals. Remember?

As Paul was about to be taken inside, he said to the commander, εἰ ἔξεστιν μοι εἶπειν τι πρὸς σέ; (more…)

I recently heard Nard talk about the day he flew into his home village in the Philippines, ferrying cases of newly published Bibles to his own people.

Airplanes are rare in Nard’s home, so when he landed, people came running. He was busy with the plane, unloading the cargo, so he didn’t look up right away. Nard heard a woman’s voice, and recognized the voice of his sister.

He glanced up, smiled and noticed that his sister had picked up a carton of Bibles that he had unloaded. She was balancing them on her head – the easy way to carry a heavy load.

Nard asked her, “Do you know what you are carrying?”

(more…)