Last week we saw an answer to a years-long prayer request: I had the joy of leading the first Bible translation consultation meeting with the new team (pictured above) translating the New Testament into the Bayash language! As you might recall, from 2014-2018 we worked on translation into Bayash and completed the Gospel of Luke and 50 chronological Bible stories which we printed, audio recorded and distributed. However, since then we have been unable for many years to go farther in translation due to lack of translators.

But in February of this year God put together a new translation team and they have been receiving training and drafting the translation of the Gospel of Mark. Pamala and I met them in person in Serbia in April, and I met with them online last week to check the first 15 verses of Mark. What a joy to see the language project restarted and to have tangible hope that we can work now to give the Bayash people the rest of the New Testament.

There are differing dialects of Bayash, and the related language, Ludari. As we work with the new translators, it looks like we will probably end up producing two translations for Bayash in order to meet the needs of more readers since there are significant differences in the dialects.

Regarding my Bible translation consultant work in other areas, in the Gurbet language we have almost finished 2 Samuel and I have begun preparing to consult on the next book, 1 Kings. And in the North Macedonian Arli language, we are doing consultant checks in the book of Revelation, after which we will check Galatians.