When I look at the list of requests for help in translating God’s Word, I can often get overwhelmed. I find myself crying out to God for a miracle to help our brothers and sisters. And when I see how you respond to these requests . . . how you stretch out your hand in faith and give of the resources God has blessed you with . . . I see God provide the miracle that we are all praying for!
Thank you for your generous outpouring through the entire year, but especially as we closed out 2018. Over the last couple of weeks you helped provide the tablets that over 200 national Bible translators needed to start translation projects in some of the hardest to reach places in the world. And as you said “YES!” to these national translators’ requests, you also said “yes” to their communities that have waited generations to hold the powerful Word of God—in their heart language—in their hands.
I can’t help but think of the recent testimony of a 93-year-old Southeast Asian man named Ung.* He and his people speak a language that isn’t even recognized by the government, but for decades he prayed that one day he would hold God’s Word in his hands. When he heard that translators were working on a Bible in his language at a MAST workshop, his heart was elated!
And soon, they were finished.
When it was time for the dedication celebration, Ung felt compelled to be there to personally thank the national translators for their work and tell them that he had been praying for this day for years. He walked for an entire day to catch a boat and then a bus, traveling for three days to the site of the dedication ceremony.
Ung and his people can now read the Word of God in their heart language. They are seeing themselves through God’s eyes . . . and in God’s eyes they are no longer marginalized. They have value and worth!
These testimonies never cease to amaze me. I am humbled that you and I get to be a part of this story of God’s Word transforming lives and communities in every corner of the world!
But this is only the beginning. In each of these communities, we know that when God’s people start to take back the territory that was once held by Satan, principalities and powers begin to fight back. We have seen large groups of translators struck by sickness right before workshops were set to begin. We have seen persecution increase, and spiritual warfare intensify.
So would you please pray for our brothers and sisters on the front line of Bible translation? Pray that they would be strengthened by the power of God to stand up in the face of these principalities and powers, and that the Holy Spirit would fill them with courage and faith to continue in this great work.
Pray also for the communities that will be receiving God’s Word in their heart language for the very first time. Pray that these seeds will fall on good soil and that a great and mighty revival will spread in these isolated and hard-to-reach places!
Thank you again for your giving and for your fervent prayers. May God bless you in this new year.
