Mozambique: I’m writing because I’m curious about the possibility of having the stories translated into our tribal language here which is Sena. I’m with a mission organization called YWAM here in Marromeu, and we are starting a pre-school next year (hopefully). I know it’s a long shot, but I’ve been reading the stories and I think they would work great for us. Portuguese is our official language, so I’ve been downloading them, but the children in the village (and most of the adults for that matter) only speak Sena. I have three native Sena speakers on my team, so we could do the translation and send it to you, but I realize it’s probably not as simple as that sounds. I just figured it couldn’t hurt to ask. I’d appreciate if you would let me know what you think. Thanks again--these books and pictures are great. We will certainly use them. Sheryl [Editor: They are now translating the stories into Sena.]

Australia: We are looking to use the bible stories from your website in our Sunday school classes. We are planning to use my laptop and projector to show these stories. How can we record our voices with the stories? Are we allowed to do this? Thanks. Julie and Murray [Editor: We told them how to do this as shown on our website.]
Cambodia: My husband and I are working in Cambodia and wonder if you have these stories in Khmer. Thank you for your ministry. Jody [Editor: We informed her we do not have Khmer, then asked if she could find a translator.]

Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most-populous continent. It has 54 sovereign countries and 1.1 billion people - over half of whom are under 19 years of age. So many children, and yet so little true Gospel truth to combat the waves of darkness that challenge the light of God's Word. In many parts of this great continent of Africa, warring factions kidnap girls and boys. A British Watchdog group reports there are an estimated 250,000 child soldiers in the world today. The majority of these children are in Africa. Warchild provides the following shocking information about these children, who may be as young as eight years old when recruited: 40% of them are girls, who are often used as 'wives' (i.e. sex slaves) of the male combatants.

Many rebel groups use child soldiers to fight the government, but some governments also use child soldiers in armed conflict. Not all children take part in active combat. Some are also used as porters, cooks and spies. As part of their recruitment, children are sometimes forced to kill or maim a family member. This picture is so far from the 'peace and goodwill' we speak of at Christmas. "Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given." Jesus alone can help this broken world, one soul at a time. Let's work together towards the goal of having all the world's children, including the burdened children of Africa, hear the Gospel.

A few months ago, we received a large donation to complete all 60 Bible stories in 15 Asian (mostly Indian) languages. Through the gracious assistance of a brother in India, translators were located and all of the translations have now been received. We are working as quickly as possible to create all the new story files. It takes a long time to create hundreds of Bible stories and then work through corrections with the translators. There are often technical issues to solve so the foreign languages display properly. We are pleased to report that Hindi and Vietnamese are now completed. Kannada and Thai are in the final stages. After all the 15 languages are completed, we will then create thousands of more files for cell phones, coloring books, and tracts. Please pray for Carol as she puts this together.

Linking to Bibles

For a number of years we have been linking our Bible stories to the actual Bible in the appropriate languages. We believe people should not just read our Bible stories, but go to God’s Word and read directly what He has revealed to us. However, it has been difficult to find Bibles online in all the languages. Bible Gateway provides a few Bibles in various languages, and we have been linking to them for many years, but many more are needed. We have now started linking to Bibles at the American Bible Society website, which has about 300 different languages. However, we still have about half of our languages that are not on either of these websites. Please pray we can locate more resources in this area. Thank you.

As we look back at 2014, I rejoice at all the Lord has accomplished. And He has done it through calling more and more of His people into the vision of telling children about Jesus all over the world in their own language. I will never get to meet most of our translators, so it was a joy to meet our Shona and Zulu translators recently. Tendai and Goodwill are from Africa, but they are here in Canada for a while. May the Lord reward them for their labours for Him and for the children.

It looks like next year will be a busy one for my wife and I, so please pray we will have the health and energy needed. It is a privilege to serve the King of Kings for another year.

Thank you! Greg