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Newsletter March 2008

“I have an urgent request - please translate the Bible into my language!”

She was a beautiful Central Asian woman with black eyes and wearing a colorful dress. “All my life, since I was a child, I have been searching for God,” she said. “I am the daughter of a mullah, but my father was a very open-minded person. Besides the Koran he gave me a Russian Bible to read. But the Bible was in Church Slavonic, so I didn't understand it at all. At that time we had Christian neighbors, and one day they gave me a blue Children's Bible in my language. I loved to read the stories, but the pictures disturbed me. ‘How can they make pictures of God and Jesus?’ I wondered. We were taught that it was wrong to make such pictures.

“I kept the blue Bible and read from it now and then. I grew up, got married and had children – and I was still looking for the truth. Then one day I was invited to church by my neighbors – I didn’t really want to go, but they were so kind and I could not refuse. The first time I found it very boring, as I didn’t understand what was happening and it didn't mean anything to me. But they invited me again, and slowly I understood what Jesus had done for me, and then everything changed.

“I have an urgent request - please translate the Bible into my language! I have the New Testament and some portions of the Old Testament, but I need the whole Bible!” When she heard that we were planning to publish the full Bible in her language within two years, her face beamed with joy.

“My husband is not a believer,” she continued. “He does not allow me to share my faith with the children. But in the evening it is my task to tell stories. So I say to my husband: ‘I don't know any stories, but I will read this book to the children.’ And I read the stories from the blue Children's Bible, and they love to listen.”

IBT Russia/CIS is involved in Bible translation into six Central Asian languages. Our goal is to publish the whole Bible in three of these languages by 2010. The Children’s Bible, which has meant so much to millions of people in the former Soviet Union, has just been published in yet another Central Asian language! We thank you for your support in gifts and prayers!

 Here you can sign for the IBT Russia/CIS monthly English Newsletter

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