This first photo was taken last year, in October of 2015. I went to the Nguu village to give people the New Testament. The man sitting in the photo is one of the Muslim leaders who received the Nguu Bible. When he received it, he sat down and started to read it. When he realized that it was really in the Nguu language, he felt happy, and he promised himself that he would tell many Muslim people about the Word of God in the Nguu language.



I took this second photo on June 20th, 2016. I went to Nguu villages to give them the book of Genesis, and the man in the photo saw me, and he came and started telling me his story. He said that from the time when he received the Nguu New testament, he began to feel happy in his heart. He gets many challenges from other Muslims. They ask him many questions about why he reads a Christian book. He answers them, “This is the Word of God in the language of Nguu. It’s very easy to understand, more so than the Muslim book, because there is no Muslim book in the Nguu language.” And today he doesn’t go to the Muslim crusades anymore, which say that Jesus is not Lord. So today, many Muslim people join with him to read the Nguu Bible. It has given them peace.



The third photo shows a man and his friends telling me many stories. They told me that this time is the Muslim period for fasting. But I sat down with them. He started to tell me a good thing, how the Word of God changes the Nguu people and how people start to change when they read it.

The work in Ethiopia is going well! Recently one of our consultants, Antoinette van der Meulen, finished checking the gospel of John with the Yemsa translation team. She also worked with the Yemsa, Konta, Melo, and Oyda translation teams to check the book of Acts. There are always interesting moments in these consultation sessions, as each language and culture is so vastly different from the others. One passage that often results in interesting discussions is Acts 9:25, where Paul is lowered over a wall in a basket. One of the team members asked Antoinette, “How can we push the Apostle Paul into a basket? Baskets are for chickens and bananas!” However, they managed to successfully complete the checking of Acts despite a few of these hurdles, and two of the teams were even able to move onto checking Galatians. Our work is never dull!

I am glad to report that the launch of the first ever Lambya New Testament on 23 April 2016 went as planned. It was a wonderful and colourful event which started on Thursday and Friday when the team embarked on a free distribution programme in primary schools, secondary schools and adult literacy centers. The team also organized showing the Jesus film on the Thursday and Friday night. It was good to see how the Lambya people received the New Testament in their mother tongue for the first time since the creation of the earth. There was ululation and dancing for joy wherever the team visited.

"God has visited the Lambya people in a very special way and communication between them and God has now became easy with the coming of the New Testament."

It was quite encouraging to hear testimonies from some individuals saying that now God has visited the Lambya people in a very special way and communication between them and God has now became easy with the coming of the New Testament.

It was also exciting to see many people proudly holding the New Testament during several Sunday church services. There were reports that many churches read from the Lambya NT, giving us an assurance that the NT in Lambya has not been translated in vain. By Saturday already, the Bulambya area was flooded with the New Testaments.

Many people attended the launch. Among them was Senior Chief Mwabulambya (the Father of the Lambya people), as guest of honour. There were also church leaders from different denominations and some officials from government departments in Chitipa, businessmen, and members of the press. The latter made sure that the publicity was adequately done. Other notable people who graced the occasion were Mr. Reuben Kabwe (Regional Director of TWFTW), the Executive Director of the Bible Society of Malawi, and Dr. Gerrit van Steenbergen, Translation Advisor and Consultant from the United Bible Society.

On behalf of the team I would like to thank you for your prayers and support. Please join us in praising the Lord for the success of the launch.

Please pray with us as we continue to distribute the New Testament and showing The Jesus Film as one way of promoting Scripture use.

We continue to trust Lord for support of the translators, and a vehicle to facilitate the ministry in Malawi.

John Kadalinga
TWFTW National Director in Malawi

The first part of 2016 has been a great time for TWFTW’s translation projects, namely the Konta, Melo, and Oyda projects in Southwest Ethiopia. In the Konta project, consultant checking of 15 New Testament books was completed, which is incredibly exciting! The team members are enjoying working with the word of God in their own language during consultation, and their family members are also enjoying it when the translators read the word of God to them in their own language. A testimony of one of the team members in his own words: “I remember when we went to the community for the field test, one student took our translation and read it. Then he asked us to give him the whole Bible in our language. We asked him ‘why do you ask for the whole Bible? Do not you have Amharic Bible?’ He replied, ‘I have but this one is clearer.’” What an amazing testimony of the impact of having the Bible in one’s own language.

We look forward to seeing their progress over the next quarter!

Excerpts from the most recent newsletter of Antoinette van der Meulen, a Bible translation consultant:

“Asia: I was fortunate to leave the extremely warm weather in Pretoria, South Africa for some wintry weather. The men wanted to start working at 10am each morning because early mornings were so cold, but there was little time and a heater with a cup of ginger tea put things right. We revised Genesis and it was soon evident that we wouldn’t be able to finish this. The solution was to work an extra hour or so each evening and as requested by the translators, we worked six days a week. We couldn’t even spare a Saturday to visit the Himalayas, but hopefully I will get the chance someday. We worked in three languages – one with a population of 150,000; another with 40,000; another with 7,000,000. We lived and worked in a Christian hospital. This was very comfortable and an advantage was that it meant that I could have contact with other missionaries.

A new development in Bible translation is that local translators are being trained as consultants. In the beginning I was concerned about the quality of the work, but now that I’ve seen how accomplished the people are who have been selected to do this, I have become a supporter of the idea. It is usually a person who has completed a Bible translation in his own language and who is doing a Masters or a Doctorate on some aspect of Bible translating. For this reason we were supported this time by a person who is a consultant in training. It helped a great deal as he knows and understands the languages in which we were working

God willing, I will be leaving for Ethiopia on 28 March. This is a month before their Easter which means that the loudspeakers of the Orthodox churches and the Mosques will be competing each night with each other. Please pray that I will be able to sleep well so that I will be able to do my work. Also pray for wisdom in dealing with difficult sections.”

TWFTW Staff members: Martie Krüger, Director of Promotions; Doreen Kabwe, Financial Manager Tanzania; Reuben Kabwe, Regional Director Southern Africa; Véroni Krüger, International President.

It is with humility that I present the following highlights of The Word for the World Bible Translators (TWFTW) in 2015. Gratitude in the first place to God Almighty who afforded us the privilege of serving in the work of Bible translation and blessed our efforts. Gratitude also for the persons who were directly involved in this work, and the many others who supported through prayer and financial assistance.

TWFTW regards it a high privilege to be living and working in this age. We want to continue to position ourselves as a service organization working alongside others to fulfill the Great Commission. We believe it can be done!

Soli Deo Gloria!
Véroni Krüger
International President

Click here to read the International President's Report.

The translation teams and teachers.

Recently, Bible translators were trained with the aim of equipping them to get started with Bible Translation in their respective language groups. Due to security and sensitivity, we must use pseudonyms for these language groups: Sigar, Hapi, Sidi, Soga, Goli, and Lani.

Subjects that were taught:

• Bible Translation and Mission
• Process of Bible Translation
• Principles of Bible Translation

After the training, students from these language groups were asked to translate the book of Jonah into their respective languages using the methods they had just been taught. This material will be tested in their villages to test whether or not the people in these communities will accept it. It is a first-time translation in all six languages.

The training will continue over a period of four years.

Testimony from the Hapi language group

The Hapi community call themselves the Waghri Community. The wider community considered these people as ”Rag Pickers” and beggars. They are in fact “Shikaaris” or hunters by nature. Students were blessed through this training as they were able to take a bold step forward after they translated the book of Jonah into their language. One of the students shared that some time ago he had a vision that all the people of his language group were burning in fire and that there was a sense of helplessness all around. God looked down on them from above and was telling him “Save my people” repeatedly and saying that He wanted His Word to reach all of them. It was with this burden and desire that our brother underwent this training

Vision of TWFTW

The main goal of TWFTW is to see that every person gets the life-giving Word of God in his or her native language. We believe that God will accomplish His work in due season and that His Word will never, ever return void. We want to see not just the translation of the Bible into these languages, but also the transformation of lives through Bible translation.

The Word for the World Celebrates 35 years today! We have more than ample reason to praise God for blessings on all aspects of this ministry. Overall TWFTW has done well in partnership with so many of you. We cannot but give God the glory for enabling us to:

• Continue to pursue our Vision
• Reaffirm our stance as service organization
• Execute our altered Mission statement to expand our service to empower not only individuals but also organizations for Bible translation
• Further decentralize functions, responsibility and authority
• Continue to adhere to our approach to Bible translation
• Maintain our unity

Thank you to each one of you for continuing to do what you believe God has called you, and us collectively, to do. Nothing we do for God escapes his notice, and nothing we do for Him is ever in vain. May He richly reward each one of you!



TWFTW is currently involved in 91 languages spoken by approximately 29,551,762 people. This map represents TWFTW involvement in India.

The Zigua people in Tanzania recently received the New Testament in the their language, in print as well as audio. The people were overjoyed! They can now read the Word or listen to the AudiBible. The JESUS Film was also dubbed into their language.
 
The people plan to meet together in an evening class to spend time with the Word of God. They repeatedly expressed their appreciation to everyone involved to make this possible.

Words from the Lord that came to mind as we celebrated the dedication of the New Testaments in Tanzania:

“… more precious than gold,
than much pure gold;
… sweeter than honey,
than honey from the honeycomb” (Psalm 19.10).

“…the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart” (Heb 4.12).

The prayer of our hearts: That the Word of God may penetrate the very fabric of society and bring about real transformation in individuals, cultures, and nations. As we pray for those who have just received that Word in their own language, let us pray that the Word of God will also impact our own lives, cultures and nations.

Please Join me for one of the celebrations in Morogoro, Tanzania.

Soli Deo Gloria!

Véroni Krüger
International President