Take a moment to think about how amazing it is that you can decipher these little black marks on white paper into words. Hundreds of languages still have no alphabet and therefore no written form.
How important is it to put their language in a form they can read, teach them to read and give them the Bible in their own language?
We’ll let them tell you.
Andrea, a believer among the Nahuatl people of Mexico, prayed this before a class:
“Our Dad God,
I wanted to tell you something – well, ask for you to help us. You should help us students, the little ones as well as the big ones. Give us luck; give us strength to do well in school. Don’t allow us to be lazy but cause us to pay attention and to be smart. Cause our teacher to be wise and cause us to learn well so that we can read. That is all I wanted to say. That only.” (After a frantic whisper from her two kids: “Oh, I guess I forgot to say ‘Amen.’”)
Hawadi, a new reader among the Landuma people of Africa – a wife, mother and grandmother who learned to read as a mature adult – said, “I can read now. I am no longer like a cow. A cow just walks around and eats, and that is all I used to do. Now I can read; I can learn things.”