Wolrd Religion

Attached is our press release for September highlighting our efforts to support the MAST methodology with Bible Translation Recording Kits.  Thanks!

Donn Hallman

https://wycliffeassociates.org/who-we-are/for-the-press/press-release/665

Wycliffe Associates Develops New Tool for Translating the Bible for Speakers of Languages with No Written Form

(Orlando, Florida, USA)—Wycliffe Associates, an international organization involving people in the advancement of Bible translation, has developed a new tool that enables indigenous Bible translators to translate the Bible into languages that are only spoken and have no written form. Nearly 2,000 such languages are spoken today.

“There are entire massive populations of people who have totally, exclusively spoken languages,” says Bruce Smith, President and CEO of the Orlando-based Wycliffe Associates. “But Jesus died for them, just like He died for you and me. We can’t leave them behind. We’ve got to reach them—and we will.”

Wycliffe Associates has developed a new means of reaching those with exclusively spoken languages: a Bible Translation Recording Kit (BTRK), which national translators can use to translate the Bible using the Mobilized Assistance Supporting Translation (MAST) method. The kit facilitates Bible translation just as quickly for oral languages as it does for written ones.

MAST is a rapid-translation method in which groups of mother-tongue translators work together in parallel to translate books of the Bible while maintaining the highest levels of accuracy and quality. Wycliffe Associates first tested the MAST method in 2014, when mother-tongue translators in Asia drafted 48 percent of the New Testament in their language in two weeks, compared to traditional translation methods, which can take 25 to 30 years for an entire New Testament.

The following year, Wycliffe Associates conducted 235 MAST workshops, where 66 new language translations were started and 169 existing translations were accelerated.

Each Bible Translation Recording Kit contains a computer tablet, special software, and recording equipment. Wycliffe Associates also provides training for using the kits.

“Our teams are committed to taking recording kits into the most remote areas to establish a foothold for the gospel, to lead people to Christ and ground them in the truth,” says Smith. “We know from our testing that this strategy is tremendously powerful.”

In the next 12 months, Wycliffe Associates hopes to provide at least 950 BTRKs at a cost of $500 each to national Bible translators of languages with no written form.

“These are storytelling cultures, listening cultures,” Smith says. “When they hear the Scriptures, they are hearing them in the language of their heart—the language they think in, the language they pray in, the language they dream in.”

The Bible Translation Recording Kits will be helpful to those with written languages as well. “Bible Translation Recording Kits also will help us reach countless millions of people who have a written language, but who can’t read,” says Smith. “In other words, this kit is a breakthrough of colossal proportions.”

About Wycliffe Associates

Organized in 1967 by friends of Bible translators, Wycliffe Associates empowers national Bible translators to provide God’s Word in their own language, partners with the local church to direct and guard translation work, harnessing their passion and desire for God’s Word, and engages people from all around the world to provide resources, technology, training, and support for Bible translation.

Because millions of people around the world still wait to read the Scriptures in the language of their heart, Wycliffe Associates is working as quickly as it can to see every verse of God’s Word translated into every tongue to speak to every heart. Last year, 6,279 Wycliffe Associates staff and volunteers worked to speed Bible translations in 75 countries.

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Here is our release on Print on Demand – a technology allowing Christians to print in hostile lands.

Donn Hallman

Print on Demand Technology Keeps National Bible Translators Safe and Efficiently Provides Scriptures for Churches in Hiding

(Orlando, Florida, USA)—Wycliffe Associates is providing technology and equipment to protect and effectively distribute the work of national Bible translators in countries where they face the threat of physical harm, arrest, and even death.

A compact, high-speed, digital system, called Print On Demand (POD), can be hidden in a safe location and used to quickly and efficiently print portions of the Bible, and Bible resources, from flash drives. A few or many copies then can be distributed to the local church.

“This means translators’ work will be safe—safe from those who actively oppose the spread of the gospel and seek to destroy the translators’ work,” says Bruce Smith, president and CEO of Wycliffe Associates.

National Bible translators throughout Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Southeast Asia are working to translate God’s Word for their people, millions of whom are without any Scripture in their own language. Many of the translators work in secret, risking their lives to bring the Scriptures to their people.

Once the translators’ work is complete, they also face the challenge of getting the newly translated Scriptures into the hands of their churches and their own people.

“In one area of the world, seventeen million people who have never seen God’s Word in their heart language are crying out to God for the chance to translate the Scriptures—not for someone to do it for them, but to do it themselves,” says Smith.

Wycliffe Associates provides the technology and equipment to empower and protect national translators in dangerous areas where Christians are persecuted, arrested, and hunted down, and where the church is in hiding.

Wycliffe Associates hopes to provide Print On Demand units for 60 scheduled translation workshops this year—40 small systems and 20 full-scale systems—a total need of $420,000. 

These systems involve rugged industrial printers, powerful industrial staplers, with the kind of binding that will last for decades. Wycliffe Associates wants these Bibles to last, even in harsh climates. Yet at the same time, they make use of sophisticated software, capable of juggling multiple languages and alphabets and all their unique features. Even at $15,000, a full-scale Print On Demand system is a bargain.

Of the 6,887 languages spoken in the world, there are 3,287 languages that still need a Bible translation project started. Currently there are 2,267 Bible translation projects in progress worldwide.

About Wycliffe Associates

Organized in 1967 by friends of Bible translators, Wycliffe Associates empowers national Bible translators to provide God’s Word in their own language, partners with the local church to direct and guard translation work, harnessing their passion and desire for God’s Word, and engages people from all around the world to provide resources, technology, training, and support for Bible translation.

Because millions of people around the world still wait to read the Scriptures in the language of their heart, Wycliffe Associates is working as quickly as it can to see every verse of God’s Word translated into every tongue to speak to every heart. Last year, 6,279 Wycliffe Associates staff and volunteers worked to speed Bible translations in 75 countries.

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can I talk to you?

Wycliffe Associates is using a new methodology in Cameroon called MAST – Mobilized Assistance Supporting Translation. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SA57b2DJMK4

Here is our April release on Bible translation in areas where Christianity is being forced out.

Donn Hallman – 714-379-6999

https://www.wycliffeassociates.org/who-we-are/for-the-press/press-release/654

Wycliffe Associates Scriptures for New Frontiers Fund Assists Indigenous Bible Translators Threatened by Extreme Persecution, Hostility

(Orlando, Florida, USA)—Wycliffe Associates, a ministry that accelerates the work of Bible translation around the world, has scheduled the first Mobilized Assistance Supporting Translation (MAST) training session for Bible translators who live in regions where Christians are specifically targeted for persecution and even death.

The session will be held in close proximity to locations where Bible translation isn't possible due to widespread, ongoing persecution of Christians. Indigenous Bible translators are meeting in a secure location to work on 40 languages in this region, where vast areas are under terrorist control, Christians are being routed out, and most have never seen a Bible or heard any of its words.

"There is no place on Earth where God's Word is more urgently needed," says Bruce Smith, President and CEO of Wycliffe Associates. "This is a place of terror, oppression, violence, death, and heartache. To be a Christian is to be a target. Yet the few Christians living there are pleading for Bibles to share secretly with the many, many people around them who are hungry for the truth."

MAST rapidly accelerates the process of Bible translation using new training and translation strategies, making it possible for mother-tongue translators to draft significant portions of the Scriptures in weeks or months rather than years.

In addition to facilitating MAST workshops, Wycliffe Associates Scriptures for New Frontiers Fund will provide computer tablets with software, other technology and equipment, shelter, meals, and basic day-to-day support for translators as they work in these hostile regions.

"God's Word will be placed in the hands—and the hearts—of people in multiple nations, nations I can't name because the risk is so great," says Smith. "Our response to the terror and tragedy is to flood the area with God's Word, in the language of the local people."

Wycliffe Associates hopes to facilitate MAST teams in starting translation projects in at least 500 additional languages this year.

Since Wycliffe Associates started facilitating MAST workshops around the world, 170 translations have been started in new languages.

"It is astonishing to think of our brothers and sisters living in countries where Christians are facing persecution, even death, for translating God's Word for their people," Smith says. "And yet they continue."

About Wycliffe Associates

Organized in 1967 by friends of Bible translators, Wycliffe Associates empowers national Bible translators to provide God's Word in their own language, partners with the local church to direct and guard translation work, harnessing their passion and desire for God's Word, and engages people from all around the world to provide resources, technology, training, and support for Bible translation.

Because millions of people around the world still wait to read the Scriptures in the language of their heart, Wycliffe Associates is working as quickly as it can to see every verse of God's Word translated into every tongue to speak to every heart. Last year, 6,279 Wycliffe Associates staff and volunteers worked to speed Bible translations in 75 countries.

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