Streams of Prayer for 23 May 2021

The Streams of Prayer for 23 May 2021, is a circular from Wycliffe Global Alliance. This is available through Wycliffe Caribbean.

Missions belong to God and the agent of missions is the Church. Please join with us as we pray for Alliance organisations engaged in the Church Participation Stream. We pray also for the Church as it participates in the Bible translation movement.

Beginning and End: Burkina Faso

Translation teams from L’Association Nationale pour la Traduction de la Bible et l’Alphabétisation (ANTBA) in Burkina Faso are working towards the completion of these New Testaments: Nuni Nord in 2021 and Bwamu Laa, Nuni Sud and Winye in 2022. Pray for protection over these teams as they finish the final stages of the translation. At the same time, praise God for new projects starting: Ninkaré Old Testament, Toussians Nord New Testament and Koronfe oral Bible. Ask God to provide all the necessary resources for these projects.

The Book of Ruth and Soccer: Peru

Praise God for people with ingenuity and creativity, especially during the pandemic. In Peru’s highlands, the Sihuas Quechua Bible translation team members are delighted when their work comes out in print. They are thrilled with their Book of Ruth and are eager to teach it to the Sihuas Quechua children and young people. But where would they meet? Most schools and churches are closed in order to prevent COVID infection. The translators realized there is one place that is always open. They decided to gather the youth beside the soccer fields in the communities. The young people will have their lesson and then play soccer. Pray that they will learn rich lessons from the story of Ruth that can be applied to their lives as they face a world with many challenges.

Bible translation workshops progress: Indonesia

Praise God for the fourth Old Testament workshop for three languages (Manado Malay, Tombulu and Tontemboan Matanai) that were recently held by Pusat Penerjemahan Alkitab (Bible Translation Centre, PPA), an Alliance organisation in Indonesia. All the translators, facilitators, and mother-tongue speakers maintained good health and strength throughout the workshop. Preparations for new clusters for nine languages, including the Luke Partnership cluster and Oral Bible Story cluster, are now underway. Ask the Lord for his anointing of wisdom and discernment on those doing the planning. Pray that all new clusters can start by June.

Challenges of revising the writing system: Nigeria

Pray for wisdom for the Dadiya translation team to know how best to write two vowel sounds, both of which are currently being written with the same letter. For some words, the context may be enough to tell which sound to pronounce. For others, a different letter would be needed The project team will have to look at each word that uses these sounds throughout the entire New Testament and decide which ones should keep the same letter and which ones should replace it with a different vowel. It will not be a simple search/replace process. The translation facilitator will then have to re-enter the glosses for all these words in his translation computer program. He is still in the process of doing exegetical checks and depends on the program to show the meaning of the words, so he needs the wisdom to know in what order to do the changes.

Romani translation project planning progress: Romania

The committee of the Standard Romani Bible Translation project, in partnership with Wycliffe Romania and SIL, is preparing for the official start of the translation work, on 1 October 2021 in Romania. A number of translators are already selected and they have begun training. Awareness-raising workshops with Roma Christian leaders in different regions of the country were recently held in April and May. Ruben Dubei, director of Wycliffe Romania, shared: “We have worked hard on the planning and organisation of the project. Progress was made on the budget for the first three years and on partnership development to fill the various roles in the project.” Please pray that God blesses these efforts with success, that the Roma language community embraces the vision for translation, and that financial partners step forward to make this venture possible.

Nobonob Bible nearing completion: Papua New Guinea

Praise the Lord for the progress that was made in the Nobonob translation project. The consultant checking of the Old Testament was completed in October 2017. The New Testament that was launched in 1990 needed revision, so the team committed to reading through the New Testament. They started working with a consultant in 2019 via email correspondence to update and make changes. This work was mostly completed in March. Pray for the team as they work on the final edits and prepare for the typesetting of the complete Nobonob Bible in August. Pray for strength and stamina for each of the team members. Ask the Lord to protect their computers and provide a stable internet connection as they use Skype to interact with their translation advisors in the United States. 

New life out of hardships: Southern Africa

Translation has just started in the three languages of the CD Cluster project in Southern Africa. It is located in a region subject to many attacks. The first workshop in May was moved to a different location for security purposes. The staff are excited that two of the translators from a major religion in the region came to faith in Christ during the workshop! Wycliffe South Africa thank God for a productive workshop. Please pray that the Lord will continue to keep the translators and their families safe. Pray that the translated passages will comfort and encourage them.

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