Canadians fund African Bible translation
HALTON HILLS, ON—Last fall, the 55,000 people in northern Cameroon in Africa who speak Oku were able for the first time to buy the New Testament written in their mother tongue. The event prompted a great celebration locally. It also marked the culmination of an 11-year project sponsored and funded by Canadians.
“We decided to print 3,600 New Testaments for just under 10 per cent of the population, seeing as typically one Bible goes for one family,” says Wayne Johnson, president of OneBook, a Bible translation and literacy ministry started by Wycliffe Canada in 2005.
“We almost sold out the first day.”
Although each book cost OneBook almost $10 to produce, they were sold for the equivalent of $4.27, the price that the pastors of the 27 churches in the community had decided the people could afford, or about two days’ wages.
“Every church in the community had a payment plan,” says Johnson. “People for 16 weeks had been bringing in a couple coins, a very small bill. All they had to do to get their New Testament was to provide a receipt that they’d completely paid for it.”
Making this possible was the $297,000 that Canadians donated towards this project.
“We had some very large donors, about 20 individuals and churches, who made consistent year-after-year gifts and prayer commitments to this project,” he says. “We had at least one donor who made a four-figure gift every year for nine years in a row.”
The people of Cameroon have long had the Bible in English, one of their two official languages—out of 279 indigenous dialects. The problem is most Oku-speaking adults are illiterate, resulting in a flawed or incomplete understanding of the gospel.
The task facing OneBook was to take the oral form of Oku, convert it into an alphabet, and then develop literacy programs and materials in tandem with translating the Bible.
And with this newfound ability to read and write in their own language, they also discover the true message of the New Testament.
“Their church experience is in English. But when they pray to God, they always pray in their mother tongue. That’s their heart language,” says Johnson. “So to provide God’s Word in the heart language transforms the people group.”
OneBook is committed to producing New Testaments in 250 different languages.
“We’ve now completed 17 New Testaments. Oku was number 17,” he says. “We are committed to an additional 233, and of those, we have 64 underway in 11 countries.”
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