The Impact of Church-Owned Translation: A Look at Madagascar and Nigeria
Over the last few years, the face of Bible translation has changed in ways that only God could orchestrate. Let’s take a quick look back at Wycliffe’s history to get us started.
For more than 80 years, Wycliffe and like-minded organizations have been the ones to lead efforts to advance Bible translation around the world. But praise God, that’s changing!
Historically, Bible translation has been viewed as something only linguistic experts with degrees could do. But now local churches are playing a significant role in translation for their own communities, and that’s accelerating the pace of the work in incredible ways!
Madagascar: Embracing Partnership to Accelerate the Work
The Word of God first came to Madagascar in 1835 when it was translated into Malagasi. Since then, there has been some translation carried out in a few of the 23 language communities in the country, representing approximately 30 million people. But a few years ago, a group of more than 11 churches began working together to translate the Bible into four more languages. They asked for help in two ways: one, to consult on their materials for quality assurance, and two, to help train their people so they can become consultants who will then, in turn, train others to do quality assurance. Within 12 months, they drafted four full new Bibles — using 300 volunteer translators to do the work!
Serge Razafinjatoniary serves as a Bible translation leader in Anglophone and Lusophone Africa alongside his wife, Olivia. Serge said, “Madagascar has had this privilege of receiving God’s Word in the Malagasi language as early as 1835. We feel this responsibility to wake up and say, ‘How many more people groups are out there that we could participate with to get God’s Word into their languages? And we’ll do this with all the churches that will profess Christ, just in the same way they’re doing this here in Madagascar — all Christian churches combined, holding hands together. The vision is to have an exchange with the outside world.”
“God brings different people and players into the same scene,” Serge said. “We might as well ask God to leverage the gifts, talents and resources He’s entrusted in His children — through other organizations, churches and ministries — and pull that together around the same table to maximize not only on the production but on the distribution and the entire mission of God. Partnership is not plan B; it is plan A.”
Nigeria: Accomplishing a God-Sized Dream
Nigeria has historically been a country with a significant number of languages still needing Bible translation to begin. We call these countries or areas the “Big Five” — East Asia, Indonesia, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea and the global Deaf.
Two years ago, approximately 250 languages in Nigeria needed Bible translation to begin. But as of July 2024, Nigeria is officially off the Big Five list!
“What’s happening is a move of God,” said Jackson Vusaka, who also serves as a Bible translation leader in Anglophone and Lusophone Africa.
“Previously we’ve known that Bible translation has been the work of Bible agencies and that they’d take the lead in terms of resourcing and in terms of getting the work done. But of late we’ve seen God even touching the hearts of churches. … Church leaders are saying, ‘God has called us to do Bible translation. We don’t know how that’s going to look or how it’s going to be, but we know that God has called us and we want to do it!’”
And that’s exactly what’s happening across Nigeria. The significant drop in languages needing Bible translation to start — from 250 down to a few dozen — is unprecedented, not only in Nigeria but in the history of Bible translation! A God-sized dream is being accomplished. (Read more about the ways we’ve seen God move in Nigeria over the last two years!)
Jackson’s friend and colleague Johnstone Ndunde shared, “Bible translation is a tool in the hand of the Church. The Church wants to reach out to people, and so Bible translation is important to enable the church to do evangelism, to do discipleship, to grow the body of Christ in ways that it needs to be grown.”
“I’ve continued to see the Church rising in many other places and engaging in Bible translation like never before. And when we engage with the Church, the usability of the Scriptures becomes guaranteed. … The fact that the Scriptures can bring transformation is guaranteed.”
Johnstone continued, “I would like to see God bringing unity in the Church as they together engage in the work of Bible translation and work with organizations to bring the Word of God to the people, because the people are waiting to receive the Word of God in their language, and I think that as we see this happening in Africa, we will see a revival — a movement of God — that comes as a result of people having Scriptures they understand best.”
Working Together as the Body of Christ
God’s not only giving us a front row seat to see what’s happening, but He has extended a personal invitation to each of us to participate, however He might call us! Whether we partner through prayer, giving, advocacy or otherwise, we are all called to make disciples, for which Scripture is essential.
We are on the cusp of seeing Bible translation start for all languages still needing it. Join us in prayerfully asking God to do immeasurably more than we can imagine as He continues to pour out His Spirit upon the Church.
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