Translating Grace

Grace Thoughts

I admire people who can translate from one language into another. I remember a few words and phrases from three years of high school Spanish and scores of words in Japanese, Korean and Chinese from almost 60 years in martial arts. However, that doesn’t mean I can translate from one language into another. That is a special skill.

I was a broadcast journalist when I was saved in 1971 and began writing Bible studies and producing Christian radio programs about a year later. The programs aired in English on stations in the United States and several countries and territories in the Western Hemisphere. We published and mailed studies to several countries and territories in English in response to mail requests from our listeners. Translating into other languages was not necessary because our audience spoke and wrote in English.

We started GraceLife in 1990 as a way of serving the Body of Christ through teaching the Bible methodically and inductively. We started sharing Bible studies on the Internet in 1995 and heard from evangelists, pastors and teachers around the world asking if they could use GraceLife materials in their churches and evangelistic ministries. Our answer was, of course, YES!

We were then, and still are 25 years later, excited to know that something we write in English in the United States is helping preachers and teachers in scores of countries and territories around the world. [We’ve listed some of them at the end of this article.] We’ve been able to communicate with many of the preachers and teachers by email, international phone calls, Facebook messaging, Skype and Zoom through the years. That’s one of the wonders of modern communication technology.

Some of the preachers and teachers told us they used our materials as published because the people they were reaching spoke English. Others told us they translated our materials from English to native languages. Some translated as they were speaking. Others translated into writing for local publication. We are thankful to them for doing that.

Publishing Translations

Even though many GraceLife and FaithandSelfDefense articles and eBooks have been translated into other languages, we didn’t consider publishing them on our website until recently.

Our first questions concerned which materials to translate and into which languages. I believe God answered that for us when a professional translator in Ethiopia contacted us on Facebook. I found that very interesting and here’s why.

The persecution of Christ’s followers in Israel that began after Stephen’s stoning scattered believers who “went everywhere preaching the word” (Acts 8:4). One of those believers was a man named Philip. Since Acts 8:1 reads that “they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles,” we believe the man named Philip in Acts 8:5 was one of the “seven” mentioned in Acts 6:5 rather than the Apostle Philip who remained in Jerusalem during the persecution.

Philip initially went to a “city of Samaria and preached Christ to them.” Philip spent a period of time preaching in Samaria until an angel of the Lord sent him in another direction.

“Now an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, saying, ‘Arise and go toward the south along the road which goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.’ This is desert. So he arose and went. And behold, a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace the queen of the Ethiopians, who had charge of all her treasury, and had come to Jerusalem to worship, was returning. And sitting in his chariot, he was reading Isaiah the prophet. Then the Spirit said to Philip, ‘Go near and overtake this chariot.”
Acts 8:26-29

The Ethiopian had traveled north to Jerusalem to worship. He was most likely a proselyte of Judaism. He was on the return trip from Jerusalem back to the capital city where he held a position of great authority in the government. Philip preached Christ to the Ethiopian and the man was saved and baptized.

“Now when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught Philip away, so that the eunuch saw him no more; and he went on his way rejoicing.”
Acts 8:39

The eunuch returned to Ethiopia and most likely shared the Gospel of Christ with the queen and others in the royal family. The Candaces of Meroe were queens in the ancient Kush Kingdom. The Candace (Kendake – Queen Regnant) during the time of the Ethiopian eunuch is believed to have been Amantitere. Christianity eventually became the state religion of Ethiopia a few hundred years later.

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, Ethiopia “is a mosaic of about 100 languages that can be classified into four groups” – Semitic, Cushitic, Omotic and Nilotic. You may remember the name Cush from Genesis 10. He was a son of Ham and grandson of Noah.

The translator from Ethiopia who contacted GraceLife translated two of our eBooks from English into Afaan Oromo, which belongs to the Cushitic group of languages. Oromo is the most widely spoken language in Ethiopia and one of the most spoken languages on the African continent (behind Arabic, Hausa and Swahili).

We selected two eBooks we believed preachers and teachers in Ethiopia could use to assist them in making disciples of Jesus Christ. You can click on the English versions of the books first to see what we wrote years ago …

I Will Follow Jesus

How To Walk Like A Christian

Next, you can click on the two eBooks in the Afaan Oromo language to see how the same material about making disciples looks in the Ethiopian language.

I Will Follow Jesus Afaan Oromo

How To Walk Like A Christian Afaan Oromo

We thank Gamachu Ragasa for his work and invite you to contact him by email at [email protected] if you would like his help translating your writings into Afaan Oromo. He is also interested in printing and distributing GraceLife materials for use in churches in Ethiopia.

We have also started translating GraceLife studies in other languages, which you can find on the GraceLife Translation site. We currently have Bible study eBooks published in more than 90 languages. We will continue to add more studies and languages in the coming weeks and months. Our goal is to provide GraceLife Bible study translations to as many people as possible around the world who would like to use them for teaching and preaching the precious Gospel of Jesus Christ.

List of Countries and Territories

This is a list of almost 200 countries and territories where people are using GraceLife materials for personal and small group Bible studies, church meetings and evangelistic outreach.

Even though we’ve been communicating with preachers and teachers in other countries since the early 1970s, we decided to include just the countries and territories where people have contacted us since 2016 since most would still be using the GraceLife materials in their ministries.

We invite you to pray for the people who live in these areas of the world and the preaching and teaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Afghanistan
Albania
Algeria
American Samoa
Angola
Anguilla
Antigua & Barbuda
Argentina
Armenia
Aruba
Australia
Austria
Azerbajian
Bahamas
Bahrain
Bangladesh
Barbados
Belarus
Belgium
Belize
Benin
Bermuda
Bhutan
Bolivia
Bosnia & Herzegovina
Botswana
Brazil
British Virgin Islands
Brunei
Bulgaria
Cambodia
Cameroon
Canada
Caribbean Netherlands
Cayman Islands
Chile
China
Columbia
Congo – Kinshasa
Cook Islands
Costa Rica
Côte d’Ivoire
Croatia
Cuba
Curacao
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Denmark
Dominica
Dominican Republic
Ecuador
Egypt
El Salvador
Estonia
Ethiopia
European Union
Faroe Islands
Fiji
Finland
France
Gabon
Gambia
Georgia
Germany
Ghana
Gibraltar
Greece
Greenland
Grenada
Guadeloupe
Guam
Guatemala
Guernsey
Guinea
Guyana
Haiti
Honduras
Hong Kong SAR China
Hungary
Iceland
India
Indonesia
Iraq
Ireland
Israel
Isle of Man
Italy
Jamaica
Japan
Jersey
Jordan
Kazakhstan
Kenya
Kiriboti
Kuwait
Kyrgyzstan
Laos
Latvia
Lebanon
Lesotho
Liberia
Libya
Lichtenstein
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Macau SAR China
Macedonia
Madagascar
Malawi
Malaysia
Maldives
Mali
Malta
Marshall Islands
Martinique
Mauritius
Mexico
Micronesia
Moldova
Mongolia
Montenegro
Montserrat
Morocco
Mozambique
Myanmar (Burma)
Namibia
Nepal
Netherlands
New Caledonia
New Zealand
Nicaragua
Niger
Nigeria
Northern Mariana Islands
Norway
Oman
Pakistan
Palestinian Territories
Panama
Papua New Guinea
Paraguay
Peru
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Puerto Rico
Qatar
Réunion
Romania
Russia
Rwanda
Samoa
Saudi Arabia
Serbia
Senegal
Seychelles
Sierre Leone
Singapore
Sint Maarten
Slovakia
Slovenia
Solomon Islands
South Africa
South Korea
Spain
Sri Lanka
St. Helena
St. Kitts & Nevis
St. Lucia
St. Vincent & Grenadines
Sudan
Suriname
Swaziland
Sweden
Switzerland
Taiwan
Tanzania
Thailand
Timor-Leste
Togo
Tongo
Trinidad & Tobago
Tunisia
Turkey
Turks & Caicos
Uganda
Ukraine
United Arab Emirates
United Kingdom
U.S. Virgin Islands
Uzbekistan
Vatican City
Vanuatu
Venezuela
Vietnam
Wales
Zambia
Zimbabwe

We invite you to contact GraceLife by email or leave a comment to this article and we will reply to you as quickly as possible.

Published by gracelifethoughts

Founder & Director of GraceLife Ministries View all posts by gracelifethoughts

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Translating Grace