Worth the Sacrifice

We have been wanting to share this video for a while. It was recorded two years ago and at that time, they thought the Bible translation would be completed at the end of 2017 for the Kwoma* people.
    Chris contacted the translation consultant at the end of last year to get an update that we could share with you and see how we could pray for them and their team in Nigeria. The consultant shared with us that there have been setbacks that have delayed the completion (which is common when approaching the finish line). God is faithful though! They have recently completed the translation of the New Testament and hope it will be published early this year. You can learn more and pray for the Kwoma people (and others) in The Finish Line Africa 2019 prayer guide.
*name changed to protect the people


    Ben and Renee Kuwitzky — along with their four kids — live in Jos, Nigeria. Ben serves as a translation consultant working with Nigerian translators, helping ensure that the translation is being communicated in a natural and clear way. Renee serves on the care team while also homeschooling their kids. 
    Although living overseas has its challenges and difficulties, Ben and Renee believe it’s worth the sacrifice so that people can receive Scripture in their own language. And when they see people excited about God’s Word in their own language, they are once again reminded why their work is important. 
Wycliffe’s mission is to see a Bible translation program in progress in every language still needing one by 2025.

A Greater Need

This article comes from our Newsletter which comes out 3-4 times per year.  Sign up to receive in your inbox!


    As we celebrate the milestone of translated Scripture, we celebrate that God is accomplishing His mission through His power and through partnership. More mission organizations, churches, and Christian communities are becoming involved in the Bible Translation movement. There is known active translation and/or linguistic development happening in 2,659 languages across more than 170 countries.
    Because of improved accuracy in collecting information from around the world about Bible translation needs, and other factors, the number of estimated translation needs worldwide has increased. As of October 1, 2018, over 180 million people, using 1,879 spoken languages and 284 sign languages, are likely to need some form of Bible translation to begin.
    Translation need is not as simple as determining which languages do or do not have Scripture. Most of the languages with only “some Scripture” are in need of more, and even full Bibles undergo revisions from time to time. Find out more in the FAQ sheet. (http://bit.ly/2018-bt-stat-faq)

Scripture & Language Statistics 2018

A Greater Joy : Celebrating the 1000th New Testament

This article comes from our Newsletter which comes out 3-4 times per year.  Sign up to receive in your inbox!


The Keliko of South Sudan have experienced displacement due to civil unrest and struggles. But in spite of their difficulties, they have relied on God to be their source of strength and hope. Recently, the Keliko dedicated their New Testament in Koboko, Uganda. Keliko was the 1,000th New Testament completed with the engagement of Wycliffe USA and SIL International — a primary strategic partner. Russ Hersman, Wycliffe’s Chief Operations Officer, attended the celebration and shared the importance of this milestone. Let’s rejoice with the Keliko who now have God’s Word in a language and form that speaks to their hearts!
    Wycliffe’s mission is to see a Bible translation program in progress in every language still needing one by 2025.

A Great Opportunity

This article comes from our Newsletter which comes out 3-4 times per year.  Sign up to receive in your inbox!


Chris has been the technical lead and primary developer for the Scripture App Publishing Service. Last fall, they started working with two partners, Faith Comes By Hearing and International Mission Board, to plan an update to the service in order to 1) support multiple organizations and 2) customize the process of publishing apps for each organization.
This would require a significant re-rewrite to a portion of the service. About that time, Chris’ organization applied to Every Tribe Every Nation (ETEN) for direct funding of certain projects including the Scripture App Publishing Service. A very generous grant was given by ETEN that has allowed them to sign a contract with DeveloperTown to design and develop the software that needs replaced. They didn’t have the staff to complete this work internally and this is a great opportunity to complete the work. Praise God for the resources and talents He has made available!

Logos
 
Discussions around a whiteboard during the initial design meetings at DeveloperTown in Indianapolis with people representing SIL InternationalFaith Comes By HearingScripture Earth, and Kalaam Media in early April 2018.

The Great Message

This article comes from our Newsletter which comes out 3-4 times per year.  Sign up to receive in your inbox!


In 1981, while celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Cakchiquel New Testament translation, Billy Graham delivered a sermon about the importance of Bible translation in the context of the command that Jesus gave believers to come unto him and go into all the world. Be encouraged by the excerpt from his sermon.  One statement that stuck out to me:

Billy Graham on the Importance of Bible Translation

Significant Partnership

This article comes from our Newsletter which comes out 3-4 times per year.  Sign up to receive in your inbox!


Chris has been the technical lead and primary developer for the Scripture App Publishing Service. The initial rollout of the service utilized a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) strategy which provides just enough features to satisfy earlier customers and provides feedback for future development. The service has been running for about a year and they have gathered valuable feedback for what needs to be done in the next release.
They have also communicated with other partners who have similar needs. Two of these partners, Faith Comes By Hearing and International Mission Board(IMB), have stepped forward to help with the future development of the service. IMB has a team in Bulgaria who they employ to fulfill different IT needs. Chris has been tasked to design the expansion of the Scripture App Publishing Service and train the IMB team to do the development. He will be traveling to Bulgaria to do the training sometime this fall. Please pray for wisdom for Chris to know how to design the system so that it can be effectively implemented by the Bulgarian team and be flexible for the diverse needs of many organizations.

Faith Comes By Hearing
IMB

Searching for Significance

This article comes from our Newsletter which comes out 3-4 times per year.  Sign up to receive in your inbox!


We’re excited to announce that Wycliffe’s most recent devotional, “Searching for Significance”, is now available as a 10-day reading plan on YouVersion! “Searching for Significance” focuses on the search for something more in our lives — whether you call it significance, purpose, or meaning. There’s an innate desire in each of us for our life to matter, and this devotional explores that desire from a biblical perspective as we dive into God’s view of our worth. You can explore more stories and videos about this topic at wycliffe.org/significance. We encourage you to read the plan on YouVersion and share it with your family and friends. It’s an easy way to engage them in a conversation about God’s view of our significance and worth, while also sharing opportunities for them to engage with Wycliffe. Start the 10-day plan today!

New Open Doors

This article comes from our Newsletter which comes out 3-4 times per year.  Sign up to receive in your inbox!


Partnerships are very important for the spread of the Gospel.  We are grateful that Chris can focus on developing software that accelerates Bible Translation and distribution.  Recently, his organization partnered with Faith Comes by Hearing (FCBH) and Renew Outreach to make changes to Scripture App Builder that will allow them to open new doors to distribute Bible apps with text and audio to minority language communities.
FCBH has Bible recordings in 1,066 languages.  They distribute these recordings using the Bible.is app for Android and iOS devices (and others). This requires that the user install the app from an app store.  Due to licensing restrictions, the audio has to be streamed over the internet.  This is a huge barrier (and in some cases dangerous) to many minority language communities.  Renew Outreach works with FCBH to distribute the audio on lockable Micro SD cards and Wifi hotspots (LightStream) to be used in audio players and feature phones.

With the changes made to Scripture App Builder (we are collecting usage data and transmitting when the user is on-line), now FCBH and Renew Outreach will be able to create apps with the audio and text bundled into the app and distribute the app virally.

“Everyone is VERY excited about using these apps. I met one new friend in particular who runs a ministry in a restricted country. He’s very well networked in his nation, knows approximately 80% of the believers, of whom there are few. Thanks to this app, now they will all be able to get Bibles safely because it’s illegal to distribute Bibles otherwise and easy to get caught with print ones. … These are the kind of folks who will now be able to get Bibles in their language for the first time, unhindered by outside forces.  Praise God and thanks for your hard work on SAB!”
— Brandon Honselek, Vice President/COO, Renew Outreach

New Software, Come and Get it!

This article comes from our Newsletter which comes out 3-4 times per year.  Sign up to receive in your inbox!


Chris has been working with colleagues on porting Scripture App Builder to macOS for the past couple of years. This program allows users to create Bible apps specific to a minority language that include synchronized text and audio that are easy to distribute. Best of all, the user can do this with no programming necessary. Before, users on Windows and Linux computers could only create Android apps. Now users of Mac computers can create both Android and iOS apps. We are very excited to announce the first release of Scripture App Builder for Mac!

“For the past two or three years, Bible translation teams around the world have been enthusiastically building customized Android apps to make the translated Scriptures available in both text and audio. But we kept getting asked, “So, when can we build apps for the iPhone as well so that more people in our region can get access to God’s Word in their language?” Now the waiting is over: Scripture App Builder for Mac has now been released – and translation teams can go ahead and build both Android and iOS apps. Thank you so much to David and Chris for all their hard work to make this possible!” (Richard Margetts, SIL Francophone Africa)

Scripture App Builder 3.3 for Mac / iOS

Let’s Release!

This article comes from our Newsletter which comes out 3-4 times per year.  Sign up to receive in your inbox!


Chris and his team have released the first version of the Scripture App Publishing Service! After many months of design, development, user testing, and refinement, the service is now available to Wycliffe members. This release is a minimum viable product and they plan to enhance the product in short iterations based on user feedback.  There are currently 175 Android Apps in the Wycliffe Bible Translators’ Google Play Store being managed by the Scripture App Publishing Service.