Pray for Africa

Kenya: The Weera* project vehicle urgently needs to be replaced after it was involved in a serious accident last year. Please pray that God would provide the right vehicle, robust enough to cope with the difficult terrain it will be used on. Praise God that two thirds of the cost of a new vehicle has been raised. Please pray for the remaining money and ongoing protection for the team as they travel on roads in poor condition.

*pseudonym

The Chadian Arabic New Testament was recently dedicated in N’Djamena, Chad’s capital. 20,000 copies in Arabic script are now available for sale, but the container with 20,000 copies printed in Roman script has still not arrived in Chad. Having the New Testament available in both scripts will mean more people can read it in a language they understand. Pray that God will use this translation mightily to reveal Christ.

This New Testament is a joint project of WEC International, Bible Societies and SIL International, Wycliffe's key partner.

The Kenyan Sign Language team have launched and dedicated a complete set of 110 Bible stories on DVD. Bible story sets are common in ‘oral’ cultures, where God’s word has always been passed down in the form of stories. It may seem ironic, but Deaf communities often learn in similar ways to ‘oral’ learners. A worker for Deaf Opportunity Outreach International, a key agency in Deaf translation, says, ‘Chronological Bible storying is equal to no other when it comes to teaching the Deaf about God’s mighty word.’ Pray for the stories to reach many Deaf people. doorinternational.com

In March, the Kenyan Sign Language team launched and dedicated a complete set of 110 Bible stories on DVD. It is a great milestone: the Kenyan Deaf have waited a long time to have God’s word! Praise God for this launch.

Early in May, Marcus Pewudie and Andy Ring began a consultant check of the remaining Lelemi* Old Testament books. Marcus is located in Accra, Ghana, and Andy is in the USA. Pray that the technology will work well as they work via Skype. With God's help, the whole Lelemi Bible will be ready to typeset this year. Andy also needs to write up information he gathered about cluster projects**. Pray that he can finish an initial document before his next trip. From May 30 to June 29 he will do Bible translation consulting in Nigeria. Andy and wife Kate write: "Thank you for your love and prayers. We rely on God's answers."

*About 50,000 people speak Lelemi.

** A language cluster refers to languages that may be linguistically related, and/or from similar geographic regions or cultural backgrounds. 

ATALTRAB * became 20 years old on April 23. On April 28, the anniversary was celebrated throughout 37 local churches in N'Djamena and Moundou**. The vision for Bible translation was shared with this theme: "The Church in Chad faces the challenge of Bible translation." Pray that by God's Spirit, many churches will embrace the importance of mother tongue Scripture for all peoples, in Chad and beyond. About half of Chad’s language groups still need translation.

* Chadian Association of Literacy, Linguistics and Translation of the Bible.

**Moundou is the second largest city in Chad.

Pray for translation activities in three language projects Mango, Niellim and Tunia. Mango has some portions of Scripture. So far, there is not any scripture translated into Niellim and Tunia. Pray also for the assessment of literacy classes that is taking place at this time (mid-April to mid-May) in the Ngambai project. Thank you and God bless you!

Pray for the training of members of the Board of ATALTRAB* being organized by Wycliffe Africa Area with directors Mundara Muturi and Michel Kenmogne. The training will take place May 17-20 in N'Djamena**.

*The Chadian Association of Literacy, Linguistics and Translation of the Bible.

** N'Djamena is the capital and largest city in Chad.

The last consultant check for the Mankanya New Testament took place in June 2012. The translation team is preparing to typeset the New Testament and Genesis. This preparation requires performing consistency checks, writing introductions, and choosing illustrations. Ask God to give the team perseverance and good concentration as they finalize this detailed work. Pray, too, for the audio recording of passages from these Scriptures. Pray for the audio distribution, as well as that of various booklets. Praise God that the Mankanya people are already hearing God's Word in their own language. Pray that many will hear God's voice clearly.

from Christy Yoder, Literacy Worker in Kuce Language Project in Nigeria....describing a workshop at the NBTT (Nigeria Bible Translation Trust):

Six languages. 12 Primers. 3 weeks. Sound impossible? It felt that way too when we began on February 18th with 13 literacy workers with minimal computer skills and a lot of sounds to teach to the preliterates in their communities! However, on Friday, March 8th, we gave 5 of the six groups complete primers that they had designed and written original stories for using limited graphemes (letters or letter combinations that represent a single sound). With an hour of break between 8am and 5pm, many working into the night, they succeeded! This is truly a working of God's grace, and we pray that these primers will be used to bless thousands of people with the great gift of literacy in their mother tongue.