and Europe are happy to give money to the A.I.M. and the Bible Societies so that someone in far away Africa may read the Word of God for the first time in his own language. Translators also reduce other Christian literature into the ver naculars. Fruit born by giving out tracts, books, and pamphlets has shown both missionary and native Christian that the promise is true, “ Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days” (Ecclesiastes 11: 1) . There is perhaps no more noble task than that of the missionary translator. He or she works long, tedious hours in questioning na tional helpers and in studying the Word in the original languages and in all the current versions available. He seeks the exact mean ing inspired by the Holy Spirit to be translated into the language of the people. His work may not be as dramatic as that of other mission aries, but the missionary transla tor’s painstaking labor ends in a divine result: He brings the Word, not in the strange tongue of foreigners, but in the very idiom of the people — Truly a divine task!
Some may ask, “Who publishes these editions of the Bible after they have been translated?” This is a good question. Naturally, the overworked mission presses cannot take on the tremendous job of put ting out such a big book as the Bible in tens of thousands of copies. The mission presses do not have sufficient pe r s onne l , equip ment, or funds to take on such a herculean project. Both the British and Foreign Bible Society and the American Bible Society work closely with the A.I.M. and other missions in pub lishing the Scriptures in the 800 different languages of Africa. Mis sionary translators work carefully preparing manuscripts in the vari ous books of the Bible. The Bible societies print proofs for return ing to the missionaries for word- by-word, letter-by-letter checking and correcting. Finally, the whole Bible is printed in a first edition and distributed. Even the cost of the Bibles is kept down so that the poorer tribal people can afford to buy their very own copy of the Word of God in their mother tongue. Naturally, this requires subsidizing, but many of God’s people in North America
National Christians aid missionaries in translating everything from the Bible to traditional hymns of the church. Scripture portions exist in some of the languages of the smaller Congo tribes. The Central African Repub lic field is entirely in the Zande tribe area, and the missionaries and Christians there share the Pa- zande New Testament with the Congo field. Besides the t r i ba l languages, the missionaries have found the main trade language of Africa, Swahili, to be a useful vehicle. The translation of the Union Swahili Bible can be read with understand ing by millions of Africans in practically all of the mission’s six fields. Though the Africa Inland Mis sion has been serving in its vast area of Africa for many years, the vital wo rk of the missionary translator continues. Today in the mission’s Uganda field there are missionaries working on the final proofs of the complete Lugbara Bible. One missionary woman is working full time on this important project. All Christian missionaries were expelled from the Sudan over a year ago. But even this country is not forgotten by the missionary translators who worked there be fore they had to leave. A couple of A.I.M.’s Sudan missionaries, along with African helpers, are continu ing to translate the Word of God into Latuka. They make mimeo graphed copies of Scripture por tions and send them by mail to the Christians of that tribe who are in the Sudan. JANUARY, 1966
Final checking of materials before going to press requires many hours.
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