Amanda is a recruit with Pioneer Bible Translators. She presently is taking classes at the Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics (GIAL) in Dallas, TX where many of our recruits take their linguistics training. Its campus is located across the street from the Pioneer Bible Translators main office, known as the International Service Center (ISC). Amanda is training to become a Bible translator. She along with her husband David plan to serve two people groups in South Asia. In a recent newsletter she wrote the following story.
This semester I had a classmate from Southeast Asia. Her mother tongue is not the national language of her country. She is fluent in the national language and also in English. When she was growing up, the Bible was not available in her mother tongue. So she always read the Bible in the national language. For her to be in the US doing a graduate program, it means she is in the upper echelon of education compared to the average person from her country. A few years ago she learned that the Bible had been translated into her mother tongue, but she was so used to reading it in the national language, she thought she didn’t need to read it in her mother tongue. Then her brother read some passages aloud to her from the Bible in their mother tongue. She said, “It touched my spirit on such a deep level. It was different from reading it in the national language. It felt like God was so much closer to me.” She quickly got a copy of the Bible in her mother tongue and began reading it. She realized how true it is that God’s Word in the mother tongue touches hearts and spirits more deeply than in a second language, no matter how fluent that person is in the second language. She is now training to be a Bible translator.
Thanks for your prayers, Gerald Denny Care Department Director Pioneer Bible Translators
Thank God for this true story that illustrates the tremendous value of having the Bible translated into a person’s primary language.
Thank God for those who translated the Bible into the language you speak. It took them years of hard work learning the original languages (Hebrew – the Old Testament; Greek – the New Testament) and then translating the Scriptures into your language so they speak with clarity and power to your mind and heart.
Thank God that through your prayers, your finances, and your time you can participate with helping Pioneer Bible Translators provide this great treasure of the Bible in language after language of people who have never had it before.
Pray that Pioneer Bible Translators will reach the goal of working in 90 Bibleless people groups within the next three years. Right now we are working in 62 language groups.
