Pastor George couldn’t wait to get to the Bible translation meeting. He had heard so much about MAST translation workshops and how this approach is revolutionizing Bible translation. Pastor George’s church is comprised of nine different language groups. His main mission in life is for everyone in his church to have God’s Word in their language. So he set off on a half-day journey from his village in Botswana to Zambia to see what he could find out. But the enemy was not going down without a fight.
“I couldn’t go home without fulfilling my promise.”
Along the way, Pastor George’s car broke down. He missed the ferry and could not cross the river until the next day. Then he had to get a number of rides to take him the rest of the way. He knew this setback would cause him to miss the meeting by a full day, but he was still determined not to return empty-handed.
“I couldn’t let my broken-down car stop me,” says Pastor George. “I promised my church community that I would find out about Bible translation. I couldn’t go home without fulfilling my promise.”
As it turned out, a three-day translation accuracy checking event was getting set to start the afternoon Pastor George arrived. Our team gave him an explanation of the methodology and process. Then one of the participating translators spent time walking him through the MAST steps.
The next day while they were checking other Scriptures, Pastor George took what he learned and actually began translating the Scriptures into his heart language. After two days, he had completed the first 25 verses of Luke, chapter one.
Pastor George returned home with some translated Scripture and an even greater desire for his congregation to read God’s Word in their heart languages. He began training and raising up local translators to use the MAST method, and they have continued what he started, completing 16 New Testament books to date.
Now Pastor George is leading translation workshops for five new languages that just completed the four Gospels! Thank you for helping Pastor George reach his congregation and community with God’s translated Word!
