International (MNN) — Today, nearly 30% of the
world's language groups have yet to be introduced to Scripture.
OneVerse is a program of The Seed Company that enables
people to support local Bible translators as they make God's message available
in the language of their people.
Specifically, says spokesman Michael Courier, "There are currently close to
340 million people who have no access to God's Word whatsoever. They don't have
a verse of Scripture in their language. That's the remaining need."
Bible translation costs money and time, and a lot
of it! It's tough to get people
to participate on an individual level, mostly because when individuals look at the
costs associated with the project, they think, "I can't touch that with my measly
$30."
That's why OneVerse came into existence five years ago. The idea behind it was to break down the
translation cost to more manageable bites, like $26 per verse. One verse at a time? There are just over 31,000 verses in the
Bible.
Due to the cluster translation projects, the translation
timeline doesn't take as long as it used to.
Demand for these Scripture portions has started to rise, and funding was
the only thing holding the teams back.
Courier explains,
"The greatest value for these translation programs is to have a
monthly sponsorship: $26 a month. When you get your receipt and
statement, you see the verse that you actually sponsored on there."
The project generates its own energy once people start to
own their part. In fact, "We've had
some homeschool groups collectively identify a language that they really want
to sponsor. Then they get to know about the people group, where they live, who
is the translation team, the dedicated local speakers who are doing the work, and
they pool their resources and sponsor multiple chapters."
Because kids were getting involved, The Seed Company also
launched a program to get them busy connecting with the process not
only of translation, but also sharing.
It's called "KidsDiscover."
Courier explains, "It's focused around teaching your kids how to be
storytellers, learning the art of storytelling. It's a free 10-week program. We
have ten weeks that cover the Old Testament, and then ten weeks that cover the
New Testament collections of stories."
Another point of connection for KidsDiscover participants is
that many of the people groups targeted
by OneVerse are pre-literate. The kids
learn the truth of Scripture the way some of the pre-literate groups do: via
oral tradition. "This is a tool to
explain the value of storytelling in the context of your family, but also in the
context of these language groups who are, very often, pre-literate. They don't
read and write, but they do tell stories."
Then, when the Scripture is made available in the written
form, there's a deeper connection to the group. Reaching a goal to begin Bible translations
in all 2,100 remaining languages by 2025 will take extreme effort from prayer
warriors to translators.
