John 3:16 for the Jita people

Finally! After years of anticipation, we have a rough draft of John 3:16 in the Jita language. Here it is:

Nyamuwanga eendere muno abhaanu bhoone bha ku‑chaaro kunu. Nikwo okukora ꞉aatumire Omwana waaye wenyere aaje ku‑chaaro kunu, korereki bhuri muunu unu keekirisya Omwana oyo aasiga okusimagira, tari abhe na obhuwanga bhwa akajaanende koone.

Praise the Lord! The book of John is still being checked and double-checked to make sure that everything is clear, accurate, and natural, but we're so excited. Our passion is to see Jita people trusting Jesus for salvation and enjoying the hope of eternal life. Thank you for partnering with us to bring God's Word to the Jita people. Please keep praying for us.

24 books of the New Testament done!

 

This is so exciting! We have finished the final checks on 24 books of the New Testament. That means there are only 3 books left, and those are all in various stages of drafting, checking, and double-checking. We have also translated Ruth and Jonah from the Old Testament. We make audio recordings of the translated Scriptures and put them on solar-powered players. We have a phone app that contains the written text and the audio recordings. We translated the Jesus film and a gospel comic book for kids. And we have translated various literacy materials to help people learn how to read and write in Jita.

Please pray for us as we continue to translate God's Word for the Jita people.

"So what's it like to work from far away?"

Here's a little video of Magesa, Neema, and I checking the book of 1 Corinthians in the Jita language. We thank God for a very productive check. We had our share of challenges, of course: power outages, unreliable internet, neighbors coming over to say hi, roosters (you'd be surprised how loud roosters are on Zoom!) Sadly, Magesa missed one day of checking because his relative was very sick in the hospital. But by the grace of God we checked 9 chapters. Please keep praying for us as we translate God's Word into the Jita language.

Stumbling blocks and Old Testament quotations

Today we started the second round of checks on the book of 1 Corinthians in the Jita language. It is such a joy to work with Magesa and Neema to make God's Word accurate, clear, and natural for the Jita people. We spent some time discussing 1 Corinthians 1:19 where Paul quotes Isaiah 29:14 about the foolishness of thinking we are smarter than God. Then we looked at 1 Corinthians 1:23 about how the message of Christ crucified is a stumbling block to Jews. We discussed the meaning of the phrase, we looked at other passages where the same idea is communicated, and we found the best phrase in Jita to capture the meaning. Then we discussed lots of others issues like spelling, grammar, key terms, consistency, footnotes, etc.

Please pray for us as we continue checking 1 Corinthians!

Publishing Jita Matthew

 

Check it out! We are making progress toward publishing the book of Matthew in the Jita language. Please keep praying for us. 

88% with a big jump!

 

Look what God has done! We're at 88% of our Wycliffe ministry budget. Here's what that means. We have a team of wonderful partners who have committed to faithfully supporting the work of Bible translation for the Jita people. These partners pray for us and give financially to meet our needs. Some give every month, others give every quarter or every year. We appreciate every single individual, family, church, and business that has joined our team. We are so thankful for their kindness and generosity. 

Thank you to those of you who have partnered with us in bringing God's Word to the Jita people!

We need to be at 100% of our ministry budget before we can get back to working full-time on the Jita translation. That means we need more wonderful people to join our team and commit to prayer and regular financial partnership. We invite you to join our team! You can do it on our Wycliffe website here:

https://www.wycliffe.org/partner/2EBEFB

Thank you!!

Zooming with the translators in Tanzania

It was such a joy to have a Zoom call with my fellow translation colleagues in Tanzania! There were translators from every team: Ikizu, Ikoma, Jita, Kabwa, Kwaya, Simbiti, and Zanaki. There were also other Translation Advisors, like me. We were able to share updates with each other about work progress, discuss some best practices in translation, and also encourage each other to persevere in the midst of the Coronavirus restrictions. By the grace of God, the work of Bible translation is moving forward in Tanzania. The Simbiti, Kabwa, and Ikoma teams are in the final stages of finishing the New Testament. Praise the Lord! Please continue to pray for the translators in Tanzania. They face many difficulties like sickness, poor living conditions, and even the death of loved ones, but they press on in the work because they long to have God's Word in their own language!