“Uganda”

On a hot day, in the middle of dry season, a group of strangers gathered beneath the cool shade of a large, grass-thatched hut in northern Uganda with one goal in mind: to hear the Word of God in languages that have no written or oral Scriptures. Members of this group came from different YWAM bases, from other Bible translation agencies, and from three “bibleless” language groups. One of the bibleless language groups, the Logol from Nuba Mountains in Sudan, had two Muslim, mother-tongue translators who had come not for the Bible, but to see their dying language kept alive.

After some days spent getting to know one another and building relationships within the group, the facilitators began telling the biblical story of Ruth and Naomi. The mother-tongue translators began learning the story, grew increasingly curious, and began asking questions. Adul, one of the Muslim members of the Logol team, wondered if this story really was in the Bible. He asked a fellow Nubian, one of the YWAM staff, who gave him an Arabic Bible and showed him where the book of Ruth was located. Adul took the Bible back to his room to read the story for himself.

Later, Adul testified, “When I started reading the Book of Ruth, there was a way that God touched me. I would start reading, but I could not finish a whole chapter. There was a kind of force that touched my life and sometimes made me weep. Then I would close the book and put it away for a while. After I relaxed, I would come and open it again and continue reading. But again the force would come and I would begin to cry and have to close the book again. Why can’t I finish the whole chapter at once? There is power in this book.”

Pastor Mahadi, one of the Logol teammates who was the first Christian in their tribe, said of Adul and Mohammed, “There is no day that these two guys have missed going to church. Or if people are praying here in the base, they are also there praying. Because I sit in their midst, I see them talking to God. I believe God is doing something beautiful in their lives. When we talk about Sudan, sometimes people weep. I see Mohammed and Adul also shedding tears. God is touching these people. For a Sudanese man to shed tears, it means he is moved from the bottom of his heart. I have really seen God working in their lives through flowing tears and in the way they pray and the way that ask God for things. It is different from the way they were when they first came.”

Adul and Mohammed finished the first translation draft of the book of Ruth into Logol in February 2023. Mohammed returned to his home in the Nuba Mountains, but Adul came back to the Arua base in northern Uganda to participate in the oral God Story Discipleship Training School which finished in early June 2023.

Now Adul has started the Oral Bible Translation School, and has been joined by teams from two other Nubian bibleless language groups in which there are four Muslims. They will be translating the book of Jonah. Please continue to pray for these men as they encounter the Lord through His powerful word. Salvation belongs to the Lord (Jonah 2.9)!