Wolrd Religion

I am Sgt John serving at the U.S. military base in Afghanistan i need your partnership

Correction – Starts to Workshops…

Thanks!

Donn Hallman

https://wycliffeassociates.org/who-we-are/for-the-press/press-release/666

By 2017, Wycliffe Associates Expects to Reach 1,000 Bible Translation Workshops Using Pioneering Rapid-Translation Method

(Orlando, Florida, USA)—Wycliffe Associates, an international organization involving people in the acceleration of Bible translation anticipates that in 2017, it will reach 1,000 new Bible translation workshops using their pioneering method of Bible translation known as MAST (Mobilized Assistance Supporting Translation).

MAST is a collaborative rapid-translation system in which groups of mother-tongue translators work in parallel to translate books of the Bible while maintaining the highest levels of accuracy and quality.

“The whole translation strategy is based on learning principles that have been tested and proven over a long period of time in a wide range of educational settings,” says Bruce Smith, president and CEO of Wycliffe Associates.

New language translations are launched through a MAST workshop, a training program facilitated by Wycliffe Associates, which brings together mother tongue translators, church checkers, and language consultants to work on a new-language Bible translation at the same time.

The result is a significant savings in translation time, often reducing a years-long process to a matter of months or weeks. Using traditional methods, a translation of the New Testament can take 25 to 30 years to complete.

In late 2014, Wycliffe Associates piloted a MAST workshop with mother-tongue translators in a nation where Christians suffer ongoing persecution by members of the majority religion. Thirteen translators were divided into teams of three or four, and each team was assigned one of the four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. Every team member was then assigned a portion of that book to translate. Working 12-hour days, each translator completed approximately 34 verses each day, drafting during the mornings and using a five-step process to quality check the verses in the afternoons and evenings.

By the end of two weeks, the translators had completed the drafting and checking process for Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and 1 and 2 Timothy—approximately 48 percent of the New Testament—with no decrease to high quality standards of the translation.

At the request of Wycliffe Associates, translation experts checked the MAST translators’ work and confirmed the accuracy of the team’s translation.

Dr. John Luton, who has participated in checking the work of numerous translation projects around the world says, “The work produced through MAST methodology is excellent. It compares very favorably with texts produced through other methods.”

So far this year, 314 new translation projects have been started using MAST, and MAST teams have completed the entire New Testament in 58 languages, with 100 more translations nearing completion.

“Our breakthrough MAST strategy is accelerating Bible translation beyond anything we could have imagined, even a couple of years ago,” says Smith. “It is not Westerners doing the translation work in remote areas—it’s nationals being equipped to translate God’s Word themselves.”

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.

# # #

https://wycliffeassociates.org/who-we-are/for-the-press/press-release/666

By 2017, Wycliffe Associates Expects to Reach 1,000 Bible Translation Starts Using Pioneering Rapid-Translation Method

(Orlando, Florida, USA)—Wycliffe Associates, an international organization involving people in the acceleration of Bible translation anticipates that in 2017, it will reach 1,000 new Bible translation workshops using their pioneering method of Bible translation known as MAST (Mobilized Assistance Supporting Translation).

MAST is a collaborative rapid-translation system in which groups of mother-tongue translators work in parallel to translate books of the Bible while maintaining the highest levels of accuracy and quality.

“The whole translation strategy is based on learning principles that have been tested and proven over a long period of time in a wide range of educational settings,” says Bruce Smith, president and CEO of Wycliffe Associates.

New language translations are launched through a MAST workshop, a training program facilitated by Wycliffe Associates, which brings together mother tongue translators, church checkers, and language consultants to work on a new-language Bible translation at the same time.

The result is a significant savings in translation time, often reducing a years-long process to a matter of months or weeks. Using traditional methods, a translation of the New Testament can take 25 to 30 years to complete.

In late 2014, Wycliffe Associates piloted a MAST workshop with mother-tongue translators in a nation where Christians suffer ongoing persecution by members of the majority religion. Thirteen translators were divided into teams of three or four, and each team was assigned one of the four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. Every team member was then assigned a portion of that book to translate. Working 12-hour days, each translator completed approximately 34 verses each day, drafting during the mornings and using a five-step process to quality check the verses in the afternoons and evenings.

By the end of two weeks, the translators had completed the drafting and checking process for Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and 1 and 2 Timothy—approximately 48 percent of the New Testament—with no decrease to high quality standards of the translation.

At the request of Wycliffe Associates, translation experts checked the MAST translators’ work and confirmed the accuracy of the team’s translation.

Dr. John Luton, who has participated in checking the work of numerous translation projects around the world says, “The work produced through MAST methodology is excellent. It compares very favorably with texts produced through other methods.”

So far this year, 314 new translation projects have been started using MAST, and MAST teams have completed the entire New Testament in 58 languages, with 100 more translations nearing completion.

“Our breakthrough MAST strategy is accelerating Bible translation beyond anything we could have imagined, even a couple of years ago,” says Smith. “It is not Westerners doing the translation work in remote areas—it’s nationals being equipped to translate God’s Word themselves.”

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.

# # #

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.

# # #

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.

# # #