12 quotes from 2012 – No.12 and last!

Lee Bramlett with Hdi colleague

Wycliffe Bible Translators UK Blog ended the year with a list of 12 Quotes for 2012. I decided to trickle them out on a daily basis 🙂

This final quote is another story that I have covered before under the title One Little Vowel.

This would mean that God kept loving us over and over, millennia after millennia, while all that time we rejected his great love. He is compelled to love us, even though we have sinned more than any people.

Hdi translation committee, Cameroon

It’s all about the verb to love: the Hdi people used dvi and dva, but what about the dvu form..?

“Could you dvu your wife?”  Lee asked. Everyone laughed.

“Of course not!” they said. “If you said that, you would have to keep loving your wife no matter what she did, even if she never got you water, never made you meals. Even if she committed adultery, you would be compelled to just keep on loving her. No, we would never say dvu. It just doesn’t exist.”

Lee sat quietly for a while, thinking about John 3:16, and then he asked, “Could God dvu people?”

There was complete silence for three or four minutes; then tears started to trickle down the weathered faces of these elderly men. Finally they responded.

“Do you know what this would mean?” they asked. “This would mean that God kept loving us over and over, millennia after millennia, while all that time we rejected his great love. He is compelled to love us, even though we have sinned more than any people.”

Read the whole story via the link Hdi translation committee

Almost 2,000 languages don’t have access to any stories  in their mother-tongue. Give the Story.

If you are reading this somewhere in the UK or Ireland, you might be interestred in our Wycliffe one day event First Steps

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12 quotes from 2012 – No.11

Des and Jenny Oatridge with the Binumarien people

Wycliffe Bible Translators UK Blog ended the year with a list of 12 Quotes for 2012. I decided to trickle them out on a daily basis 🙂

Quote number 11 is a story that I have blogged before. In fact it’s the one that inspired the 385 views on my blog one day last week.

Jesus must have been a real man on this earth then. He’s not just white man’s magic.

Binumarien speakers, Papua New Guinea, on hearing Jesus’ genealogy in Matthew 1.

My post was entitled No-one bothers to write down the ancestors of spirit beings  Here is an extract…

‘No-one bothers to write down the ancestors of spirit beings,’ Fofondai stated.

‘It’s only real people who record their genealogical table,’ A’aaso added.

‘Jesus must be a real person!’ someone else cried, his voice ringing with astonishment.

Then everyone seemed to be talking at once. ‘Fourteen generations, that’s two hands and a foot, from Abraham to King David … ’

‘And two more hands and a foot, to the time of the kalabus (the captivity) … ’

‘And another two hands and a foot till Jesus’ time … ’

‘That’s a very, very long time.’

‘This ancestry goes back further than ours.’

‘Yes, none of ours goes back two hands and a foot three times.’

‘Jesus must have been a real man on this earth then. He’s not just white man’s magic.’

Almost 2,000 languages don’t have access to any stories  in their mother-tongue. Give the Story.

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12 quotes from 2012 – No.10

Di Jameikan Nyuu Testiment

Wycliffe Bible Translators UK Blog ended the year with a list of 12 Quotes for 2012. I decided to trickle them out on a daily basis 🙂

Quote number 10 is from the West Indies! It’s about the translation of the New Testament into Jamaican Patois – which has not been without some controversy.

We have blazed a trail that no one in the 400-year history of our language has done. To suggest that certain languages are not worthy of the word of God is arrogant and ignorant.

Rev Courtney Stewart, general secretary of the Bible Society of the West Indies, on the publication of the Jamaican (also known as Jamaican Creole / Patois) New Testament

Read more by following the link above.

Almost 2,000 languages don’t have access to any of the Bible in their mother-tongue. Give the Story.

You could become involved with Wycliffe Bible Translators UK in 2013! You could be part of the amazing things God is doing through so many people to bring his Word to his world. Take a look at First Steps – and help bring the Bible: the Story everybody needs to those who don’t have it.

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12 quotes from 2012 – No.8

An Ikoma woman with the newly published book of Luke

Wycliffe Bible Translators UK Blog ended the year with a list of 12 Quotes for 2012. I decided to trickle them out on a daily basis 🙂

Quote number 8 is about stories! Stories in the Bible – a book that is just full of great great stories!

This is such a good story! We didn’t know the Bible had good stories in it!

Ikoma speakers, Tanzania

Think about your favourite Bible stories – and then read more about the Ikoma people discovering good stories in the Bible by following the link above.

It was reading a brief commentary in a Tearfund magazine about the story of Peter and John healing the crippled beggar in Acts 3, that led my wife and me to join Wycliffe Bible Translators 24 years ago.

But that’s another story…

Almost 2,000 languages don’t have access to any of these stories  in their mother-tongue. Give the Story.

You could become part of the Wycliffe Bible Translators UK story yourself in 2013! We are full of thankfulness for the amazing things God is doing through so many people to bring his Word to his world. Take a look at First Steps – and help bring the Bible: the Story everybody needs to those who don’t have it.

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