November-December
2009
The
full Bible is being prepared for publication in several
new languages!
 Right
now we are in the middle of an exciting process - after
many years' work the full Bible is being prepared for publication
in several new lan-guages. Since 2000 IBT Russia/CIS has
published 13 New Testaments but so far no complete Bible.
In August the Tuvin team in southern Siberia handed over
their text to the publishing department; in October one
of the Central Asian translation teams celebrated their
last consultant checking session on the Old Testa-ment;
and at the end of that month we had a celebration here in
Moscow as a translation group finished their work on the
complete Bible in one of the Caucasian languages.
The translator from the Caucasus said:
“When I was first asked to become involved in Bible translation
I thought: ‘Why translate the Bible at all, and why for
my people who have another faith?’ Then I was told that
this book had been translated into hundreds of languages
and that it would contribute to the cultural wealth of our
people. When I asked my uncle, who is a mullah, he said:
‘The Bible contains the Torah and other books and it will
only be good for you to work with it.’
“The Bible was not completely unknown to
me,” continued the translator. “In the 1980s I visited Kiev
on a business trip. There I was invited to the home of an
old colleague. From the books on his shelves I understood
that he was a Christian. We had an interesting conversation
about faith, and when I left my colleague said: ‘I have
a book with the Gospel in your language. I will give it
to you, but only if you promise to read it.’ So I took the
book and read it, but I did not understand much, as the
language was old fashioned. Then ten years later I got to
know a foreigner who asked if I would be willing to check
the translation of a text from the Bible. He was surprised
to hear that for many years already I had in my possession
a book with the Gospel in my language. I began to work and
became more and more involved. We had many discussions,
and six years ago I became a believer. It was only later
that I found out that the Gospel I received from my Ukrainian
friend was one of only 200 copies printed by IBT many years
ago.”
Although these teams have now completed
an important step, it will still take some more work and
time until the Bibles will be published. The Tuvin Bible
will be the first to be printed – and this will be only
the second complete Bible ever published in the Russian
Federation after Russian!
Thank you for your support in 2009!
We wish you a blessed Christmas and a Happy New
Year!
for donations from USA
Tax
deductible gifts for IBT Russia/CIS can be made payable to:
God’s
Word for the Nations
On behalf of IBT-Russia/CIS
PO Box 1259
Rolla, MO
65402
U.S.A.
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