To accelerate church planting efforts among pioneer people groups who are either illiterate or oral preferred cultures, New Generations has launched a major Bible translation effort that we refer to as, “Ending Scripture Poverty 300.” The plan is to provide heart-language audio translations for 300 people groups who have never heard the Word of God in their mother tongue.
By God’s grace, this initiative is working amazingly well both in terms of the speed of the translations (137 languages launched) as well as the impact that audio scripture in the heart language is having on these pioneer people groups (560 new churches). Below is a recent story of true transformation through the power of God’s Word.
Deep in the heart of Africa, there is a pygmy people group. Their lives revolve around idol worship and demonic rituals. They rely on a famous witch doctor who goes into the bush to gather supplies he requires to practice sorcery.
One day while returning from the bush, the witch doctor overheard a Discovery Bible Study (DBS) group listening to audio scripture in their local language. The passage he heard was from chapter one of Genesis. As he listened, he kept hearing the words “And God said” repeated over and over. Each of these statements powerfully demonstrated that when God declared something, it actually happened!
The witch doctor was amazed that God could immediately create things just by speaking them into being. In his own work, he would try different kinds of incantations, and often nothing would happen. But God just spoke the word and things changed! With this realization, he knew in his heart that God possessed a power that he and the demonic spirits did not.
To the shock of the village, the witch doctor joined the DBS group. He listened to the Bible passages over and over again in his heart language. The church planter who organized the DBS spent time with him to answer his questions and to explain more of the message of Jesus to him personally.
Eventually, the witch doctor surrendered his life to Jesus, confessed his sins, and was baptized. He is now leading others in a DBS through these same Creation to Christ audio scriptures.
This story of the witch doctor’s transformation went viral among the pygmy people group! It was absolutely unimaginable that their witch doctor would become a follower of Jesus. Due to this breakthrough, in these villages today, one can hear audio DBS playing on people’s telephones in nearly every home as they delve into the scriptures with an attitude to obey what God is saying and to encourage their friends and family to do the same.