After six hours on rough dirt roads, bounced and jarred in a Toyota Hilux taxi, Isaiah Peterson climbs out and boards a 12-seat boat taxi. The roar of its 60-horsepower Yamaha outboard motor makes it nearly impossible to converse with other passengers. But the sky is blue and beautiful, and the passing scenery is lush and green on the Peruvian river that takes Isaiah to the Wampis people, an indigenous tribe living near the Ecuador border. The total trip—56-hours long—is far from convenient, but it’s all in a day’s work for a Bibles International translation consultant.

“I was born 50 years too late to do Bible translation in easier places,” says Isaiah with a laugh. When Bible translation ministry exploded in the mid-20th century, translators first went to already-known people groups, usually in easier-to-locate areas. “Now the language groups that are easier to find have Bibles,” Isaiah says, “Now we have to go further into the uttermost parts of the earth.”

In the past 10 years, one of BMM’s largest areas of missional growth has been through Bibles International (BI), BMM’s Bible translation society. Opportunities are exploding worldwide as the Lord orchestrates contacts with remote people groups and other communities still lacking adequate Scripture resources.

Now I understand

Asia’s Pente* people number in the tens of millions, but only about 1.5 percent of Pentes profess any form of Christianity. Bibles International’s work among this mostly Muslim people group began in 2019. The need was confirmed by the work of a Pente pastor. When he taught his people in their country’s official language, the people did not fully understand because it is not their heart language. When the pastor began translating passages into Pente, everything changed. “The people were happy now and could understand and relate back what I was teaching,” he said.

In Eurasia, the Ingiloy people number only about 30,000 and are considered an unreached people group lacking enough believers and resources to effectively witness to their people. Adding to their difficulties, the small number of Ingiloy believers have had their meetings raided by local police, and their pastors were fined. In areas like this, BI translation consultants work with great caution to protect national Christians. Bibles International printed a trial edition of the Ingiloy Gospel of Mark in 2019. When BI representatives presented the Book of Acts in a house church, people closed their eyes, smiled, and nodded their heads as they savored their first Ingiloy Scripture reading.

*Pseudonym

The convicting Word of God

Such first contacts with the Scriptures are moments of beauty wherever they take place. It is hard for the average American to imagine what it would be like to have God’s eternal, transcendent words enter their souls for the very first time. The effect is truly powerful. Now-retired BI translation consultants Craig and Linda Throop worked in one of the remotest parts of the earth, Papua New Guinea. After years of work on the Kaulong New Testament, the Throops saw the first copies distributed to churches in 2015. Since that time, over 200 people have been saved, baptized, and have joined local churches. Kaulong pastors have said that the New Testament made their job much easier—people now know what sin is. The pastors don’t have to preach about sin to the same extent as before; God is directly convicting people from the Scriptures.

Bibles International’s Projects Manager, Joe V. says, “For God’s work to grow and expand, they need copies of God’s Word. They may have a Bible in a second or third language [not their heart language], but they can’t fully engage with that language, and things get missed or error creeps in.”

Reaching the diaspora

An example of this, and also an illustration of an exciting area for missions expansion, is work among diaspora groups. These people groups live in scattered pockets far from their homelands in other parts of the world. Joe related a story of a Texas church that is reaching out to a group of Baptist Zomi speakers who immigrated from Myanmar (Burma). The church’s Bible studies among this group produced no fruit until they began using Zomi New Testaments, which BI completed in 2015. A Zomi speaker told the pastor, “I don’t know the Jesus of this book.” Although Myanmar has a large number of Baptists through Adoniram Judson’s work in the early 1800s, a majority of Baptist churches underwent doctrinal shifts over the years. Today, many Burmese Baptists have never heard the gospel. Joe added, “And then they got Scriptures that they could understand in their mother tongue.”

The digital frontier

Missions expansion takes strategic creativity. The key to missions is to reach people where they are, and even in remote areas of the world, people have internet access and cellphones. To reach far more areas than any missionary could go, Bibles International teamed with a dynamic group of volunteers in Michigan. Using their skills in IT and app programming, the volunteers have created downloadable apps for 50 of BI’s Scripture translations. Bibles International has tallied almost 100,000 downloads so far, and they get comments from people all over the world after they found Scriptures in their own languages. BI’s translations are also available in the YouVersion app.

Audio and video Scriptures are two other powerful tools that BI employs through a partnership with Faith Comes by Hearing. This ministry creates audio recordings of BI-translated Scriptures that have greatly impacted oral cultures and areas with low literacy rates. Faith Comes by Hearing and a similar ministry, Lumo, create video Scriptures. Using a modern video retelling of the Gospels (similar to the Jesus Film Project), these ministries sync their footage with BI’s translations. When the Ingiloy people watched the Gospel of Mark for the first time, they were riveted to the screen. They asked to see the chapter on Jesus’s crucifixion. They had never seen anything like that before, and their comprehension of Jesus’s sacrifice grew tremendously.

To the uttermost parts

Expanding the gospel’s reach in our generation takes many forms. Scripture translation will always need the dedicated, on-site work of Bible translation consultants like Isaiah Peterson and his wife, Rosanna, who work among Latin and Central American people groups from their home base in Peru. The Wampis translation is a relatively new project for BI, having been started just a year ago. Unlike many people groups, the Wampis had a New Testament translated into their language 50 years ago. Because of language changes over time, and because their Scripture copies haven’t survived the humidity of their jungle homeland, the Wampis prayed much that the Lord would enable them to get updated Scriptures into their hands again.

A few years ago, BI’s Latin America Projects Coordinator, Jim Carlton, was searching for language groups in the Americas that needed Scriptures. During Jim’s years as BMM’s Arriba director, he worked with a woman who had a connection to the Wampis. She told Jim of their need, and Bibles International secured permissions to revise the existing translation.

Last year (the project’s first year), Isaiah made the long trek to the jungle three times to help the hard-working Wampis translators. Because native speakers know their language the best, BI works directly with them to produce translations. Translation consultants like Isaiah then check their work for accuracy and readability.

Very few Wampis, including the translators, have had formal Bible training. Isaiah and Rosanna anticipate that the new Wampis Bible will help correct doctrinal error that has crept into Wampis’ churches. Because of their remote location and minimal access to the internet, it would be difficult for Wampis Christian leaders to pursue formal Bible training. However, a beneficial effect of the translation consulting process is Isaiah’s ability to teach doctrine to the translators as he explains each Scripture passage. In this way, they’ll get an ample Bible education that they can take back to their churches.

Generation after generation

As BMM expands ministry into new frontiers, Bibles International stands at the vanguard with their pioneering work among new people groups—work that opens the door for missionary church planters, educators, and other support ministries. But no matter how many new frontiers are reached, the end goal is always changed lives, like those seen among the Wampis, Ingiloy, Pente, and other people groups. As Jose, the lead Wampis translator says, “This project will be a blessing for generation after generation.”