INT'L (MNN) — By far, the JESUS Film is the most translated film in world history. Billions of people have seen the film depicting the Gospel of Luke, and hundreds of millions of people have made professions of faith because of what they've seen. Now, the JESUS Film Project is celebrating another milestone.
"Doug" is with the JESUS Film: "The 1,000th language is the Lanka Kol language. That is spoken in South Asia, and the people group [numbers] one million."
The people group is located in an area where Christians are persecuted. However, 'Doug' says, "The people group is an animist religion. The main translator for this language said that they are very open, but they have not been able to see any material in their own language prior to this."
Since illiteracy is widespread in this nation, the film could have incredible evangelistic implications, says Doug. "They can't read, so this is the only way they can understand God's word."
Graham Staines, a missionary who was martyred along with two of his children, was partly responsible for this translation. He was approached by a Lanka Kol speaking person "wanting to know if there was any material available in this language, and there wasn't. So that put a burden on his heart to have the New Testament produced in this language."
While 1,000 is an incredible number of translations, work at the JESUS Film Project isn't done. "We are basically targeting at least another 500 languages that have 100,000 or more speakers. And as we are getting into these smaller and smaller people groups, the task becomes harder and harder."
Doug is asking Christians worldwide to pray that they'll be able to identify people in these language groups to help with translation. Pray also for more laborers to take the story of JESUS into unreached areas of the world.
