How do you accomplish this massive undertaking of translating a Bible? It can only be done with a lot of team work. God gave us and our church a vision and burden for people who wanted the Word of God but did not have it. Bibles International began as an organization to raise funds for printing Bibles that had been translated but soon saw the needs of the translators reached far beyond just money. Baptist Mid-Missions has been involved in putting the Bible into the languages of the people since its founder William Haas went to Africa decades ago. Most important are the people who ask for our help, Christians with no Bible. All together we work to get this job done.

It is a process. The national churches contact us and ask for help. The national believers get the Bible training they need to be able to become Bible translators. Bibles International begins training the national believers and assisting them in anyway possible including sending people like us to help. Our churches provide the funds we need to do this work but they do so much more. They pray for us faithfully, send short term workers to help, take part by drawing illustrations for books, doing typing, producing teaching materials, laminating teaching aids, binding storybooks, making bags for teachers, and on and on and on. Baptist Mid-Missions makes sure we have the logistical support we need. So as a team we accomplish the impossible.

How do you help thousands of churches who want a Bible in their language when you only have a dozen people? You pray for God to multiply you like He did the loaves and fishes. We can’t literally be two places at one time but we can duplicate ourselves. By training national Christians to do the work for themselves we multiply our ministry around the world. Sometimes Connie has been asked, “How many people have you taught to read the Bible?” She replies, “Five, but they were all in the U.S.” When we are overseas she doesn’t teach people to read, she trains reading teachers.

We travel several months a year overseas. We never stay in one place more than a month or two but we return almost every year. We train national Christians, check the work they have done and give them assignments to do before we return the next time. Many of the places where we work have never had a Bible translated into their language because they are a limited or restricted access areas. Often the national Christians will travel several days to meet us in a centralized, accessible city. We work with them there and they return to their homes when we are finished. We have never been able to go to many of their villages or attend their churches but we meet many people whose lives have been changed by the Word that they have brought.

It may seem strange but Bibles International has never actually translated a Bible. They provide the tools Christians need to produce the Bible in their language. These tools take on many forms: Greek and Hebrew experts, linguistics experts, fund raising, publishing services, etc. In our case the tool Birch provides is training them how to put their Bible on the computer and use the computer to check for errors. The tool Connie provides is training them to write books to teach people to read their language, teach their people to read the Bible and teach their people how to use their Bible.