There aren’t enough essentials like food and shelter to go around. Now, as fighting picks up in Sudan and thousands of refugees come across the border, tensions could erupt into conflict. Over 47,000 refugees fleeing violence in Sudan have arrived in Chad in the last 30 days.

There’s at least one silver lining: “When you have Sudanese refugees coming over into Chad, and you’re translating unfoldingWordⓇ Open Bible Stories into one of the Sara languages, the number of people that you [can] reach with the Gospel expands exponentially,” Dane with unfoldingWord says.

“There are several different dialects in Sara, but they can all understand each other, and there are various people groups in the Sara language.”

unfoldingWord partners with church planters in Chad to bring the Gospel where it’s never been. More about that here.

Through collaboration, dedication, and a shared vision, communities are gaining access to God’s Word like never before.
(Graphic, caption courtesy of unfoldingWord)

“Chad has about 80 unreached people groups, [which] totals about 10 million people who don’t have God’s Word in their language,” Dane says.

“Church planters need the Bible in all the heart languages of Chad to plant healthy churches and disciple believers.”

Whole Bible, Whole Nation: Chad

According to Joshua Project, roughly half of Chad’s population identifies as Christian, while the remaining half is a mix of Muslims and animists.

The latter groups have posed a significant challenge for unfoldingWord partners, creating an opportunity for growth and innovation in their collaboration.

“Those groups have been very difficult, almost impossible, for these church planters to penetrate until now,” Dane says.

“The ‘Whole Bible, Whole Nation’ strategy equips our partners to create a movement of Bible translation and church planting to reach all of the least-reached people groups in their nation.”

While believers now have a proven strategy, this doesn’t mean the process is simple. One people group in Chad shunned believers simply because they were different.

“They would just block you out. They wouldn’t even eat with you,” Dane says. “Everybody [who] doesn’t practice their religion their way is considered unclean.”

Then, church planters asked this people group to review some unfoldingWordⓇ Open Bible Stories they had translated into the people group’s language. This review led to a lunch invitation. “That was just extremely important,” Dane says.

“It (eating together) means familiarity; it means friendship. Now, that door is open.”

Here’s how you can help unfoldingWord reach more people groups in Chad.

“We have some future translation work planned, but we need funding for that,” Dane says. “It’s a group of eight languages that want to get into Scripture translation.”

Header and story images courtesy of unfoldingWord.

unfoldingWord partner Jeremiah* says, “Our priorities concern those languages (language groups) that never heard the Gospel. Secondly, they never can have a Bible, whether Bible stories or Scriptures in their heart language.”

Working among “frontier” or unreached people groups presents its own set of challenges.

First, there’s a matter of religious resistance. In Chad, all of the people groups lacking Gospel access currently follow Islam, according to the Joshua Project. Learn more about church-centric Bible translation in Chad here.

(Graphic courtesy of unfoldingWord)

“They grew up generation after generation [without seeing] a Christian in their community,” Jeremiah says.

“They never had the Gospel, or they have had it with false narratives – that this book is not reliable, not correct, [or] this book has been manipulated.”

Secondly, recruitment is a challenge. It can be hard to find anyone willing to help with Bible translation. “These are people that never heard the Gospel, to talk less of people asking them to come and translate,” Jeremiah notes.

Security poses a third dilemma. “We are renting an office, and the office is not offering total security for Bible translators that are coming there, and most of the time, they are getting discouraged,” Jeremiah says.

“The Muslim people outside will ask them, ‘What are you doing here? This work you’re doing is not correct. According to Allah, it is forbidden to do [this] kind of work.’”

Believers need your help to overcome these obstacles and more. Connect with unfoldingWord to learn how you can get involved.

“God in His divine wisdom positioned the West in the strategic way that they will play a big role in [advancing] the kingdom of God,” Jeremiah says.

“We need their resources and prayers. As they’re praying for us, God will impact our regions and the world.”

*Pseudonym

Header image courtesy of unfoldingWord.

Jeremiah*, a Bible translator trained by unfoldingWord, says his team took 50 Open Bible Stories to communities without access to Scripture. Learn more about the Chadian Gateway Language project here.

“When we finished the Chadian Arabic Open Bible Stories, we took them to one of the region’s predominantly Arabic people,” Jeremiah says.

Despite opposition from a village elder, the king of one remote village allowed Jeremiah’s team to share audio recordings of the Open Bible Stories.

“The room was full; we sat down [with] about 50 elders and the youth and women. Among those people, we [had] about six or seven imams,” Jeremiah says.

“That was their first strategic attempt to bring the Gospel into the region.”

As the Bible stories began, one imam started praying loudly and reciting incantations, but no one left the room. On the second day, people walked in smiling, eager to hear more.

“Our goal is to achieve the message of salvation. We distributed the SD memory cards and after that, the evangelist got a breakthrough; he planted a church,” Jeremiah says.

Today, Jeremiah’s team just completed Open Bible Stories in seven new languages. Pray for receptivity as believers bring these translations to the community for testing.

*Pseudonym

Header image courtesy of unfoldingWord.

Linda Thomas-Greenfield first visited the Chad-Darfur border as a senior State Department official in 2004. She says the atrocities now remind her of the genocide she saw back then.

“After decades of genocide and displacement of minority black African tribes, now all tribes are in trauma,” says John*, an unfoldingWord partner.

“Tribes that cared very little about killing minority tribes are now themselves displaced.”

War broke out between Sudan’s army and paramilitary forces on April 15, and the fighting hasn’t stopped since. See our coverage here.

“The Sudanese people as a whole are in shock at the absolute void of concern [for their lives] by their government,” John says.

Half of Sudan’s 49 million people need help. U.N. aid chief Martin Griffiths says “unrelenting clashes” stop workers from reaching the most needy.

Believers tell John that fighters often force people out of their homes so they can use the structure. “The electricity is off, the water’s not running; you’ve just been kicked out of your home, and it’s 110 degrees outside. Just imagine what that does to the psyche of a nation,” John says.

Over seven million people are displaced within Sudan. Those who manage to escape violent hotspots now face starvation and disease.

Earlier this week, the U.N. said more than 1.8 million Sudanese would flee to neighboring nations by year’s end. Local church planters are meeting physical and spiritual needs.

“No one has any idea what will happen next month [or] the month after. We’re trying to be lean and flexible [and] obey everything that God brings before us,” John says.

Send help to indigenous church planters here.

Most importantly, pray. “Pray for [our] leaders,” John requests.

“Even though they are now refugees, they see the suffering around them. They know the hope that God has resides in them and will speak through them – a God who is not silent and has not abandoned Sudan.”

*Pseudonym

Header image is a graphic courtesy of The Voice of the Martyrs USA.

“Sudan was deeply broken before the current intra-military war and has always been in the background of world news, even though it has been a hotspot of persecution – ethnic and religious – for decades,” says John*, a Gospel worker focused on Sudan.

Heavy fighting blocks aid workers from reaching those in need as it spreads from the capital and Darfur. Hundreds of thousands of children are severely malnourished and at imminent risk of death if left untreated.

“The people in Sudan, as a whole, are in disbelief. No one believed this was possible,” John says.

“It seems like human life, in this situation, holds no value to those who are warring with each other.”

Ask the Lord to help Christians caught in the crossfire. “We are interacting with Christian leaders who have not managed to leave the country. They’re fighting to survive,” John says.

“It’s essential that we stand with them [and] help them through the trauma.”

John’s organization trains and equips believers from a Muslim background for Christian ministry in Sudan. Help send food and other aid to believers here.

Pray that people can see the hope of Christ through Gospel workers.

“When you look at the Word of God, nothing says that when these circumstances exist, the Church doesn’t have to be the Church. God says, ‘I will enable you in every circumstance,’” John says.

*Pseudonym

Header image is a representative stock photo depicting the flag of Sudan.

More than a half-million people fled to El Fasher, a capital city in Darfur and one of the sites of new fighting when the war began in mid-April. Tensions related to a planned transition to civilian rule erupted into full-blown war on April 15, creating today’s chaos.

See our full coverage here.

(Graphic courtesy of unfoldingWord)

“It’s impossible to know when, or if, the war will end and when or if Sudan will ever be able to recover from this national loss,” John* says.

“But we do know God’s not silent, complacent, or powerless.”

John and his organization partner with unfoldingWord, although there is no translation work currently underway in Sudan due to the current climate.

Over the past four months, around four million Sudanese people have been forced to leave their homes. One million have fled to nearby nations.

If this is the first you’re hearing about a war in Sudan, don’t be surprised.

“The Church in the West – not always, but many times – [is] driven by what is in the news,” John says.

“This war is not talked about in the news. It’s not being highlighted, so the Church is unaware.”

We can’t name John’s group for security purposes, but it trains and equips believers from a Muslim background for Christian ministry in Sudan. “We have trained and graduated 200 Muslim background believers from 25 tribes,” John says.

“Because international aid organizations have limited or no presence because of the conflict, we found ourselves [doing] relief ministry. We’re feeding 100 families of Christian leaders and house church leaders right now.”

Help meet the daily needs of suffering Christians here.

Sudanese believers may be fighting to survive but haven’t lost sight of the Great Commission. “They are sharing not only some of what we give them, but the hope that is Jesus Christ,” John says.

Ask the Lord to strengthen and sustain them. “Pray that [groups] trying to help will be able to identify the most vulnerable: the elderly, the handicapped, and minors, 17 and younger, who have become orphans because of this conflict,” John requests.

*Pseudonym

Header and story images courtesy of unfoldingWord.

Church-planting Bible translators are making progress in this context. unfoldingWord partners with indigenous church planting networks to reach Chad’s unreached people groups. More about that here.

“Somewhere between 50 and 70 groups have yet to receive the Gospel. It’s a little hard to [determine] because you have nomadic tribes” scattered throughout the country, a believer we’ll call Arne* says.

“The Open Bible Stories workshop method is proving to be very effective [in] engaging these communities. It’s very well-received because little material exists in their [languages].”

Arne oversees the Chadian Arabic Gateway Language project for unfoldingWord. He says Chadian Christians want their neighbors to know Jesus, and they’re setting aside traditional restrictions to reach a common goal.

“There is a coalition of churches in various denominations partnering together, putting aside their differences for the good of reaching the unreached people groups in Chad,” Arne says.

“The coalition intends to reach these primarily Muslim groups, make disciples, and [plant] churches.”

unfoldingWord equips believers in this coalition with the resources and training needed to do Church-Centric Bible Translation. “We’re partnering in the translation side because they (unreached people groups) need to hear [the Gospel] in the mother tongue,” Arne says.

(Graphic courtesy of unfoldingWord)

Ask the Lord to protect believers as they bring Open Bible Stories to unreached people groups. Community testing can be dangerous, but it’s also full of Gospel opportunities. Read about the occult king who met the King of Kings.

“The translation workshops have had an eternal impact on the participants,” Arne says.

“Two communities asked the missionaries to return with more teaching about Jesus.”

You can support this project here, but hurry! The remaining need is only $20,000; a matching grant ends soon.

“It [costs] approximately $350,000 to take eight languages, for example, through the 50 Open Bible Stories, and that’s just the workshops,” Arne says.

“Funding is required for infrastructure to facilitate the ministry, moving people back and forth, and ensuring [basic needs are met.] We look to external funding sources; we also encourage and work with the local churches to provide funding as they can. It’s a blended approach.”

*Pseudonym

Header and story images courtesy of unfoldingWord.

Lives change when unreached people groups hear God’s Word in their heart language. “We have no idea the impact on people groups like this; it just revolutionizes their world,” unfoldingWord’s Dane Skelton says.

One unreached people group in Chad is known for its violence against Christians. “Reaching out to this group has a lot of risks attached to it,” Skelton says.

“But Jeremiah and his team, in the Spirit of God and with great boldness, decided to take a long journey and share Open Bible Stories with this group.”

Tribal custom says every new visitor must visit the village chief or king first. The king of this people group had a fearsome reputation.

“He was adept at using occult powers and would manipulate people using those forces,” Skelton says.

Thankfully, God protected Jeremiah and his team. Skelton says that when the believers arrived at the village, “they couldn’t talk to the king because he was so sick; he couldn’t get out of bed, he couldn’t eat.”

Miracles in Chad

Through community testing, Jeremiah and his team introduced villagers to the Open Bible Stories. It was the first time this people group heard the Gospel in their language!

“When they go in and do these community checks, they’re asking the people, ‘Were we clear? Were we accurate? Did it sound like your natural speech with one another?’” Skelton explains.

Then, Jeremiah felt a “nudge” – the Holy Spirit compelled him to pray for the sick king in person. After the king consented, “The Holy Spirit of God within Jeremiah said, ‘Now I want you to be bold,’” Skelton says.

“Jeremiah said, ‘King, I need to tell you that there is a King of Kings. His name is Jesus, and if you believe in Him, He will heal you.’”

The king believed and confessed Jesus as his Lord and Savior in prayer with Jeremiah. “A few days later, the wife reported that the king got well and got up,” Skelton says.

(Graphic courtesy of unfoldingWord)

Please pray for that king, who is now being carefully discipled by Jeremiah’s team. Pray also “for Jeremiah and his team,” Skelton requests.

“It’s a risk every time they go into one of these places, and they know it.”

Seventeen million people live in Chad, and over two million speak something other than Chadian Arabic. unfoldingWord’s Chadian Arabic Gateway Language project equips translators with the tools to translate Scripture for 78 unreached groups, totaling more than eight million people.

A matching grant for this project expires on June 1, and only $19,000 remains unmet. Help Jeremiah and his team reach more villages here!

*Pseudonym

Header image is a representative stock photo courtesy of Moise Perez Bekoume albani/Pixabay.

Arne* oversees the Sudanese Arabic translation project for unfoldingWord. “Last year, we spent a good part of eight months or so training a new network of Sudanese Arabic speakers to deal with the minority languages in Sudan,” he says.

According to Joshua Project, 82 percent of Sudan’s people groups have no access to the Gospel. unfoldingWord seeks to resolve this dilemma in partnership with church planting networks.

Learn more about unfoldingWord’s approach here.

(Photo courtesy of unfoldingWord)

Sudanese believers started the newest translation segment in September. Arne will meet with the church planting network this month to follow up. Once fully trained, believers will be equipped to help 133 unreached people groups translate the Bible accurately for themselves.

“We’re training the Sudanese Arabic network and introducing them to the next step in their journey, which is what we call ‘the equipping journey,’” Arne says.

“We’ll be looking at various topics that all Christians need to know, [something] we call ‘the essentials of the faith.’”

The Sudanese people have repeatedly faced disappointment from Islam and the governments formed by Islamic leaders. Right now, people are open to answers from the Bible.

Give the Gospel to Sudan here. Through the end of December, all giving towards the Sudanese translation project up to $61,000 is eligible to be matched.

Pray for successful collaboration efforts between church planting networks in Sudan and Chad.

“Chad and Sudan share a border, and there are (unreached) people groups right along those borders that spill on either side,” Arne says.

“In the context of training the Sudanese, we borrowed some experts from the Chadian project to help build a relationship between the two. We intend to build connections between church networks in those countries to reach all the lost and unreached people groups within the sub-Sahara.”

*Pseudonym

Header and story images courtesy of unfoldingWord.

According to unfoldingWord,

Chad has many Christian missions, but they have never successfully engaged these unreached people groups. Mission workers report that this is the first time that any ministry has established effective connections with them.

unfoldingWord began teaching church planters how to do Bible translation a few years ago, starting with the Open Bible Stories. More about that here.

unfoldingWord® Open Bible Stories is developed by unfoldingWord® and the Door43 World Missions Community. The illustrations are © Sweet Publishing and the entire project—text and illustrations—is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
(Logo, caption courtesy of unfoldingWord)

“The Open Bible Stories is a set of 50 stories from God’s point of view: what He did to create the world and how He’s saving people, to the endpoint of Christ’s return,” Arne* with unfoldingWord says.

“It is a great way to introduce a group of people to the overall narrative of Scripture.”

Chadian believers finished drafts of the Open Bible Stories in eight languages. Then, they brought the drafts to unreached communities for testing. “The Bible stories are ideal for basic evangelism efforts,” Arne says.

“You can carry a fair amount of early discipleship on the back of the Open Bible Stories. They’re theologically sound, and it appeals to children and adults alike.”

The Holy Spirit moved powerfully as people heard the Gospel in their heart language. One chieftain used to combine Islam and the occult, but then he met Jesus. Three churches were started in his village as a result. The Sultan came to Christ in another location, and new believers were baptized.

You can help Chadian church planters start a new project here.

“They (unfoldingWord’s partners) are preparing now to start a second group of at least another eight languages, and that effort is primarily geared towards engaging Muslims,” Arne says.

“It worked so well with the first eight languages that they want to do it again.”

Using the 50 Open Bible Stories completed last year, Chadian believers will now try initiating the Church-Centric Bible Translation process.

“We use it (Open Bible Stories) as a basis for training [believers] in all the things they need to know to translate well and organize their translation efforts. This sets the base for future translation expertise and capacity in the network,” Arne says.

“No matter where we go, we start with Open Bible Stories as the foundation. Typically, it will take six months or so to get through that series, and then the new network will have an introduction to everything it needs to know to make further translation efforts interdependently.”

*Pseudonym

Header image courtesy of unfoldingWord.