I wanted to share one of the amazing stories from the fall Scripture Celebration in Orlando Florida, where they celebrated the dedication of 17 New Testaments last week.

Andy had just finished the New Testament in the Lelemi language in Ghana after 17 years of working on it. He realized that at that rate it would take over 1000 years to complete the remaining 79 known languages in Ghana and while he was at the dedication of the Lelemi New Testament  a man came up to him and asked “We are so happy to see this dedication for the Lelemi, but what about us?” He was speaking from a neighboring village for the Tuwuli language. “Will you come and help us write the Bible in our language.”

Andy and his colleagues realized traditional methods would delay getting the scriptures to the people so they decided to try a new method – A multi-language approach. Andy would spend more time teaching and training local translators and less time doing the translation work himself.

By using a common trade language and a common meeting place he would coach several mother tongue translators all at the same time which allowed the teams to feed off of each other’s energy and expertise and 4 different language communities pulled together – Tuwuli, Selee, Siwu, Sekpele. They used specialized computer software called CARLA (Computer Aided Related Language Adaption) that allowed them to complete 4 New Testaments in 1/3 of the time that it would have taken Andy to complete one.

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Galatians 6:9 (New International Version)