My parents began to attend my home church when I was 2-years old. I heard Bible stories as a little child and then as a teenager began to study Scripture and learned to love the Lord Jesus. My husband and I were married in that church and then we moved away. Every time we would go back home our Sunday School teachers would want to know how we were doing. A teacher once said to me, “You loved the Lord Jesus when you were just a little girl.”
Today, dear friends, there is a little girl in a small Dayak village in Indonesia who goes to church every week with her mother. She too loves the Lord Jesus. But there is one big difference—there is no Bible in her heart language. Her mother teaches her as much as she can remember being taught.
You see, missionaries had gone to her island long ago. Some became believers as the missionaries had taught them, and they built small churches. Generation to generation the Bible stories were passed down—either from memory or from teachers who interpreted from Indonesian Bibles. Most of the Dayak people don’t understand Indonesian very well—many only know one language, their own heart language.
There are 287 distinct languages among the Dayak people living in the Indonesian rain-forest. Even in the most remote of villages, people are hearing of Bible translation. They have been pleading for Scripture in their languages for decades and were always told “later.” Over and over that’s what they were told.
“Later” has finally arrived. Today they can get God’s Word in their own heart languages—all they need is training and the technology. Using the MAST (Mobilized Assistance Supporting Translation) strategy a language group can get Scripture translated into their own language. They just need to send a team of their own people to a MAST workshop. The teams are provided with computer tablets that are linked to the Internet, translation software, and training during the MAST workshop.
For the sake of this little girl, let’s pray she will very soon have the Bible in her own heart language.
- Pray for all of the people attending those small churches that were started decades ago in Indonesia. Pray that their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ will continue to grow.
- Pray that bi-lingual people and leaders in the churches will choose to become translators for their language groups.
- Pray that the plans, facility arrangements, technology preparation, and facilitator arrangements will soon be made for these MAST workshops.
- Pray that Wycliffe Associates receives the funds and sends workers to lead the first 100 MAST workshops.
- Pray that Scripture translated into these 100 languages will transform lives to follow Jesus.
Praying with you,
Wycliffe Associates, Prayer Coordinator
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