Pray for Nigeria

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. 

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.

TANGALE WEST; Nigeria; 130,000. Cover this project with prayer, especially for the pastors and church leaders. They regularly engage in spiritual warfare as they present the Word to people. Praise God for the power of His Word as it impacts people, turning them from the power of Satan and occultism to the love of God. Pray that He will confirm, strengthen, and protect the new believers! The translation team is working hard. Praise God for their enthusiasm in promoting the project and for the people’s receptivity. The team is revising their New Testament text with the help of a consultant and the community’s responses. The Word of God is going out with power in the Tangale community and prospering (Isaiah 55:10-11, NLT). www.theseedcompany.org

RON; Nigeria; 115,000. The Ron translation team has been unable to work as much as they would like, due to the problem of poor electrical supply and insufficient light. Ask the Lord to intervene and fix this problem! Rejoice that the Ron team is committed to the Lord, and ask Him to provide what they need, when they need it. Give God glory for the advancement of His Word with both the king of the land and the network of churches. Despite difficulties, the team is still checking and revising their work on the New Testament, hoping to be done in 2013. www.theseedcompany.org

NIGERIAN PIDGIN; Nigeria; 1,000,000. In an answer to prayer, the Nigerian Pidgin translation team was able to finish all the books of the New Testament and have them ready when a recording group arrived. Together, the teams assembled the full New Testament in audio form, ready to be distributed! Praise God that this process brought the community together and aroused even more interest and awareness in the Scripture and how it can be applied to people’s lives. Pray that these recorded Scriptures will continue to impact the local community and teach the everlasting truths about God. www.theseedcompany.org

OKPHELA; Nigeria; 100,000. Praise the Lord for the faithful work of his servants in the Okphela group—the New Testament has been completed! Praise God that the published books were delivered safely, undamaged, and in a timely manner. Pray for the plans for a dedication ceremony and ask God to help the team meet their distribution goals for the published books. www.theseedcompany.org

TULA; Nigeria; 60,000. Praise the Lord that a number of the Tula churches are supportive of the project, and pray for more churches to make financial commitments as well. Ask God to provide the resources that the Tula translation team needs in order to finish well. Pray for the team to persevere as they push toward the completion of the New Testament, and pray that they can develop the knowledge and skills needed to use their various computer tools to the best of their potential. They are busy checking many of the New Testament books and hope to have them completed by the end of 2013. www.theseedcompany.org

TERA; Nigeria; 100,000. Work on the Tera New Testament project continues steadily as the translators are checking their drafts and testing them in the communities to learn what they need to revise. At the same time, they have also been drafting Old Testament portions to publish with the New Testament. Pray that these tasks will proceed smoothly, without interruption, as they work toward their goal of publishing in 2014. Praise God for the community’s involvement with the Tera project, and pray that this growing awareness of the project will motivate people and churches to support it and use the translated Scriptures. www.theseedcompany.org

TAROK; Nigeria; 523,000. Work on the Old Testament in Tarok is proceeding well. Many of the books are being checked by the team, and others are still being drafted. Pray that the translators remain unified, committed, and capable of fulfilling the call before them. Ask that the Lord would strengthen each of the team members for the remainder of the task. May He give themcreative ideas and a keen understanding. Praise the Lord for His faithfulness in revealing His character to the translators, their families, and local churches. www.theseedcompany.org

TYAP; Nigeria; 130,000. The Tyap New Testament is nearing the finish line as the team is starting to go through consultant checking on various completed drafts. Ask the Lord to watch over the health and safety of the Tyap team members as they work hard to complete the New Testament by September 2013. Pray that in the meantime, more and more Tyap people will want to learn to read in their language, and pray for successful literacy workshops. Ask God to make an eternal impact in the lives of the Tyap people through His Word. www.theseedcompany.org