NEWS

 E-mail This Page 
 Printable Format 
 Feedback 

Daily Scripture
 
"The king shall have joy in Your strength, O Lord; and in your salvation how greatly shall he rejoice! You have given him his heart's desire, and have not withheld the request of his lips. Selah."

Psalm 21:1-2

TOO THANKFUL TO PRAY

Checking the Lauje translation of the New Testament

May 15, 2007

by Ian Fallis

When was the last time you were so joyful and thankful you couldn’t even finish a prayer of thanksgiving? What could make you that happy?

For Melki, it happened last week. His people, the Laujes of Indonesia, took a giant step toward having the complete New Testament in their language.

Barrie Williamson wrote that with last week's check of the book of Luke, "every verse of the Lauje translation of the New Testament has been checked and approved by a qualified translation checker."

It's a task that has taken 15 years. "To put that in perspective, we began translating using a once-popular machine called a manual typewriter and made copies with something called carbon paper," Barrie wrote.

Melki, a Lauje believer, has helped Barrie through much of the Bible translation. For this final check Atriise, who has never done translation checking, joined them. Bob Clark, a missionary with experience and skill in Bible translation, served as a consultant on the check. They checked an average of 165 verses a day, reading through them and asking well-thought-out questions to expose any weaknesses in the translation.

"When we completed the final verses, we stopped and thanked God together for this marvelous achievement," Barrie wrote. "Melki was unable to finish his prayer of thanksgiving as he was so overcome with emotion."

Don’t you wish you were that thankful to God for His Word? Yeah, me too. But at least this helps remind us to be thankful. I’m also thankful for teammates like you. Please take a moment to read our latest prayer requests and pray with us >>

There’s one prayer request I need to highlight:

This coming January will mark 10 years in ministry at the NTM USA home office. We are trying to lay the groundwork so that the next 10 more years are even more effective than the first 10.

Our first goal is to get to 10 years. One generous gift has given us enough funds to keep going for one more month. So this would be an opportune time for you to prayerfully consider investing in our ministry, to share this opportunity with others, and to pray for God to move hearts to give.

We deeply appreciate those who are glad to have opportunities to put God’s money where His heart is: in planting churches among unreached tribal people. Explore options for giving >>