Latest / The Ethnos360 Podcast / Translating the ENTIRE Bible
Transcript
- speaker-0: In languages like Lamogai, there is no volume, there is no bulk of data for AI to sift through. I know with absolute certainty that more of my years are behind me than in front of me. I've definitely lived more than half my life, and at this point, I am just so very, very thankful that God allowed me to do what He led me into doing, and I would not trade it for anything. One of the saddest things I've seen on the mission field. Is well-meaning missionaries who love the Lord and they love his word, and yet somewhere along the line in their preparation for missionary service, no one ever told them that it's just as important that you learn the culture and the worldview as it is to learn the language. Rooted in Mature, an Ethnos 360 Podcast. speaker-1: Welcome to Rooted Mature, Rooted and Mature, the Ethnos 360 podcast where we talk about all things engaging cross-cultural church planting. So we're digging into the mechanics behind the complicated task of planting a church across cultures. So today I am super excited. We're going to be talking about Bible translation, why we do it, when we do it, how we do it, those kinds of things. And I have an expert on the the field, Dave Brunn, who worked for many years. I won't steal his thunder. I'll let him introduce himself and tell us a little bit about yourself and your testimony, Dave. speaker-0: Okay, thanks, Keith. my wife and I went to Papua New Guinea in nineteen eighty and we served there until two thousand one, almost twenty one years. We when we first got there, we moved in among one of over eight hundred different language groups there in Papua New Guinea. It's the Lamogai people. We learned their language. It had never been written it had never been written before, and my coworker and I were both trained in linguistics, so we broke the language down into writing and And we taught the Lamogai people how to read and write their own language for the first time. Eventually when we were fluent enough, then we started translating God's word into their language. We taught them God's word in their language, and eventually God did a just a mighty work among them, and there are many believers there today. But during the years we were there, we we finished the New Testament. It was published in nineteen ninety six. And then just last year We completed the entire Bible in the Lamagai language. That involved taking many trips back to Papua Guinea after we lived here to work with a team of Lamogai speakers. And just June of this year we were over there and we had a a dedication celebration with them of their new Bibles. And it's it's just so amazing to to be able to have the entire Bible in their language. We're just so excited that God allowed us to be a part of that. speaker-1: You brought out something I wanna just touch on before we move on here. Couple things. You're saying there was no written language at all before you arrived there. No no there was no material, there was no other reading material, there was no anything. speaker-0: That's correct. Yeah, th there was their language had never been in a written form before. speaker-1: Okay. And then let me ask you this. Since you've been there and since you produce this, is there other things being produced or is pretty much everything that's being produced for reading coming from from you and your coworker? speaker-0: Yeah, it's just from our team that that's the only reading materials they have, and the main thing that they read, of course, is the Bible. speaker-1: Okay, so that's cool to know. All right. So let me ask you this then. You've been there i since nineteen eighty. What kind of technology changed in those years? How many years is that now? That's forty speaker-0: Forty four. speaker-1: six years? Yeah. What kind of technology changes have you seen? speaker-0: It's changed a lot. Of course, today we rely a lot on com on computers and when we first got to Papua Guinea in nineteen eighty, none of our missionaries and any of our teams had a computer yet. So we all had typewriters. Now, thankfully it wasn't real long after that that we got our first computer, but we finished our formal language and culture study in nineteen eighty three and we got our first computer in nineteen eighty four. So I didn't have to do very much translating on a typewriter, but I know it was it for those who did, it was a real challenge. I remember talking to one of one of the senior missionaries back then who had done the entire translation of a New Testament using a typewriter, and she said she typed the entire New Testament seven times. And she said often they would do literal cut and paste. You know, we talk about cut and paste. Well this was real cut and paste. She would type out another just a line, a sentence, she would cut it out and use paste, glue, and glue it on there. So that was that was the original cut and paste. And then she said when they when she typed the the whole New Testament seven times, you know, they would go back and they would find things that needed to be changed, they would find errors, but every time they retyped the whole New Testament to correct errors, of course they introduced some new errors. It's just inevitable. And she said there came a point where they had to say, Okay, we're done looking for errors. We know that we're gonna probably find some more. We know we are gonna find some more. There are some here, and we just have to move forward. We can't keep taking backward steps to correct these new errors. And so we're very, very thankful that we didn't have to do that. Like I said, it was only about the first year that I was involved in translating that I did not have a computer. But when we got our computer, it was it was Very, very bare bones. It had 64k of RAM. It did not have a hard drive, no internal storage at all. We just had floppy disks. Wow. And of course, it didn't run any programs except a word processor. But I remember in 1982 at the field conference, the first computer arrived on the field. A missionary had been on f on furlough, and he brought back this computer, and we were all gathered around at field conference. He was showing us A word processor for the very first time, he's like, Look, if you type the right if you type the wrong letter, you can go back and you can delete that letter and you can put in the right letter. And we were like, Whoa, that is so cool. So, okay, now that makes me seem really, really old, but we're so thankful for the technology that we have today. And computers are used all around the world for a lot of things. Most of them are for things that make people a lot of money. And, you know, some of those people might say, Yeah, so people use a computer for Bible translation too? Yeah, I guess that could work. Well someday it will become evident that using a computer for Bible translation, as small as that may seem to some people, they'll realize that was a much more significant use of the computer than the way that they use it to make millions and billions of dollars. So we we are very thankful for the the technology that we have today. speaker-1: I love it. I had a I had a very old missionary recently contact me. You would know him. He was a friend of yours. it was his wife, Gloria Zook, from the from the Moak people, and she called me and said, Hey, we need more translations printed. And I was it what a cool technology to be able to pull those up, send them to the printer. Get them printed, sent back over. I'm I'm so thankful for the technology we do have. So so let's get into that a little bit. First of all, before we go down the technology road too far, tell me a just a a brief overview of the translation process and maybe why a translation into Lama Guy would be different than translation into Spanish. speaker-0: Okay, well, when we translate there are three important proficiencies that must be part of a translation team. There has to be proficiency in the target language, proficiency in biblical exegesis, in in other words, studying out what the Bible is actually saying, and then proficiency in translation principles. So what does it take to effectively translate from one language to another? Now from day one all the way through to the end of the process, the native speakers are the experts in the target language. we learned the language to a high level of fluency. I reached the that level of fluency forty three years ago, but that doesn't matter. I will never be a native speaker. I all the way through to the very end of the entire Lama Guy Bible, I depended very heavily on the native speakers. To be the experts in their target language. And especially when it comes to naturalness and subtle nuances of meaning, there is no way that a non native speaker can ever come up to that level. So my main responsibility as the as the foreigner coming in, the the outside missionary translator, was to be an expert in biblical exegesis. Now that doesn't mean I'm actually an an a Bible expert like someone who is a is a seminary professor or something like that, but I have access to the experts. Access in a way that the that the Lamagai people never will. So, especially as a as a native English speaker, I have access to volumes and volumes of helps that that that assist us in mak in doing this translation. Right. speaker-1: So you have you have all those helps, Greek helps and Hebrew helps, that all that stuff, and it's all written in English, right? And you may you may be a Spanish speaker and be able to access that or a French speaker and be able to access that, but certainly last I checked, none of it's written in Lamagae. speaker-0: No, none of it is and none of it ever will be. So so anyway, that's and then the third area, initially, that was my responsibility too. Understanding how do you effectively transfer a message from one language to another. We were trained in that and we have books about that too. But as we worked through the translation process, week by week, month after month, year after year, I'm training the team that I worked with. To where today I think they have a very good understanding of translation principles. They have a very good understanding of what it means to translate n not just looking at the individual words. There's no such thing as a true word for word translation. If you were trying to translate word for word into Lamogay, it would not be understandable. And they understand that. But they they they know what it means to translate a message effectively so that so it really can be understood. So that third part is now divided almost equally. I I still probably carry you know, a bit more of the weight on that side than they do, but that that area is shared. speaker-1: Well and I would say I would say they even now share some of that theological side, right? Because they have the Holy Spirit living inside them. They have all the word that they've studied already. So they know, wait a minute, that doesn't sound right. That doesn't sound like all the other speaker-0: Absolutely. Absolutely. So they're they're since they have been very well taught over the years, as we're talking through something, they can say, well, just a second, because they know their language better than I do, they can say, well, just a second, if we say it that way, it might imply this over here, and we know that's not what the Bible means. So you're right. That they're able to help in that way. And of course I can con even though I'm not the expert in the target language, I can contribute too. And all of our discussions We're always in the Lamogai language. There was never a reason to talk about anything in another language. And there were many times where we're working through something and then I would throw out an idea. I'd say, well, how about if we say it like this? And sometimes, yeah, that's right. Perfect. We need to say it that way. And then they might just slightly tweak it to make it better than even better than the way I said it, because I'm not a native speaker, but I can contribute on that side too. Now, not every organization does translation the way that that we do. Some organizations focus almost entirely on translation. I have a lot of experience doing that. I've served as a guest consultant with other organizations that basically just do translation. So I've worked with teams in Africa and Asia that are doing translation. And in many cases the person the foreigner doesn't learn the language to full fluency like we do, but we have to learn the language because When we do translation in Ethnos three sixty, it's always within the context of a long term ongoing church planting effort. In fact, that is that is really what we do. That's the main umbrella. We we do evangelism, discipleship, and church planting among previously unreached people groups, and an important part of that is giving them the scriptures in their language is translation, but that's under the the bigger umbrella of church planting. And since we we have to you cannot do discipleship and church planting without knowing the language quite fluently. So since we know the language quite fluently, we pull up to the table as full members of the team. Again, as I said, that doesn't mean we're going to usurp their responsibility as experts in the target language, but we we have much that we can contribute to. And so we do it just a little bit differently than some others. speaker-1: So let me ask you this too. You've talked a lot about language. Talk to me a little bit about worldview and I know we learn worldview, we learn culture. Talk to me a little bit about worldview and culture and how that plays into your translation and church planting. speaker-0: Sure. It's so important that we focus not only on trying to be able to speak in a way that we can understand, but that we dig in and purposefully study their belief system so we know how they view the world around them, because that is going to color everything that we tell them. One of the saddest things I've seen on the mission field is well meaning missionaries who love the Lord and they love his word, and yet somewhere along the line in their preparation for missionary service, No one ever told them that it's just as important that that you learn the culture and the world view as it is to learn the language. And so they are they are preaching a pure message from their perspective, but if the other person is going to be misinterpreting it because the missionary doesn't really understand how they view the world around them, then they haven't communicated the clear gospel in the way that that perhaps they think they have. So it is so important. We We actually when we create the ac acronym CLA, that's culture and language acquisition. We actually put culture first. Just to make it clear, this is not just kind of an add-on. We're gonna learn the language. and by the way, hopefully we'll pick up some stuff about the culture too. No. We learn language in the context of the culture. So we would go out with them when they're planting their gardens and that and we'd learn all the language associated with the garden, but we're there in a garden with them, we're watching them do it, we ask them what they're doing. described this to us and we learned the terminology. We went with them hunting pigs in the wild jungle, wild pigs out in the jungle, and so we see what they're doing, we hear the new words that they're using to describe, and then of course eventually we got into where we knew their language well enough that we could start digging into their spiritual beliefs. They view the spirit world around them and that is so very, very important. If we did not understand that, we would have miscommunicated much of the biblical message when we were talking to them. speaker-1: Can you think of a time like where you said, Man, I I'm glad we knew that about the culture before we dove into this passage? speaker-0: One thing that was so important that we realize is to them, everything that you see in the visible physical realm is affected by the spiritual realm. If somebody dies, if somebody falls out of a tree and dies, it wasn't just a physical thing. There's some kind of spiritual force that caused that to happen. So we needed to we needed to understand that, that to them, spiritual forces are active in everything. So We we kept that in mind all the time that we were preparing our Bible lessons and as we were teaching them, knowing that that's how they're gonna hear it, so we have to say it in a way that that we can make it understandable, that the that the message of Scripture is going to land in a world that they recognize. speaker-1: Okay, so give me the kind of the big goals for Bible translation. What what are what are the primary things you're shooting for and you when you say, Okay, this is I've done this chapter, I've done this verse, or I've done this book well, what are kind of some of the big things you're shooting for, big goals? speaker-0: Okay, well there are three main ones that are that are normally talked about. That's accuracy, clarity, and naturalness. Accuracy goes along with my job. The biblical exegesis, the biblical study, digging into the helps, making sure that we that what we're translating accurately reflects what the Bible says. Now clarity mostly comes under the translation principles one. How do you effectively translate a message so that it's going to communicate the right thing in the right way to them? Naturalness, that's their job. They are the the experts in the target language. So naturalness goes along with that third one, and that's expertise in the target language. Now I've been speaking Lamogai for long enough, like forty three years. I've been speaking it so long that I do have some intuitive sense, even in the naturalness realm, but not the same as a native speaker. I will never be a native speaker. And so those are our three main goals. We want to make sure that that it is communicating God's true message clearly in a way they can understand it and in a way that it sounds like the way they talk. speaker-1: Okay, so I'm gonna this is not in our our planned out, but I'm gonna give you a question here that I think you'll be able to answer well. One of the struggles with translation is how to communicate word pictures or things like that. So I think about one of the passages that that we wrestled with was when John the Baptist sees Jesus and he says, Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. Talk to me about that phrase, behold the Lamb of God that takes away the world. Talk talk to me about how complicated that phrase is to translate into Lamagay. speaker-0: Okay, well, first of all, calling Jesus a lamb, even if you've ext they've never seen one, but we we explained to them what a lamb was, what a sheep was. We didn't use some other animal. We used sheep, we used lamb, but calling him an actual lamb may not really work. So a lot of times and we call that a metaphor if you say Jesus is a lamb, if we say he is like the lamb, or he he is the sacrifice like a a a sacrificial lamb, often making it into a simile which you use like or as, that will often communicate, okay, now that makes sense in their language. And it's just the way their language works. We're not trying to change what scripture says, but we have to communicate everything in a way that is going to make sense to them. And if it won't make sense to call him a lamb, then then we have to we have to say he's like a lamb. He's like the the the sacrificial lamb that they would offer. But He's going to be a sacrifice to take away the sins of of everyone in the world, to pay for the sins of everyone in the world. speaker-1: So I think I think the principle there is you're you're trying to communicate what the original reader or the original hearer would have understood. And they understood when John the Baptist said, The old the Lamb of God takes away the sin of the world, they understood this was a sacrificial lamb. I think that is a great example as to why culture's so important, knowing that they're not going to know what a lamb is, maybe not maybe not going to know what a sacrificial lamb would be. Yeah, all those things, worldview. All those things is so important. And I think with with that translation is gonna come a bunch of teaching also, right? You you yeah I know you had teachers on your team that did a ton of teaching and clarifying those things and helping them understand that. That's great. I love it. So let's talk a little bit about how technology, other ways technology has helped you, but let's let's go ahead and dive into the the big question. I know you get answered questioned all the time. I just was recently at a a missions conference. It seems like every church I go to, people people come up with the question, you know, well, what about AI? Isn't AI gonna do everything? It'll just do all these translations. Talk to me a a little bit about AI. Tell me what you see as the pros and cons of AI in the translation process. speaker-0: Okay, well, AI works very well in a major language like English because it has massive amounts of digital information that it can sift through. And so AI can you can I mean, many of you have probably carried on a conversation with AI and it's amazing how much it seems like a real person. Right. it it understands, it knows English and it knows it quite well. In fact, it really even knows North American culture. It You can talk about cultural things and it understands that. And if a Australian person or a British person were talking to AI, it knows their cultures too. And it it can respond in appropriate ways to in and yet in languages like Lamogae, there is no there is no volume, there is no bulk of data for AI to sift through. So there's no way that AI could go in and create a translation in a place like Lamogai where before we went there, nothing was written at all. And there is one way that today I think AI can be a help to translators and maybe maybe things will grow later. But right now, the the one way that I see that AI can be a help to translators is when they're if they're studying out a really challenging passage, you can ask AI, tell me what all the scholars say about this passage, because I'm trying to figure out how we're gonna translate this into our target language. in a way that it's really gonna make sense to them. We have all kinds of Bible study tools and Bible study helps, Bible study programs, but AI can even go further than that because it can sift through more than what you have even resonant right there on your computer, more than the helps that you happen to own in your Bible study software program, and it can find all kinds of statements, just as you know, within seconds. About this particular verse or this challenge, this one challenge that you're looking for. Right. speaker-1: So you brought up two really good points there about AI. There is no Lamagai corpus of information, language out there, or even corpus of you know, library of culture that AI AI has to be able to pull from something, and there's nothing out there for it to pull from in the Lama Guy. And so that's one is source data, but talk to me a little bit about the discipleship process in translation. And I mean, think real quick we'll find out why AI will never make a disciple. Go ahead. speaker-0: Right. Well that's that's a side benefit. And of course we went over there for the people and we're we tend to be schedule oriented and yet there were plenty of times where we're in the middle of of translating a chapter and something comes up, they ask a question, and we're digging into some deep spiritual truths, and we're not just gonna set that aside and say, Well, we let's we can talk about that later. We need we have our goals here, we have to get through this chapter. No, we may w maybe maybe we thought we were gonna finish this chapter today and we're not. Because people are more important than our schedules and our and our short term goals. So the translation process, because you're sitting there hour after hour discussing God's word, so of course discipleship opportunities will abound. They're gonna come up, especially as you're talking through things that they never heard before. initially, when we very first started translating before we were teaching, we didn't have any believers, so we were translating Genesis and and, you know, some parts of the life of Christ and they didn't really even understand spiritual principles yet. But once they became believers and we pressed ahead with the rest of the New Testament and the entire old testament, I mean these guys are they're hungry for for God's word, and when you bring up something that you've that They've never heard before. Wow, they wanna they wanna understand this better and they're gonna ask questions that go beyond just what we need to be able to translate it into their language. You're so speaker-1: You're you're so right. I think I think, they're such experts too in their culture that I found quite often when I was sitting with folks, I I I too worked in a in a village setting similar to yours. Quite often they were I we were talking about one thing over here, but they I would see them thinking about something else, and I'd be like, and you'd go down this rabbit trail of Keith, if this is true, this goes counter cultural cultural to everything we've been told and believe. God's word's gonna change everything, And so, yeah, we have to actually fix some things in our culture because that is the goal, right? Ultimately we wanna speaker-0: Absolutely. speaker-1: talk about that worldview change. We're talking about we wanna go from our own heart coming up with ideas to actually a biblical worldview, right? Something that we run everything through that biblical grid. speaker-0: That's right. We don't we don't do translation just so we can print a book and they have this physical book. It it is all about transforming hearts and that that God will use the truths in this book to change them, to to conform them to the image of Christ. speaker-1: Amen. I love that. So okay, so and then of course the other fear I have about too much AI would be, I mean, sometimes it lies, sometimes it gives me bad theology, all those other things, of course, too, right? we've all been sitting there doing a Bible study and thought, that doesn't sound right. Can you run that by me again? And it'll it'll say, yeah, sorry, that's actually heresy, you know, and you're yeah. speaker-0: Yeah, exactly. AI knows what it reads. And there's there's just as much non biblical writing out there as there is biblical. Even people who claim to be Christians and they're Christians in name only, and i I have no idea why in the world they would want to pretend to study the Bible if they don't really believe that it's God's word. And there are a lot of people like that, and of course AI has access to all of that too. So that it depends on what what he's reading, what he's sifting through at the time. speaker-1: So let me ask you this. Do the Llama guy today, do they have cell phone access or Starlink or anything like that out there? speaker-0: Where we live no. Out in the village there's nothing. some of go out to town from time to time and so they have cellphones that they'll use when they're in town, but there is no cellphone service in the l in the village where we lived. speaker-1: I know that's blowing some people's mind. when when I mention that to people, they're like, What? They don't have a s there's no cell towers out there? There's no what about Starlink? Well, Starlink costs money and that's speaker-0: Yeah, the Starlink could be available but they don't have that. They they couldn't afford it. speaker-1: Now now I know there they're I do believe that in the future, man, I would love to be able to link up with the place where we worked. I'd love to be I hope they get it someday in some ways, 'cause it'd be great to be able to call them and encourage them and be encouraged by them. But in the same manner, the last time we were in in Hawa, I'd I Angie said, You know what, this is the last place on earth that's not polluted by all the media. speaker-0: That's right. That's right. speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. speaker-0: All right. 'Cause I'm I'm kind of torn between that two. I would like to be able to talk to them on the phone, call up, but at the same time, I'm glad that they're insulated from the a lot of the things of the world that would go straight into this remote jungle village if they had cell service there. speaker-1: Yeah, I heard it said one time, the the worst part of cultures around the world has the greatest speed of spreading. You know, it's like the it's that the it's the greatest propensity to spread. It's like the very worst that any culture can come up with. That's what spreads the fastest. And unfortunately, modern technology has sped a lot of evil around the world and and that's unfortunate. All right. let me ask you this. You said you've been involved in this for over forty years, forty six some years. What would be your challenge to somebody young that says, I wanna I wanna get involved in cross cultural church planting or I wanna get involved in translation, but it's probably not even by the time I get grown up or by the time I get through college, there probably won't even be a need for it because of technology. What would you say? speaker-0: Well there are still places in the world where people do not have the gospel available to them. Now in Ethnos three sixty, we look for those very places. there there are places where maybe people still have their indigenous language, but it's only the old people who speak it regularly. The young people understand it and maybe speak it off and on, but they're speaking it less and less. We're not going to target those areas because in a short time that language is not going to be used anymore. And the the gospel will be will reach them through national languages. And I praise God for every person who's saved through a national language ministry. That's just not what we do. That's not our focus. We focus on finding the places where the language still is robust, where not only old people but young people are using it. on a daily basis as their primary means of communication. And yes, there are still some of those places around the world where if a young person thought that they might want to be involved in this kind of ministry, it's it's not too late for that. And I remember as a young person myself when a mission representative came and spoke at our church and I I was hearing about this and I had no idea. And and you know, we're talking about a long time ago, you know, over fifty years ago, that And I had no idea that that there were still places like that in the world that were that remote and the gospel was not at all available in their language, in their culture, and the Lord spoke to me at that point and I said, That's that's what I wanna do. I wanna do that. speaker-1: Peter tells us that the the two things that last forever are the souls of men and the word of God, right? And what what a cool opportunity you've had to be involved in both both of those things. when you look back, that's to me is just a is just it's just a privilege to get to do what we've done, Dave. I I'm I'm thankful for it every day. Any any closing thoughts? speaker-0: Yeah, I a number of years ago, I don't know how many years ago, I reached a realization that some of you listening here have not have not gotten to that point yet. It's the place where I know with absolute certainty that more of my years are behind me than in front of me. I don't know exactly when that happened, but it's definitely true that I that I'm not gonna live again as many years as I have already lived. I've definitely lived more than half my life. And at this point, I am just so very, very thankful that God allowed me to do what what He led me into doing. And I would not trade it for anything. Wow. You know, there's a lot of other things I could have I could have done as I'm looking back on the bulk of my life. most of probably would have made me more money. But we know we know that we're gonna all say goodbye to our money and whatever other possessions we care about here on on this earth and God blesses us. God loves to bless us. He loves to bless us with with material things. And yet that's not what we ultimately live for. And as I said, I wouldn't I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. I I don't lift myself up at all. It's it's totally by God's grace that somehow I happen to find this opportunity. I was challenged as a young person and said, Yes, that's what I want to do and I I look back on it and and I often say, Lord, why, why did you let me do this? Why did you let me live among this people group that that ended up responding to the gospel? There are many churches now in Lamogai Land. Why did you let me do that? Why did you let me trans be involved in facilitating the translation of the entire Bible into their language? It's speaker-1: What what kept you going during those hard times? I know when it's easy and things are going great and technology's working and translations progressing and people are getting saved. Those are e those are easy days. Those are fun days. What what kept you going during the hard days when when you were lonely and everything was against you? Well speaker-0: It's because I believed that God had had led me there. the very first time we taught the gospel to the Lamagai people, there was not a a tremendous response, especially among the the adult men. A lot of a number of women got saved and and kids and teenagers, but the the adult men, especially the most influential leader men, it's like their hearts were not prepared and it was a difficult time. It was a difficult time for the the young believers because it's their It's their elders that that will like a young person, it's their elders that will arrange their marriage. And th so sometimes they were pressured to do to participate in cultural activities that they knew were anti biblical. And it was difficult time for me too. There was there were times where I was pressing ahead on translating the New Testament and I was asking myself, Wow, is there anyone who's gonna actually want to read this when it's done? But by God's grace you We we pressed ahead and then there came a point where several years into the work we s we stopped and we said, You know what? We need to just back up and start teaching all over again as if we hadn't ever taught them before. And we did that and the next that time when we did it, there was a tremendous response, not only among the young people and the women, but also among the men and and most of the most of the influential leaders in the village got saved at that point. And that just totally changed. village life. And it went on to where that that church in the village where we lived is a very, very strong church. They have reached out to many other places. During the years that we lived among the Lamogai, we missionaries along with the the believers, we planted churches in four different Lamogai villages. Today there are churches in seventeen Lamogai villages. So they themselves planted thirteen churches without a missionary assistance. And so we're We're we're just very, very thankful to have been a part of that. speaker-1: So so what I hear you saying then is what God has created there is moving forward even without you. speaker-0: It is. And and that's one of the things that that motivated me to want to give them the entire Bible. Yeah. Is not only is the language still very alive and being used by all the young people along with the old people, but also the churches are doing so well. And that that you know, 'cause it's it's a significant commitment to translate the entire Old Testament. The Old Testament is seventy seven percent of the Bible. So that means it's more than three times the volume of the New Testament. Now a lot of it isn't quite as difficult as some of the epistles in the New Testament, but still it's it's a a big job to do to translate the entire Old Testament, but we knew that the churches would use speaker-1: it. Yeah. And to see them using it has to be a huge encouragement to you. So that's that's really cool. Yeah. All righty. Well thank you for sharing today. It's been it's been a challenge to my own heart. And whenever I sit and talk to other folks that do this ministry, I'm re inspired again. You know, it makes me want to go all over again. I if I had another life to live I'd I'd I'd play it out the same way, maybe just get involved a little earlier, you know. Work a little harder. speaker-0: Yeah, I I totally know what you mean. You know, like Adam and them, they lived like nine hundred and some years. Well, we could just do this all over again several times, but but the Lord hasn't allowed us to to live that long, but the the time that we do have is just it's such a privilege to be able to to give it to the Lord and especially for unre an unreached group of people. speaker-1: That's awesome. That's really cool, Dave. Well, thanks a ton for sharing today. And thank you, audience, for joining us. Please be sure to do all those things that we podcasters need you to do, like like and subscribe and share and save and all those things that boost us up and let more people see our podcast. And because it's not about us, Dave and I are not into being superstars here, but we do want to see. The God of the harvest continue to raise up more laborers. I like Dave said, there's there's lots of folks out there that still don't have access to his word. And I guess it's been estimated out of the nine billion or so people in the world, there's about three billion with without access to the gospel. And I I think we can change that in in this generation. I think we can see that that number come down tremendously. I'd love to see it eliminated altogether so that every person has access to to God's good news. And so that's what this this is all about. So please like, subscribe, share, save, all those things, comment. We appreciate your input and your participation. And you all have a great day. Thank you so much.