China (MNN) — En Gedi Resource Center’s mission is clear — to provide Christian resources to study the words of Jesus within their Jewish culture and historical context. As you do this, it has an incredible impact on your understanding of God’s Word.
En-Gedi has been providing these kinds of resources since it’s inception. En-Gedi’s goal started small, says Executive Director Bruce Okkema.
“One day we got a call from a pastor in Hong Kong and he said he had been reading our articles online and wondered if he could translate them into Chinese and put them on his website. That has blossomed into a teaching ministry and he now goes throughout Hong Kong, mainland China, Cambodia, (and) Vietnam.”
Okkema says that relationship led them to another person, “who wanted to translate one of the books we wrote, ‘Listening to the Language of the Bible’ into Chinese. And, I’m looking at the Chinese version of that right now — I can’t read anything that it says, but it’s just proof that the Lord is doing things beyond our imagination.”
East Gates Ministries is the organization that wanted to translate the book. They wanted this book translated because they believed that it would be an enormous help to Chinese Christians in their Bible study, as it unlocks idioms and phrases that can be unclear. Their ministry supplies pastors and places books in Chinese bookstores, and believe that Listening to the Language of the Bible will be of great interest to believers there.
Director Lois Tverberg says, “When we start to understand how it was heard in its own culture, in its own land and times, its message becomes all the more clearer. As we talk about that, we can use that in missions, too.”
Tverberg says going international wasn’t their intent. “We aimed to be a resource for Christians and we didn’t realize the Lord had a purpose in sending us all over the world.”
Pray that these translated resources will have great impact for God’s kingdom.
