George is a pastor in his home town of Serowe, Botswana. He serves people who speak nine different heart languages that do not have a single verse of scripture. Pastor George’s main mission in life that everyone in his church receive the Bible. He provided English Bibles to his congregation hoping that God’s word would be a part of their lives and they would grow in their faith. But George and his church leadership quickly learned that even though they had good intentions by providing English Bibles it was not meeting the true need. The true need was understand-able Bible(s) for the 9 different languages within the church.
The church realized that Pastor George needed to know how to get a Bible in their own heart language. George had heard from other churches that there was a multi-church event that was going to meet by Victoria Falls in Zambia. The purpose of this event was to learn Bible translation techniques and how they could start their own language project. This was the plan. Prepared for a 9-hour drive and with his church’s support, Pastor George set off for his journey to Zambia.
Pastor George encountered many obstacles on his way to Zambia. Prior to crossing the border of Botswana, his car broke down. He had to make arrangements for the car and then continued on foot. The border closed. He could not cross by foot. He needed to take public transportation.
He could not return home empty-handed. His mission was too important. He was sent by his elders, church leaders, and his chief to go to this event. He had the responsibility to attend this meeting. Tired and discouraged, Pastor George arrived to attend the conference as it was ending.
Wycliffe Associate leaders encouraged Pastor George to meet with the remaining pastors/church leaders that night to talk about the event hoping they could teach George what they learned.
The next morning, Pastor Charles from Zambia who had attended the event worked with George on how to use translationStudio (Bible translation software). Charles was able to share with George how to translate the Bible using the MAST methodology and to accurately document the finished content of a working draft. The key, in theory, is Bible translation is scalable.
With this training Pastor George grew confident and energized to begin work on Bible translation. His plan was to start work on translating Scripture into his father’s language, then his mother’s, and then the nine Bible translation language projects!
Thank you for your prayers and partnership! Without you, we wouldn’t be here. God would be using someone else to accomplish His purpose. It is exciting to be involved together where God is at work.
