BIBLE FOR CHILDREN

A Bold New Initiative

We are thankful to the Joshua Project (www.joshuaproject.net) for a list of the 6,000 languages of the world. We prioritize languages to translate according to the number of speakers in each language, so this list will be a huge benefit. We greatly appreciate all of the volunteers who have helped us reach 137 languages, and we continue to pray for more volunteer translators. However, we sense an urgency to reach, as soon as possible, more children in their own language, as the end times near.

We are now partnering with Christian translation ministries, who are able to increase our Bible story languages beyond 200. One of these ministries gave us special rates and, combined with a large gift we received, enabled us to ‘order’ 15 new languages. All the translations were delivered within two weeks, and all with proofreading! Welcome to BFC, children who can read: Belarusian, Burmese, Cebuano, Dari, Fula, Ilocano, Kazakh, Khmer, Kurdish, Norwegian, Pashto, Sindhi, Swedish, Tajik and Turkmen.

Dear supporters, thank you for joining us in praying for a major surge forward in sharing God’s Word with our world’s two billion children.

World Impact Bible for Children in 2017

The Bible for Children website grew to 137 languages (effectively 137 individual websites) in 2017.  Around 3.7 million Bible stories were read, bringing our total since year one (2004) to over 40 million.  We are thankful for the increasing number of Asian children reading Bible stories (highlighted in bold).  In fact, 27 of the top 50 languages accessed in 2017 are Asian. Praise God!  

English - 977,430
Spanish - 831,054
Portuguese - 410,053
Chinese Traditional - 176,156
French - 145,897
Indonesian - 130,869
Tagalog - 106,853
Arabic - 95,746
Dutch - 89,704
Telugu - 71,501
Chinese Simplified - 49,844
Tamil - 39,057
Hungarian - 38,427
Japanese - 32,622
Finnish - 32,453
Afrikaans - 30,940
Hindi - 30,933
German - 30,068
Romanian - 25,477
Russian - 20,513
Bulgarian - 19,593
Vietnamese - 18,991
Hebrew - 16,568
Polish - 15,823
Ukrainian - 15,056
Thai - 14,233
Malayalam - 14,100
Korean - 12,370
Albanian - 10,306
Chhattisgarhi - 10,228
Kannada - 9,791
Bengali - 9,204
Bhojpuri - 9,064
Turkish - 8,224
Gujarati - 8,011
Marathi - 7,827
Armenian - 7,682
Estonian - 7,497
Nepali - 7,256
Low German - 6,993
Punjabi - 6,105
Odiya - 5,991
Amharic - 5,428
Serbian - 5,394
Welsh - 5,048
Azerbaijan - 4,435
Mongolian - 4,381
Malagasy - 4,061
Icelandic - 3,982
Afaan_oromoo - 3,791

The eBooks Frontier

The Lord has led us into an excellent approach for the eBook stores.  One eBook is made for each language composed of our six main Bible stories. 

These are: When God Made Everything; The Start of Man’s Sadness; Noah and the Great Flood; The Birth of Jesus; The First Easter; Heaven - God’s Beautiful Home.  These stories present the true history of the world, showing God’s working and why we need a Savior.  The Gospel is included at the end of each eBook. 

The eBooks are entitled English Bible Stories, Spanish Bible Stories, Arabic Bible Stories, etc and are uploaded to each eBook store.  As of this PrayerLink, there are over 100 eBooks on Amazon Kindle, 26 on Apple iBooks, and 4 on Kobo.  We are still waiting for approval from Google, and also searching for more eBook stores.  The eBooks are free, except on Amazon where we are required by their policy to charge a small fee.  Please join us in praying for a huge advance! 

Mail from Around the World (Focusing on Asia)

China: Next year, we will visit our friends who speak LISU, a language that exists within China, Thailand and Myanmar. I wanted to know if we can see a way, to take the material in Chinese, to translate it to LISU, so that you can put it on the site. There is another people called Naxi, a people with a Tibetan root. I can make the material together and send it to you, Thank you. I'm waiting. Anchirley
[Note: We are now working together on these new languages.]

India: I need youth motivational bible stories in Kannada books. So please send me that books as soon as possible. Jairajh

Hong Kong [translated from Chinese]: This council is going to print the 36th booklet for the sermon, only the cipher is locked, so we can't photocopy it. Will the password be opened to us? Brother Chu

Thailand: Happy New Year. We have good news, as we mentioned before in the Wa people in Thailand, translating the material from English to Wa. The same contact from Thailand, knows a contact from Lingua Hmong White in Laos, and this contact in Laos, will translate the material to Hmong White, using the set in English. Lei and Sir
It's amazing to see Wa language appear in the colourful Bible story pictures. Thank you for the Gospel ministry to Wa people. God's grace be with you. Peter and Esther

Bahrain: Praise The Lord. I am the founder of Truth Research Center of India. Please send me Telugu materials. Hanani

Heart to Heart

Praise God from Whom all blessings flow! I am very thankful to the Lord for restoring my health over the past six months. It is a joy to be able to serve Him again where He has ‘planted’ me. I know many of you were aware of the details, and were praying for me – thank you!

More of God’s plan unfolds to us month by month, and I really feel like I am ‘struggling to keep up with the blessings” as God opens more and more doors for telling children about Jesus. I pray we can get to 200 languages very soon, and to many more eBook stores.

We are also thankful to be in ‘waiting mode’ for another grandchild. Seems like it’s been a long time! This child, being presented by our precious Uruguayan daughter-in-law, may speak two languages, which is twice as many as Grandpa can speak. 
Thank you all for your prayers and support.

May you have a wonderful day with Jesus! Greg

Prayer & Praise

Praise our dear Lord Jesus, the seeking Shepherd of all the world’s lost ones. He reaches out through our personal life and testimony and through all church and mission groups that share His Gospel message.

Pray for the Joshua Project (page 1, column 1.) The 150 languages BFC sends out represents only 2.67 per cent of the 6000 languages of the world. BFC works to reach all people groups in their own language.

Praise God for the mail from around the world that encourages us to remember our ‘labour is not in vain in the Lord.’ He has promised His Word will not return to Him void—please note and give thanks for the number of languages referenced in the Mail column in this issue alone.

Pray for health and protection for the staff and active volunteers who serve the Lord through BFC. All believers, but especially frontline workers have a target on their backs—but ‘greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.’ Thank You, Lord.

Praise the Lord for leading in each BFC project and then providing the means by which it can be accomplished. ‘Great is Thy faithfulness.”

Pray! Praise! And Pause to tell some child in your life about the love of Christ Jesus.

... a great multitude … of all nations, tribes, peoples and tongues…
standing before the throne … . (Revelation 7:9.)

BIBLE FOR CHILDREN, INC.
PO BOX 3, WINNIPEG, MB R3C 2G1, CANADA

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Editor: E.D. Hughes.