"All Nations Bible Translation" by Aaron Crider

The one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him, and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

All right, well, um, we're going to be jumping in here, uh, real, real really soon. It's, it's 6 o'clock, so yeah, welcome here, buddy. Um, welcome to the call here. Um, it's good to, it's good to be with you again, again this morning.

Um, yeah, this morning, uh, Aaron Kreider, uh, he's from our congregation here at Followers of Jesus. He's going to be, um, telling us about All Nations Bible translation. Um, Aaron has been working for All Nations since 2015. Um, in 2015, 2014, the church got started here in State College, and, uh, Joel Martin is part of our congregation, and he was one of the founders of All Nations Bible translation back in 2010. And, uh, so All Nations moved here, bought a piece of property, so the All Nations base is right here in, in State College. Um, so yeah, Aaron started in 2015 when he moved here, and he's one of the, one of the main, the main guys at, at All Nations.

Uh, he works full-time for All Nations, so I, I had the privilege of working with for All Nations part-time. Um, so we, we, uh, rub shoulders quite a bit throughout the week, um, on this work. So, um, Aaron, are you, uh, are you ready to roll?

I can be. Okay, well, why don't we just, uh, start out with a, with a word of prayer. And by the way, Aaron, yeah, thanks for being willing to kind of break your Saturday morning ritual of sleeping in and, and, uh, get up early to do this presentation for us. Appreciate that. For the ones on the call here, uh, we plan to do a, a ministry presentation maybe once a month or something like that. So, um, yeah, if you have any suggestions of ministries that you would love to hear or see talked about on, on Strength to Strength, feel free to suggest them to, uh, to us.

All right, well, let's, let's have prayer. Uh, Father, thank you. Uh, thank you so much for, uh, your mercies that are, that are new, uh, given this morning. Thank you, Lord, Father, that we can have the privilege of working in your kingdom.

Um, we can have the privilege of, of knowing that we're your sons and we're your daughters. Um, we can have the privilege of, of, of knowing that, uh, you're our Father and, and that your Son is our elder brother.

And Father, we can have this incredible vision, uh, that, that you've given to us of, of advancing your kingdom, your kingdom that, that is growing and, and, and going around the world, going into hard places. And it's a kingdom that advances through suffering love. It's not power over, it's not through coercion, manipulation, but it's through serving, and it's through just following the, the footsteps of, of your Son Jesus. And so, Father, I pray, Lord, that you would bless, uh, each of the brothers in this call and the work of your kingdom today. Uh, bless Aaron as he, as he shares on All Nations Bible translation. And Father, we just pray, Lord, that you would continue to raise up laborers, uh, for this work of, of going to parts of the world where people do not have your word, uh, the Bible in their language, and seeing that translated and seeing Followers of Jesus, uh, joining your, joining you, uh, seeing people joining your work there in these parts of the world and, and your kingdom coming there in new ways.

So, uh, God, direct this conversation here this morning, and we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Um, and so, Aaron, you know, at the end here, yeah, we'll open it up for any questions that, that folks have. So, all yours. All right, and Brandt, we'll be happy to help answer your questions. See you about that. Then.

Okay, um, just a moment to get started here.

Let me, uh, try again.

Aaron, it, it, I, I saw the, your slide. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Okay. Good.

May, maybe I had it right. Yep. There you go. Can you see that? Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Sure. Well, welcome to All Nations Bible translation, where we, uh, where we partner with Anabaptist churches for the unreached. And get my controls back up where I can see what's going on.

I want to just park for a moment here as we're getting started on that, on that little phrase, that little term, all nations. If you, uh, if you look through the scriptures, you encounter this term, um, pretty quickly, maybe not exactly this term. Um, one of the, one of the first times that something similar is used is in Genesis 12, where God calls Abram and tells him to leave his country, his family, his relatives, and go to a place that God will show him. And God says, "I'll make you view a great nation." And he says, "And you all, the families of the earth will be blessed."

Um, you take that little, follow that story a little further, and, and God confirms that promise to Abram after, or to Abraham after his obedient act of, of, uh, sacrifice, being willing to sacrifice his son. And God says, "Now, I know that you fear me." And, and he repeats that promise. He says, "I'll make you a blessing. You'll be a blessing to all nations." And this is this theme of blessing to all nations continues through the Old and New Testament. We come to, uh, just skipping over a whole bunch, but we come to the end of Jesus' life on the earth here. And he says, "Uh, go ye therefore and make disciples of all nations."

And so the term nations is the, is the Greek term, something like ethnos that, uh, is the foundation for our term ethnic groups. And that just, I just say that to highlight the, the fact that a nation is not necessarily a political, uh, a geopolitical entity, uh, something that you can see on a map of the world, but it's not a country. A nation is a people group, and a, a particular, a given country may have many of those people groups, uh, usually speaking unique languages.

And that, of course, is of interest to us in Bible translation. So, um, you know, we finally come to the end of the, end of the story in Revelation, and we're told that there will be people of every tribe and people and tongue and nation. And so that's the, the driving vision.

Here's how, how we express that vision, the all nations vision, communities of believers in every language group living out the word of God. And there's a few important points in there. First, just simply the communities of believers. We, again, in a quick survey through the scriptures, we see God delighting and choosing to dwell among a community of faith, people who are his covenant people, and he dwells among them as in a gathered community in the Old Testament among the people of Israel, whether it's in the desert or later, as they are, um, in the promised land and have the, uh, the temple where he dwells among them. And then moving to the New Testament, he comes to them, breaks through the language barrier there in, in Acts 2, uh, when the spirit comes and he, he fills the believers, uniting them into one body, one community of faith.

And of course, we, we know the, the picture of how they, uh, they began to become one in faith, and Jesus continues to pray that they would be one. And so every, uh, local body, local, local congregation, local assembly is a community of faith, a community of believers. And God's heart and God's vision, we believe, is that this would be a reality in every nation, in every people group, every language group, uh, disciples of Jesus together in community living out his will as he's revealed in his word and the story that he's told in his word.

So this is the vision that, that drives us as we serve the church, as we partner with churches. Now, the problem with that is out of the over 7,000 languages in the world, there are actually only about 700 or about a tenth that have the whole Bible, the whole, we could say the whole council of God. And as you see here, over 2,000 with no scripture translation at all, nothing that they can read in their own heart language. And in between, whether, whether it's New Testaments or other portions of, of the scripture, there's, uh, over 2,500 available in various languages, languages that have that much of the Bible available, but still missing at least 75% of the scripture not having the Old Testament.

So there is a, still a need, still a desperate need around the world. And these numbers are, are big enough that they kind of daze us in a way, um, who can really comprehend that many languages. But, um, it's a work that God cares about, the translation of his, his word into languages of the people so that they can comprehend and know him as a familiar friend, as a familiar father.

And so this leaves this situation, leaves many people groups in a place of no hope, a place of, of, uh, having no scripture, no Bible, no church, and no hope. So what, what will we do about that? Our goal is to focus prayer, giving and sending in that particular part of the world where they are the most unreached, or we shall we say the least reached.

And as we define that, just simply looking at the reality that there are people groups where there's been no church established, there are people groups where there's been no scripture translated. Some of them have one or the other. Where we're focusing primarily as kind of a laser focus, uh, clarifying, um, center point is those with no Bible and no church.

How, how do we pursue a vision like that? Well, it simply takes churches like yours, sending people like you, partnering together. And that's, that's why we partner with churches. Here's our mission as we've come to view it. We partner with churches to send teams who facilitate Bible translation and community development while working to establish indigenous churches.

And I'll unpack that a little more. As you can see, there's, there's, uh, our role has to do with facilitation. We're partnering and sending, and then those teams are working with the community toward Bible translation and community development and with an end goal of establishing that indigenous church. Here's a little bit what that looks like.

Um, simply put, if you, if you look at this little square, little partnership square, it has, uh, three primary points that are being made here. First, across the top, you have all nations and the sending church in a partnership.

And then, uh, vertically, this little diagram clarifies the, the role and oversight. So all nations has responsibility to give oversight to Bible translation and often to community development projects as well, while the sending church has responsibility for the church planting.

So we are not a, a church planting organization. We're partnering with the churches in that. And then across the bottom, there's one single team working together in a given people group, uh, at Bible translation, community development, and church planting. We're not sending a translation team to do all the academic stuff and then a church planting team to do all the discipleship. No, rather it's a, it's a joint team. It is one team where each member has the responsibility for discipleship and church planting, even though their role may be translation or community development. So as we team together, there's perhaps three levels of, of teaming for the unreached.

Uh, the core level, of course, is that church planting team on the field. And then at a second level is the sending church. And most sending churches will establish something like a support team to help the church stay well connected and to provide a, a higher level of support to the field member, the member out there on the field. And then working alongside of them in this partnership is us here at all nations. Then the third level of support would be where many of you might come in, where the need is for people who are willing to, to pray, to add a people group to their prayer list, to pray for this work and to, uh, to give, whether occasionally or one time or with monthly sponsorships.

So it's a, a long-term work, takes ongoing prayer and finances. Here's what the church planting team on the field looks like. This is our, our model team. At this point, many teams haven't reached, uh, this status of having three, three parties, three members yet.

But, uh, this would be a rounded-out team. First, stick with a community development facilitator and Old Testament and New Testament translator. Now, what that looks like, uh, let's talk about community development a little bit. Often, community development opens the door for Bible translation and church planting. It may pave the way for others to follow and do that kind of work where otherwise the door may not be that open to this kind of thing. So the basis for community development is not necessarily based on a, a crisis situation and the need to provide humanitarian relief and that kind of thing.

What, what we're talking about is recognizing, first of all, when we come into community, yes, they may have deep needs and chronic poverty, but let's recognize that God does give every person abilities, and God gives every community resources. And so we serve the community by teaching them to develop and use their skills and resources and not to depend on what we do and bring. It's very easy to fall into that, um, creating dependency where we have the answers, we have the tools, we have the resources, we can supply everything from, from, uh, across the ocean. But for a truly sustainable solution, we need to help them identify the problems and develop the solutions that are within their reach.

And one of the books that we use in training as we're just thinking about this subject is Gary Miller's book called The Other Side of the Wall. And I may have that here. Well, it's not within reach. Um, The Other Side of the Wall by Gary Miller, available from TGS. It would be, uh, worth your while to just take the time to read that.

Then Bible translation, as we, as a teams get involved in Bible translation, of course, they're not ready to do that in the first couple years of their work. But, um, eventually getting involved after they have learned the language well and built some relationships and have a better understanding of the community's, um, culture and worldview.

So the five core values that we express in our translation, in our translation policy, uh, simply acknowledges that centuries of Bible translation have, have, uh, revealed important characteristics of faithful and effective translation. So we try to, uh, emulate that and achieve those same characteristics with these core values. First, accessibility. Uh, translation uses the familiar and present-day language of the people, not necessarily the slang of the teenagers, nor the, uh, vocabulary of the generation that is oldest, and the young people may not even know some of those words.

Um, secondly, communication. And just to, to express that here, translation communicates to its readers in their context, the same meaning that the text, the source text communicated to its readers in their context. So we, we have two groups of readers and two different contexts, and we have to acknowledge that difference and, and then understand how the, the meaning will be understood. How will we communicate the same meaning to the target context that we're working with, the same meaning that was understood by the original readers?

And then to balance that point is the point on correspondence where we address the fact that translation should represent the form of the source text to the extent that the grammar of the target language permits without distortion that hinders comprehension. And so we're after comprehension and getting that meaning through while honoring the form of the source text.

Then finally, collaboration and scholarship. This collaboration means that it's accomplished through the combined efforts of a team, uh, including qualified mother tongue speakers of the target language. You wouldn't want to attempt a translation, uh, completely done by an outsider. It needs to be teaming together with those who grew up speaking that language and understand all of its connotations and nuances and idioms.

So, uh, scholarship means that team members are sufficiently trained and skilled in their roles, that we have someone on the team who's familiar with Greek and Hebrew, the original languages. So, uh, again, I'll, I'll make a quick book recommendation about Bible translation.

Uh, Dave Brunn, Dave Brunn wrote the book One Bible, Many Versions, and it's addressed to an English-speaking audience, not a bunch, it's not addressed to a bunch of translators, and it's not a hard read. Um, simply as a career translator, uh, on the mission field, Dave Brunn realized that, uh, many of the arguments that we have in the English-speaking world over translation are based on oversimplified, uh, concepts, and oversimplification of complex, uh, realities leads to conflict and disunity, he says.

So, uh, be worth your time. Dave Brunn, One Bible, Many Versions. Finally, the ultimate goal is believing community. And so the question we ask is, does God intend that scripture alone plant a church? You know, it's been said that, that the Bible is the greatest missionary. Um, but the witness of, of history would show that simply translating the scripture and leaving it in the hands of the people, dedicating it, or maybe leaving it in a warehouse somewhere isn't sufficient to establish that God-honoring, Christ-following church. And so all that we do, whether it's Bible translation, community development, whether it's aspects of literacy and, uh, helping the people learn to read well, all serves that goal of a locally grown church.

So with God's blessing, with lots of prayer, teaching, and discipleship, the vision is to see a church growing up from the roots and out of its own soil rather than necessarily a transplant. So it would have locally, rather than foreign, foreign leadership and locally available resources rather than foreign resources. It would use locally appropriate methods rather than our foreign methods.

Going to move now into just a quick overview of the projects that all nations is involved in currently. And just starting here in Colombia, it's been a number, a few years here, half a dozen years that we've had members living in Colombia and pursuing some exploration throughout the country. As this little map shows, Colombia is full of nations, full of people groups. Um, each little area on this map shows a, a different language. There's actually 80 to 100 perhaps different languages spoken in Colombia.

And so it's been a matter of a lot of research and prayer to discern, okay, what area will the Lord have us to focus in, in this region? Where we've ended up is down in the southern tip. And you may be able to see in the bottom of this map, the bottom tip of Colombia, a little town of Leticia, right along the Amazon River. And from this town, uh, where we're establishing a, a presence there, teams can reach up into Colombia, over into Peru, as well as Brazil, where there are many unreached and a few even, uh, uncontacted people groups.

This is the region where you don't necessarily travel by road to get out to the village you want to go to. Um, take some plane, some air travel, river travel, and a lot of hiking. So down living there, um, in Leticia, our Darryl and Rose Whitmer from Virginia, Wills Ridge Mennonite.

And, uh, their vision and goal is to help establish that presence in Leticia where all nations members can come and get a good start, um, and get launched from there into other people groups around the region. And then the, uh, Matthew Morhardt family, uh, gathered here in a circle. They're from Cuba Mennonite Church in Eastern Indiana. And Lord willing, uh, they are preparing along with their, their church to pursue a people group called the Hupta.

And these are, uh, a people group that are north of, north of Leticia in, in Colombia. They have, there has been some mission work done among them in Brazil, but not in the villages that are in Colombia. And, uh, it's been a little bit of translation done as much as the books of Jonah and Ruth. So you can imagine that's not very much for the foundation of a church. Uh, there's a lot more work needed.

Pray for the, the work in Colombia, uh, the steps toward living among the Hupta. This I'm just going to share as we go through each project, a few little prayer points. And if there's someone who's interested in noting some of these and remembering them in prayer or choosing one, uh, just encourage you to do that. There's, this is, uh, people entering into areas where the, the spiritual forces of darkness are against what these teams are envisioning and hoping to do. So prayer support is needed.

So pray for them, uh, as we figure out steps toward living among the Hupta, the Whitmer's ministry in Leticia. It's they, uh, gain definition about what they will be doing there in addition to their work for all nations. And then just the different, uh, people groups in the Amazon, whether it's in Colombia, Brazil, or Peru.

Okay. Moving across the ocean to Africa, the Madra is a code name for a project there for a nomadic people group, uh, people group who has been nomadic throughout their history and yet in these times are being forced to learn how to settle down and live more, um, a more sedentary life. Want to, uh, yeah, here's a picture of some girls threshing millet.

Um, food is, is important, of course, there, uh, like it is anywhere. But, uh, in the dry season, these people know what it's like to get, to get pretty hungry. Uh, often only have one full meal every other day as they try to preserve the food until, until the next, uh, harvest comes around.

Many times, uh, often every week, uh, you awake to the sound of a mortar and pestle beating a certain rhythm. And this rhythm indicates that a little girl child or a little boy child was born. And so there's always a, uh, uh, baby naming ceremony that happens where the, the village religious leader names the child. Um, the religious culture there is very animistic. And so one of the, one of the ways that that manifests itself is when you go to see the new baby, you need to say something, not, don't say something nice about it. Um, it'd be better to say, well, the baby, oh, he looks like a donkey or something like that. If you say something nice, you might draw the attention of the evil spirits to this child.

And so there, the protocol surrounding this and many other things is based on a, a real animistic beliefs.

Even though, uh, these people are nominally Muslim, uh, it's, it's a syncretistic sort of Islam. And there's a need for the truth there to that sets free and brings light. Here they are working out in the fields, uh, taking a break to eat together. The, uh, Caleb and Rolando and their family are serving there and already at work in translation as Caleb has stepped in to help a team that's working under the direction of SIM in Africa.

So pray for them that the next, a next project that they have is building a small house in town where they can be close to where the translation is taking place. And then as he steps in to lead that translation team, um, they've already done the Old Testament with another, uh, translator who was there helping, and now she has left and Caleb is responsible to lead out.

Um, pray that the Lord will provide a teammate for them to work in community development. And especially right now, uh, Caleb and Rolando are home for a visit in Pennsylvania. Uh, just ask the Lord for their, uh, refreshment and good recuperation during this time that can be well prepared to go back.

Okay. Here, uh, south of us in Nicaragua live the Mayungna people, a few of them across the border in Honduras as well. The, uh, the story, the Mayungna story illustrates the crucial role of faithful Bible translation in a people group and in, in reaching the unreached. It was, um, about a hundred years ago that some missionaries came to the region and evangelized the, the, uh, people group, uh, near them called the Miskitu. But the Mayungna were, were a little bit more of an underdog group and seemed less of a priority. And the missionaries decided, you know, we don't need to translate the scripture for them. We'll just use the Miskitu language. And so they produced Miskitu hymn books and many things like that, uh, made a town along one of the rivers and invited all the Mayungna people to come and live there and so they could teach them the Bible.

So there's a, uh, kind of a gathered community there, um, where they go to church every Sunday on the way to church. The ladies pull out their little veilings and put them on their heads. And, um, so in some ways it looks pretty good, but it doesn't take long in living among them to realize that here's a people with a very mixed-up belief system where they've simply taken again, some of what they understood from those Moravian missionaries and mixed it in with their animistic, uh, worldview.

So that, um, just for example, when the, when a child is sick, you may call on the reverend, the church leader to come and pray. But he's also the man who is the village shaman in many cases. And he's the one who will attempt to, uh, say a spell over the child so that any, um, any evil spirits or any, any curse that's been cast can be, can be, uh, nullified. So it's kind of this, this strange and sad mixture of with no real relationship with the Lord Jesus.

And part of the reason for that is that, uh, no translation was ever done until around the end of the century. And then a couple of rather ungodly, um, so-called Christian men, uh, did these, did the translation. One did the Old Testament, one did the New Testament, uh, single-person jobs. And, uh, it's a translation that's littered through with terms that are either animistic or simply meaningless. For example, the term for spirit is, uh, is, is basically just the English word, beat it, spirit. And, uh, has no meaning at all in Mayungna. Uh, the word for holy is holy, which has no meaning at all in Mayungna. And so when you say spirit holy, uh, to them, that's like a church word.

It's talking about that, whatever that thing is in the Bible called the spirit holy. And they don't even have the concept of what that is. So, uh, it's definitely a need for some, for a, uh, a new translation there. So Ben Sullivan, uh, from the West Coast has lived among them for a number of years, um, and married one of the Mayungna girls. And they're now living back, uh, in, in the West Coast here in the US because of his involvement with that people group. Uh, it was, and because of the Spanish interest in their land, it got to be where living among them was dangerous for him. So they are not on site right now, but, um, he's begun working in translation with the, with the people there.

The, one of the, one of the most important commodities that they have is their land. In fact, their identity as a people is very much tied to the land. It's a, it's a rich land, bountiful, and it's something that the Spanish people around them really want. And so there's been a lot of deception, intrigue, violence, uh, surrounding this. And Anisa's family, um, Ben's father-in-law now, uh, Patricio, Celina, their family are now not living in the country as well. They're all in Honduras. I think this picture was taken at the children's home in Siguatepeque in Honduras where the pilgrim conference has a mission there.

And so Patricio would be one who Ben has worked with from the beginning, a, a godly man, community leader there. Um, here he is with three of his children now involved in the translation of the Mayungna Bible. And it's just such a blessing. Uh, there are many stories behind this, how that all, all, all these people are a part of the project and how God has provided, um, through the use of translation tools. Uh, Ben is able to be a part of the project from, from Washington now. And it's a lot of good tools for translation.

So pray for them, uh, resolution to the land crisis. Uh, pray that the Lord would direct regarding the possibility of a community development team member as well. And just help and progress for the Bible translation and knowing what to prioritize as there's, uh, a lot of people working together and many different things that need to be done. Also just recently, uh, a couple of hurricanes went through the area, um, where the Mayungna live. So pray for them as they recover from that and that they can have the food that they need as well.

Moving up to Mexico, in southern Mexico, the, uh, Miztek people live. And Ethan and Lene Wagoner from Washington also, um, went down there about five years ago to live among the Miztek people of the Yoloxochitl dialect in southern Mexico.

They were joined just about a year ago by another family, the Flores from their congregation and the Heggies from Shippensburg Christian Fellowship here in PA. Uh, the Miztek are a people who live in, uh, somewhat remotely in that region back in the mountains.

And there are people bound again by fear, fear of the spirits of curses, of, of, uh, bad omens, um, many things, many just normal everyday things that, that strike fear into their hearts. They need to know the truth of God's word and be led into the Lord Jesus. Here Ethan is at a, a workshop with one of the Miztek speakers who was a language helper and now is helping with the translation project. So thanks to God for this man's, uh, participation.

And as they work, they're, uh, they're actually adapting a translation from another Miztek dialect that was done, um, in the New Testament. They're able to do that. But this other dialect, as is often the case, um, only did the New Testament, did not do the old. So the Old Testament is going to be a, a bigger project.

Another thing they've begun is to whet the people's appetite with little, little booklets they can read, often maybe just one or two words on a page, starting to whet their appetite for literacy. As a people who has nothing or almost nothing to read in their own language, uh, literacy is going to be an important part of the work.

The Miztek team was here last year for their team launch. And one of the things they did while they were here was, uh, prepared a, a stone in our prayer garden here. And they put this verse on it. And the people that walked in darkness, the Miztek of Mexico have seen a great light. Pray for them as they're in, in language learning. Some of them are, are still learning Spanish. Some are working on Miztek and going deeper into Miztek.

Uh, the Bible translation as it continues. And there's work being done right now to prepare for chronological Bible teaching and, uh, for working in literacy.

Across the ocean, uh, 12 hours away from here, where I guess it's Saturday evening now in, uh, Indonesia, live the Sungai people. Again, this is a code name. Um, both a, a, uh, both an urban and a rural people, several hundred thousand of them on the main island there, one of the main islands of Indonesia.

And on a survey trip in a rural village, um, this, this village leader was handed a psalm in, in Indonesian. He read it, read this short psalm, and, and then his comment was, you know, if this was in my language, I could really understand it. And so this illustrates even as a village leader, um, the need for a scripture in their own heart language. The trade language of the country simply won't do for the establishing of a, of a strong church.

So the, uh, Levi and Angie and their family are there serving, uh, since two years ago. And, uh, Matthew and Andrea and their family.

Levi has lots of opportunities for relating with people and officials and, and, uh, people who are interested in the kind of things that he's interested in, like beekeeping. And this leads to a lot of relationships, such as this one with a, a young man who, who recently decided that he wants to follow the way of Levi's master as well. And it brought, it's bringing a lot of tension and difficulty for this young man and his family in a Muslim context. So again, this, this group two years ago was here for team launch and, uh, made a prayer stone in the prayer garden.

To you, all the nations will come from the ends of the earth and they will know that my name is Yahweh.

Let's see. I missed the prayer points on that one. Um, maybe Brian can throw in a few at the end. Um, Taru Mara in northern Mexico, this would be our most recent project. Uh, these are people in the Copper Canyon region, uh, where you can look down on the top of your house and where there's tropical fruit down in the canyons and up on the mountains. Occasionally there's snow.

So it's quite a, uh, diverse region. It's been a, uh, family working there, the Lashabairo family for 10 years or more, uh, in church planting. And it, it through this effort, they've just come to realize as they work in two communities there, two villages, uh, the desperate need for Taru Mara scripture. There has been some done in other dialects, um, but it is a very, uh, very dynamic translation of only the New Testament and in another dialect. So there's a need for the scripture here toward the establishment of this church. So just recently, the team who was here finishing up team launch this fall, um, Pauline Hoover from Pennsylvania here of the Weaverland Conference and David Rosene Senseneg as well.

And Juanita Beiler is a daughter of the Lashabairos that have been serving there and her heart is for her Taru Mara people as well and plans to work in literacy there.

Uh, another need of this people is a need for community development. And, uh, I mean, Lashia has tried to help them and to develop different ways where they can support themselves there in the community and locally, but it's very challenging for them. And the easy solution is just to go out to the cities for months at a time, which with that practice, it makes it very, very difficult to establish a church there with, with elders and with, uh, strong local members.

Something you can, we can pray about for them is that they can find a way to support themselves locally and not have to go out and work in the cities for long periods of time. Here, Juanita has already done a little bit of work in literacy, uh, doing some pre-literacy exercises, pre-reading exercises with a few of the people gathered there. As we, uh, come to the end of our little tour of projects, take a look at this little boy in this literacy class and just think about him. Uh, perhaps in a few years as a, as a teenager, maybe he'll be leading some literacy classes and maybe in a few more years, uh, if he is following the Lord Jesus, he'll be able to, uh, serve in the, in the local body.

Just, uh, the vision of a local indigenous church is what keeps these people going. Here's the team together, the Beilers and the team that just finished, uh, team launch here with their stone in the prayer garden. The Taru Mara of Mexico, God will dwell with them and they shall be his people. Again, our vision for them, communities of believers in every language group living out the word of God. So how can you learn more? One thing you can do is come to explore, uh, this coming year. It's planned, I believe, for June 4 and 5. This is a place where, uh, basically for two days you can get firsthand stories, intriguing snapshots, thoughtful insights. This is annually at the beginning of June.

And you can register anytime for next year. Uh, Lord willing, we'll be having this next year, uh, register at allnationsbt.org/explore2021.

What are things you can do now? Well, you can follow what's happening, uh, sign up for our newsletter at allnationsbt.org/subscribe or emails, find our blog as well at allnationsbt.org or even our YouTube channel. There's a lot of interesting material there on our YouTube channel, All Nations Bible Translation. You can pray and you can give. One of the ways to pray and give systematically is with a sponsorship where you give monthly toward a team's support and get annual prayer card and occasional updates along with that.

Uh, you can sign up for those online or, or contact us.

Allnationsbt.org/sponsor. Finally, just two little product products that we've developed in the past couple of years. Uh, one is the history of the English Bible. It was studying this subject that originally led to the founding of All Nations Bible Translation, a project that Joel Martin was doing in his schooling.

And, and so we've, we've produced an a dramatized audio version of, of the history of the English Bible. Tells the story of William Tyndale and others who laid down their lives. Again, you can watch this for free on our website, allnationsbt.org/englishbible.

And secondly, this is actually a video series, God's Word Enduring Through the Ages, an opportunity to confirm your confidence in the Bible and, uh, talks about inspiration, canonization, um, preservation, and the power and influence of the Bible. Those aren't just big words. They're often real questions and they have good answers. Can we be sure the Bible is the inspired truth of God? How was the Bible passed down to us? Was it corrupted? Are there more than 66 books?

And how does God's word impact the lives of people and nations? Again, you can watch this anytime for free at allnationsbt.org/godswordvideo.

And it brings me to the end. I'll just open it up for Q and A or I'll turn it back over to Brian here.

Okay. Thank you, Aaron. Good job. You did, you did really well for six o'clock in the morning. Thank you. Um, if I would have told you a year ago that you were going to do a, uh, an All Nations presentation on Zoom at six in the morning, you would have, uh, said you're crazy.

But, uh, things have changed, haven't they? Things have changed. We've ended up doing some of these, you know, on Zoom. We actually, uh, for 2020, the plans were to do a, um, uh, a tour. We do every four years. Typically we do a tour, a tour that's the states and, and Canada and talking about All Nations and churches. And, uh, well, that didn't happen this year. God had other plans. So we've learned how to use Zoom, uh, some. So, um, yeah, any, any questions from the group here for Aaron?

And, and while you're, while you're thinking about that, um, Aaron, could you just tell us, uh, could you just tell us like typically how long does a, you know, an All Nations church planning team, Bible translation team, like, um, how much time is, do they plan for on the field?

Mm-hmm. Well, we don't know, um, because All Nations itself is only 10 years old and the first family headed to the field five years ago. But, um, we'd project that it could be anywhere from 10 or 20 or more years, uh, depending on the situation. Uh, it takes a couple of years just to, you know, two years minimum of digging deep into that language. Uh, generally you have to learn the trade language first and then the actual target language that you're going to be translating into. And, uh, this can take a few years. And then along with that, getting a real good grasp of the culture and worldview of the people. So it's a slow start.

Uh, it requires just patient plotting. It's not, this isn't a flash, uh, fast thing. So long term, they need to work themselves out of a job where they can leave behind an indigenous church that doesn't depend on their in-person presence, uh, just permanently. So this could be anywhere from, you know, 10, 20 years or more.

Mm-hmm. Any questions from, from, uh, the group here? Yes, I have one. Yes, Brother Dan. Uh, decades ago I heard this anecdote and at the time I sort of cringed about it. Now I have a, a, a less narrow idea, uh, having embraced, uh, for my scripture reading such translations as Barclay and Phillips, which shall we say are rather liberal in terms of, uh, uh, rigid hewing to, uh, a word for word translation of the original text. So I just kind of trying to, to get bearings.

This anecdote involved, uh, a, um, an attempt to make a, a translation for, uh, an indigenous people. I think it was in Labrador. And, uh, the person who was making this translation assessed that, uh, the idea of sheep would be meaningless to these people because there wasn't anything in their environment that would support sheep. So everything that he, that was, uh, a reference to sheep or lambs, he rendered as harp seals.

And of course, the lamb of God was the baby harp seal of God. I, I, I guess I'm supposing that's the case. What would be your perspective on that? Aaron, what was the word that you said they used?

Harp seals. Oh, okay. A seal. The harp seal is a, is a very sweet and gentle thing. And they're, they are a, uh, a sort of an icon, uh, for and against people who are, uh, ardently, uh, environmentally oriented. The, the, uh, baby harp seal has a very coveted, uh, I guess it's a coveted hide and they come in, in white, I think. And, uh, um, so, uh, there's a, there was a campaign to, to save the harp seal and especially the baby harp seal, which was, uh, slaughtered, uh, more or less indiscriminately. And then on, on the dark side of the counterpoint side, uh, you've seen these, uh, cynical bumper sticker type slogans, uh, nuke the whales.

Uh, well, that same attitude is manifest in, in, uh, kill the baby harp seals. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So Aaron, uh, what will be your answer to, yeah, to, uh, contextualization like that?

Well, clearly there's a place, um, for some, for some contextualizing, uh, because we want the meaning to get across where it's not going to be clear. We want to, we want them to get the meaning that, uh, Aaron, you, you, Aaron, you shut yourself off. Uh, when you, when you hit your, when you hit your headset.

Yeah. Just, just, I would, you could just pull your, unhook your headset. We could just hear you, um, with your audio and your computer. Yeah. I think you got it now.

Try this. Hey, that, that works great. All right. Okay. Go ahead. So yeah, one, one of the things, one of the things to consider is the, uh, there may be times to take a, another to replace a, a term with something that's going to be understood. But often when it's, there's two problems at least right away with doing it in this case. And that would be historically, um, harp seal in Israel. Um, what was that thing they were offering on the altar? Was it a harp seal? Well, hardly. And so creating a historical anomaly is something that could be a problem. And then two, just the fact that this sheep, uh, figure is so prevalent all the way through the scriptures.

It's, it's a key concept, um, like you mentioned, the behold the lamb of God. Um, obviously for that to have any meaning, you have to use the same term back in the Old Testament. Chances are this people that you were referring to, this project you're referring to only did the New Testament. That's often the case and they don't think about those things. But, um, yeah, the historical anomaly and, and the fact that this is a consistent metaphor used throughout the scripture, uh, could have serious problems. A third problem is just kind of that condescending attitude that, that says those people are too dumb to figure out and learn what a sheep is.