Monday, March 1, 2010

March's Focus: P and A with Wycliffe Bible Translators

It's hard to believe this, but this month marks the first anniversary of our family Focus of the Month!  Over the past year, we have given to and prayed for organizations and individuals who are serving across the nation and the world.  It's really been an interesting adventure as we continually encourage ourselves to research and examine all the work being done throughout the nations by various individuals, groups, churches, agencies, and organizations.  The more you look around, the more you see being accomplished- the more lives you see being changed.

But you also become more aware of issues and problems you didn't even know existed.  So while this new endeavor has been encouraging, it's also been incredibly sobering.  We're definitely not wealthy by any means, but when I see the stories of so many across this oft-devastating world, I cannot help but feel convicted of my level of comfort and wealth.  I'm sure many of you have seen this website, but even if you have- check it out and be reminded and encouraged that it often takes a very little to make a big difference.

And so, you ask, what will be the Focus of the Month now that you've got a year of this family tradition under your belt?  Well, we're going back to where we started.  Our very first Focus of the Month were P and A with Wycliffe Bible Translators.  You can read the original post about the beginning of the Focus of the Month tradition and how we met and choose P and A as our first focus here.  Lately, P and A have been on my heart a good deal, and I wanted to share a brief update with you all as well.  Since last March when we first 'introduced' you to them, they have moved to Central Asia and are continuing to learn the local language(s) in order to translate the Word of God into the languages so that everyone can have access to the Word in their own language.  Please continue to pray for not only excellent language acquisition, but also relationship development- that P and A would be the Light to their neighbors and friends.  Also pray for safety, as they are in a very closed country at the moment.

I want to repost one paragraph which truly shows how needed the work of translators P and A is:

There are 6,912 spoken languages in the world today. Of those languages, only 438 have complete translations of the Bible available. One thousand one hundred and sixty-eight languages have translations of the New Testament. And 2,251 languages do not have any part of the Bible translated; one hundred ninety three million people in the world speak these 2,251 languages.

If you would like to donate to Wycliffe Bible Translators and help support this incredibly important work, please visit their website here.

1 comment:

Phil said...

Hey, I just stumbled across your blog, I work for Wycliffe in the UK. Thanks for sharing this.

You may be interested to know that some of the stats have changed since you wrote your original post. The highlights are,

More people have access to scripture, 451 languages have an adequate Bible and 1,185 a NT.

However, there are still 2,252 language groups waiting for a Bible translation project to begin - that's now 353 million people at best estimate.

Please keep praying.