The Value of the Bible

We believe that Bible translation is the most amazing discipleship and church growth method ever!  The Bible, when translated well, never needs a furlough, and never gets sick. The Bible is the long-term cultural change agent that no missionary, video, or outreach can ever match.

Bible Translation​

William Tyndale not only translated the Bible, but published many influential writings that changed the English language and the world. We work as advisers facilitating national translators to become the “Tyndales” in their languages and cultures.

While Bible translation and audio recording the Bible is our core activity, we also help national translators produce other books, videos, and audio recordings on topics appropriate to positively impact their uniquely different cultures.

See the Kamano-Kafe sorcery movie trailer here, and the full English version here.

Melanesia Boat Project

HOW CAN YOU HELP reach Bibleless people in the South Pacific, specifically Melanesia?

Get ON BOARD to provide safe, open-ocean transport for outreach ministry teams, island medical clinics, disaster relief, Bible translation, and local church needs. 

Read More

Going the Extra Mile​

Other Bible translation agencies focus on New Testaments for the 1,700 minority languages where there is no Scripture translation started yet.

We specialize in the hard, the small and the unpopular by facilitating and training minority people groups to be like William Tyndale, who revised Scriptures. We help them revise their New Testaments and translate the Old Testament so they can get the complete Bible.

Because God made people, languages and cultures different, no “one size fits all” method works.

Images From the Field

Serving God Together

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Old Testament Translation

The best Bible studies and “Aha!” moments happen when the pastor-translators wrestle to get the meaning transferred during drafting and team revising sessions
TBT-Serving_God_Together-2_NT_Revisions

New Testament Revisions

Have you ever winced when you read something with bad grammar or that communicated the wrong meaning? We help language groups and their pastors work in teams to get the text as clear, accurate and natural as possible to help their generation of believers grow.
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Record Every Verse

60-67% of the world’s population is functionally illiterate enough that they will never read the Bible. Help us record every verse onto solar-powered, audio Scripture players, that unlike a human story teller, will never get tired of telling the best story in the world! Oral societies love listening over and over to audio Scriptures.

Testimonials

When I tried to read the old alphabet in Kamano-Kafe, people would laugh at me and tell me, ‘You are a church leader and you can’t read!’ Thank you for this new alphabet. Now I can read my own language easily.

Church Leader

Thank you for translating the Bible into my language. The Bible never made sense when the pastors read it in the trade language or English, but when my aunt was dying and we spent evenings listening to the Audibible [Scripture readings] in my own language, it made sense. I am a Christian now.

Older village man

We helped this blind non-Christian get his own Scripture player. He listened and stopped swearing and accepted Christ. Now he smiles. He is changed!

Village Christian

Thank you for translating this Bible. I like to read the Bible in my language now.

Young lady

We gave this crippled man a Scripture player. When we visited days later, he told us that he had been planning to burn his grass roof house down over himself. But after we left, he started listening to the Scripture player. He has become a Christian.

Women doing church visitation

We sing every week from the hymnbook you published in our language. Thank you!

Church leader

The video on HIV/AIDs is helping us a lot, and people are now really working hard to take care of our orphans, too. Thank you!

Business man

James, thank you for translating the Bible into our language.  I can read English well, but not well enough to understand the message of the Bible. Your work has helped me grow and learn things about God that I could not learn reading English or the trade language Bible.

College graduate

The old ladies play their solar-powered Scripture players, and when the young people walk past their cook-house, they stop and turn around and sit down and listen. The old ladies are evangelizing the young people.

Church leader

My brother, who lost both legs in a car accident, uses his solar player to hold church services. All the village outcasts go to his grass roofed house and listen to his player.

District church director

People used to sit around at night telling stories to each other about who was doing sorcery and who was killed by sorcery. Now they listen to their solar-powered Scripture players and go to sleep peacefully. Thank you, we are changing. This is really helping us!

Kamano-Kafe village pastor

No, don’t stop [translating]! We need the entire Bible!

Church Leader

We need more of the Old Testament; it is like our culture. We see ourselves in the Old Testament.

Village leader

“I don’t have any more solar Scripture players. Lots of people are asking me to get them one. Do you have any?”

Church elder

We Need Your Help

Please don’t leave a minority people only wishing they had God’s Word in a form they can read and hear. It is estimated that of the languages where foreign missionaries helped translate the first edition, within 20 years after the first translation, many of these minority language New Testaments are in need of: reprints or corrections to keep these New Testaments in use, or thorough revisions to get the New Testament in use for the very first time. This is a hard task. Will you be tenacious and join us in this God-sized task?

Answer God’s call to make His Word known throughout the world.