02/04/04: Tribal Update: Translation Update on Tribal Bible

Hello Folks:

Greetings to all in Christ's Name! Trust you are all fine and encouraged in HIM.

Wow, we are already into February! How time flies!! Here in Venezuela the door continues to be wide open to get the Gospel out. Right now we have two new missionary teams pioneering works among two new people groups to learn their language and culture, build relationships with the people, translate the scriptures, and give them the precious Gospel message! What a privilege to be involved with the King of kings in seeing the Good News go to the ends of the earth!!

We have just finished the rough draft of 325 more verses from the Old Testament, including verses from Leviticus right on through Malachi. We chose to translate all those portions that would help move the historical account forward to give the Tribal believers a panoramic perspective of the OT. We also included all those verses having to do with the promise of Messiah. We still want to give them more OT verses down the line from Job, Psalms, Proverbs, and other books, which would be about another 1000 verses.

Translation is huge job! Our goal has always been dynamic equivalence. Our desire is to see the Tribal scriptures evoke the same response from these tribal saints as they did from the first century believers. And we continue to be greatly rewarded as we see the Tribal believers reading and understanding and getting excited about what the Almighty God is saying to them. Yes, the Word of God is changing their lives in many ways. They are understanding it!! But let me now give you a picture of where we're at with all this:

So far, from the OT, we have Genesis, Exodus, and other scattered portions done. In the NT, we have Mark, Acts, I Corinthians, Ephesians, Phillippians, I and II Thessalonians, I Timothy, and Titus done. That adds up to 2839 verses done from the NT and 2264 verses done from the Old Testament.

Total verses done; 5103
The total number of verses that we would like to do for the Tribal is 11,220.

WE ARE 45% DONE!!!!

That leaves us 6117 verses left to do. And it isn't just a matter of cranking it out. There are about 10 different steps that we go through with each verse in conjunction with our translation consultant, to insure that there is accuracy on all areas, and a high level of comprehension.

However, here is what really slows us down. We are not able to give ourselves full time to the translation project because of other responsibilities with the Tribal. For two months out of each year, we are busy doing 24/7 discipleship with the Tribal pastors. During another 3 months out of the year, we are busy developing Bible curriculum to accompany each translated book of the Bible. And on top of that, we have consultant responsibilities here on the field. So, this limits our time on translation. However, if we spend six months a year, translating 12 verses per day, for five days a week, that would get us to the needed goal in almost 4 years. And if we can keep up with the ten steps that we take on each verse as well, then, we would be moving right along. Now once we are finished translating everything, we will go over every verse once again with a fine-toothed comb to make sure all is well...and then it finally goes to the printing press. This is the beginning of 2004. So, we would like to shoot to have the whole translation done, checked, and printed in the year 2010! Please be praying with us about this. We feel squeezed and stretched so often but what a thrill it is to see His precious Word going into the language of the Tribal, and touching their hearts, and profoundly changing their lives.

Thanks so much for praying for this project. Here are some specific requests regarding the translation project:
1. for wisdom and strength and diligence to hang in there for the long haul, day after day after day
2. for God's continued guidance in the selection of spiritual vocabulary
3. that it would really be a user-friendly translation that would deeply impact their lives and drive the truths clearly home
4. for good translation helpers. Hernan and Zapata are our two main helpers at this point. Pray for them, for sharp minds, to help us make decisions on so many things.
5. for our encouragement in this project, and that we would not grow weary in well-doing
6. that we would be able finish this project in the projected time frame.

Thanks so very much. We will be meeting with our translation consultant now in March to do the final comprehension and content check on the book of Acts. We have had it done and ready to check for about a year but our translation consultant is just now returning from furlough.

Thanks again for your encouragement and prayers and notes and partnership. We thank God for each one of you.

Enjoying the adventure in Him,
Merrill and Teresa