Faith comes from hearing the message,
and the message is heard through the word about Christ.
Romans 10:17 (NIV)
I remember with fondness when my mother would read to my brothers and me every night before bedtime. I so looked forward to listening to the next Bible story. I’m sure you have sweet memories of listening to Bible stories at home or in Sunday School, too.
Right now, there are more than 2,700 languages with no Scripture. Most of these have no written form for their language. Hundreds of these oral language groups yearn to hear God’s Word—even more than I wanted to hear the next Bible story. It would take decades to develop a written alphabet for each language and then teach the millions of people to read—even to read Scripture in their own language.
That’s why the spoken word is the only way these precious people will hear the Word of God. Friends, we have the tools to take the message of Christ to them. They are called Bible Translation Recording Kits (BTRKs).
A couple of years ago a team of young programmers and designers in our 8 Weeks of Code summer internship program developed a powerful but easy-to-use recording software package for Bible translators to use on computer tablets. These tablets, pre-loaded with translation and recording software, along with recording equipment make up the Bible Translation Recording Kits (BTRKs).
Please ask the Lord to help us reach those who live in dangerous, far-away places, who don’t have a written language, with Bible translation workshops using BTRK equipment to record Scripture in their spoken-only heart languages.
Each Bible translation workshop in these oral-only languages has these specific prayer needs:
- Pray for someone (this may be a Bible or church organization in country) to make contact with the church or community leaders of local Bibleless language groups and encourage people to be willing, able, and ready to attend a two-week MAST workshop.
- Pray for someone to locate and reserve a safe facility that will provide sufficient room for translation work, sleeping rooms, and that can arrange the feeding of 20-100+ people.
- Pray for the purchase of Bible Translation Recording Kits.
- Pray for someone to attend the Bible translation workshop to train the translators how to use the Bible Translation Recording Kits and to help upload recorded Scripture to a safe online storage location.
- Pray for a leader and facilitators who are prepared to hold the MAST workshop and to train and empower teams of nationals to translate Scripture into their own languages.
- Pray for the funds and logistics of getting the translators, MAST leader, facilitators, tech support person(s), and all necessary equipment to the MAST workshop location.
- Pray that the Holy Spirit has freedom to minister to every participant to meet their particular needs.
- Pray that each participant will be kept healthy, strong, free from sickness, clear-minded, worshipful, and joyful. Pray that they will rightly translate and record God’s precious Word into the heart languages of those who have never heard of the message of Christ.
Thank you, dear friends, for taking the time to pray with me for those whose languages are only spoken. Praise the Lord for the BTRKs and their use to bring God’s Word to these precious people.
Praying with you,
Prayer Coordinator
Wycliffe Associates
