Sermon Central
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Power Of The Word Of God-----A Friend Of Mine, ...
Contributed by Peter Loughman on Jan 16, 2010 (message contributor)
POWER OF THE WORD OF GOD-----A friend of mine, Bill, was a bible translator for Wycliff Bible Translators in some very remote mountains in Bolivia. Bill was on the second Wycliff team. The first Wycliff team went into the most prominent village in the area and learned the local Bolivian language. They then developed and alphabet and a written language. This took approximately 25 years.
Through the work of the first translation team a very small Christian church came into being. The people of this church struggled and were not generally well treated by the other people in the village.
Bill then went in with his Wycliff team, which was Bill, his wife Evangeline, and their three toddler age children. Bill and his wife would then take the newly developed written language, and translate the Bible into that local language. This would take another 25 years. As Bill and Evangeline translated the Scriptures, they taught the members of the local church to read and write in their own native language.
After many years Bill and Evangeline finally produced a full New Testament Bible in the local language and they sent it off to the printer. Now, remember after almost 50 years of work, there are only a handful of Christian believers. Bill told me that as they sent the manuscript off to the printers they couldn’t help but wonder if all their had work and the hard work of the team before them would be a waste, because there we so few believers to receive it.
Now, many of the people of the area knew Spanish as their second language and some could even read a little Spanish, but for these local Bolivian people, Spanish was not their language, it was only one of the 39 different languages in Bolivia.
Finally, the day arrived when the newly printed bibles arrived at the village. To Bill’s great surprise, hundreds of cheering people arrived - You see, everyone wanted a book written in their own native tongue, whether they could read it or not. This bible was the only book on the entire planet that was written in their language. It became the prized possession to everyone who was able to get their hands on one.
Bill and Evangeline’s literacy classes filled to overflowing...and the church exploded. New churches appeared overnight in the closest villages and people were becoming Christians left and right. To Bill’s delight, a second printing had to be ordered. People who had learned how to read were spontaneously heading out to share the Gospel in the more remote villages in the area. Bill and Evangeline felt a little ashamed for their lack of faith, they should have known the power of the Word of God
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