Together

“Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble. Likewise, two people lying close together can keep each other warm. But how can one be warm alone? A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken.” — Ecclesiastes 4:9-12

*What beautiful pictures these verses paint of partnership, teamwork and the body of Christ. I’m grateful to God for the way he is directing us and allowing us in the global Bible translation movement to experience the kind of partnership that Ecclesiastes describes — partnerships that are yielding incredible results! Here are just two examples:

Persevering Together

The Gbari project in Nigeria involves more than 20 organizations, associations and churches. SIL Nigeria manages the project, but John Ramsey, the field coordinator for Nigeria, is quick to state: “We work together as a team — a team that comes from different places.”

Thanks to God’s grace and the work of the Gbari team, which includes Nigerian staff members and members from SIL, Wycliffe USA, Wycliffe UK and more, Gbari speakers are encountering God in new ways.

After years of resistance, church leaders finally decided to try preaching in their language this past January! Many of the 157 Gbari speakers who attended the service were overjoyed to hear their language from the pulpit. Although Pastor Yakubu Yamma, the church’s worship leader, can read, write, speak and sing in English and the trade language, being part of the Gbari service strongly impacted him: “I feel this is my first true worship since I became a Christian.”

Today God continues to work through the power of the Gbari team’s partnership to strengthen and sustain them in trying times. Despite unrest, kidnappings and murders in the Gbari region, the translation team remains dedicated to bringing the hope of Jesus to their people as they finish the final two books of the New Testament. They recently completed the Gbari Scripture app and a video based on the Gospel of John, which they will show in villages nearby.* 

* This story was published previously by John Chesnut the president of Wycliffe USA. 

Photos by John Ramsey