‘One day,’ said Edwyn Kiptinness, a Marakwet speaking man in Kenya, ‘our people will be able to read God’s word in the language they understand best.’ Edwyn said that in 1962, when he was 16, as he struggled to understand the Bible he had been given to read during a long stay in hospital.
This year Edwyn’s dream came true. In August the Marakwet people danced and sang as they celebrated having the full Bible in their language, for the first time ever! Edwyn, who played a role in building the work of Bible translation in Kenya, got to be presented with the Bible in the language of his heart. Now he, and all the Marakwet people, can understand the full council of God in a way he couldn’t before.
Understanding God’s Word
Marakwet Bible is one of 28 full Bibles launched this year. That means that a new translation of all of God’s Word has been completed every two weeks and that 101 million more people now have the Bible. An important milestone was passed this year – the complete Bible was launched in its 800th language. There are now, in fact, 807 languages (spoken by around 6.2 billion people) into which the complete Bible has been translated.
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