Blessed are Those Who Hear

Blessed are Those Who Hear

Winter 2021
A congregation member reads the Bible in his own language. 
“It’s so lovely to hear the Word of God in our own language!” says Rev. Tolu, a member of the Dhimba audio translation team. Less than half of the 25,000 Dhimba speakers in Namibia and Angola in western Africa can read their own language. Even fewer read well enough to readily understand the Scripture.

But the glow of faith is there. “When they hear, they understand,” says Rob Veith, Lutheran Bible Translators missionary who helped assemble a local team and the technical equipment to produce the Dhimba audio Scripture.

          Daniel Mbalunda, Hilja Tolu (seated), Rob Veith and Rev. Johannes Tolu of the Dhimba project.

The team recorded the Bible in the Dhimba language, then reviewed the audio books. Minor errors could be fixed immediately. Other times, the team caught an entire passage or section that had to be rerecorded.

Rob recalled a time when the team began speaking among themselves in Dhimba. He assumed they were debating whether the error was big enough to require rerecording. Rev. Tolu assured him the passage was fine—they were just marveling at the sound of Scripture in their own language!

You can bring the good news of salvation – whether ultimately read or heard – to people who have never heard it in a language of their heart. Join the story at lbt.org/give.

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If you would like to see Messenger as a printable PDF, click on this link to get the PDF: Messenger Winter 2021

Dr. Mike Rodewald & Amy Gerdts, Editor(s)
Barbara Beermann, Editorial Management
Caleb Rodewald, Layout & Design
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