Biljana translating the Gospel of Mark
"We've never seen anything like this!" This is a quote from Mark 2:12, telling the reaction of the people of Capernaum when Jesus healed the paralytic and pronounced his sins forgiven. We pray that this will some day be the reaction of the Chergash Roma who live in Serbia. For the last two days, I've been visiting Biljana and her family in Croatia and working with her on translating 50 Bible stories and then the Gospel of Mark into her Chergash Roma language. Today we translated a first draft of this verse in Mark 2:12 and the thought occurred to me that this would be a great prayer for the Chergash. May they receive God's Word in their language and respond as the people did in Mark 2:12: "Everyone was amazed and praised God, saying, 'We have never seen anything like this!'" (or as our draft says, "kaj sa divisajle thaj slavisardine e Devle: 'Gajda vareso nikaj či dikhlam!'"
It is both exciting and sobering to translate God's Word into a new language. Around 35,000 Roma speak Chergash (also known as "Serbian Gypsy") and as far as we know only one evangelical church has any work among them, and there has never, ever been Scripture in this dialect. We would ask you to please pray for this important project:
1. Pray for Biljana and me as we work on the translation, that each word and sentence would be translated with accuracy and clarity, and in a way that is natural and acceptable to the Chergash who will one day read or hear it.
2. Pray for stamina as this is a slow, painstaking process, and we often don't see the immediate payoff.
3. Pray for the Lord to work among the Chergash in the next few years especially, drawing them to Himself and establishing His church.
4. Pray for wisdom and resources to be able to begin testing this translation among the Chergash to make sure that they understand it. Please pray that they will have a hunger for God and His Word.
5. Please pray for the finances for this project (currently $250 per month). Praise God for the computer tablet donated by Wycliffe Associates for this project.
Grateful for your prayers,
Todd
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