Merry Christmas!

Christmas is a time of reflection, hope, and thankfulness for us. We have seen God’s faithfulness over this past year despite some challenges. We want to wish you and your loved ones a very Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year. We don’t know what we will face next year, but we know that we will walk through it with Him.

Changing Roles for Gary

We mentioned in an earlier newsletter that Gary’s position was changing. Currently, he is pioneering a newly developed role as a Strategic Innovation Consultant in Global Partnerships. In this job, he has been providing analysis of the remaining need to eradicate Bible poverty, particularly throughout Eurasia. He works with a number of partners in the Bible translation effort.

At a recent meeting (video call) he was one of 83 attendees from 18 countries and 18 different partner organizations. In other working groups, he has the opportunity to work with Bible translation partners from all over Europe, Asia, and northern Africa.

A few years ago, our current president, along with a few other key leaders, was heavily involved with envisioning a new way of working in partnership across the globe. The Global Partnerships Team was formed as a multi-organizational collaboration that explores new ways for Bible translation organizations to cooperate and work together interdependently. 

Gary feels blessed to be a part of a team that comes together and leaves their egos and their logos at the door to carry out the call for the great commission to reach all people from every tribe, and nation, and tongue. 

1 Corinthians 14:10 NLT
There are many different languages in the world, and every language has meaning.

Milestone Reached as 700th Full Bible Translation Completed 

This is so very exciting! It represents the tremendous work that Bible translators are doing across the world. Every time the Bible translated into another language, we know that for the first time the people in that language group can fully access the complete picture of God’s story.

The 700th Bible means that 5.7 billion people who speak 700 languages now have the Bible in the language that speaks to them best. That is a remarkable figure and continues to grow. However, there are still about 1.5 billion people, or about one in five, who do not have the Bible in their language.