Part of Our Job: To Strengthen Believers

(April 17) Friday morning we had a meeting with our Mouk partners and all our possible Lusi translation helpers (many of whom had been our language teachers). Most people in NTM starting into translation and Bible Lesson writing don’t have our situation – we have a small group of Lusi believers who were reached previously by the Mouk. So today as we met with the group, Rick was able to give a devotion and explain the upcoming translation work in the light of all of us functioning as a body of believers (1 Cor 12): each one has a different role and a different gift, but we all need each other. We hope that it was something encouraging for them.

You might wonder why we are here working on a translation if there are a small group of believers. Here is one reason why: Friday afternoon after the office work was finished I went out and talked with my friend, a young Lusi mother. She explained that last year when she and her husband had made a trip to town, they went looking for a Bible in the trade language. All they could find were Bibles in English. She doesn’t know English, so she didn’t buy a Bible. She wants a Bible for herself. Her husband has a Mouk New Testament, but he doesn’t have the Old Testament (there are some portions translated, but not the whole thing).

Let me ask you this, if you don’t have a Bible for yourself and you are a believer, how do you feed yourself? How do you grow? How do you have your mind renewed? How can you be encouraged? You can’t, except as others teach you – you are reliant on what others tell you. We are here to put God’s word into Lusi to strengthen the church and to reach those who are lost. We look forward to the day when that young Lusi mother can read a Bible in her own language.