Ralf Schlegal, missionary with New Tribes Mission, has been working on translating the Bible into the Dinangat language for six years. Six other people are part of the translation team.

Last month, they were able to present the Dinangat people with a new bound edition of portions of God’s Word. It includes portions of Genesis, Exodus, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Acts. It also has the whole book of Romans and Ephesians.

According to Schlegal, “There are altogether about 1,700 verses that are printed in this edition. There are still another 6,000 verses that need to be translated before we can hand out the whole New Testament."

Schlegal goes on to say, “Now that the believers have at least part of God’s Word in their own language, they can feed on it anytime they want. Hopefully by doing that, they will live more and more according to truth and will grow in their love for their Savior, and in doing so, will glorify God through their lives.”

The translation team’s next goal is to finish Mark and 1 Corinthians. They’ve also started work on 1 Timothy. “We as a team want, by God’s grace, to finish the New Testament in the next five to six years,” says Schlegal.

So far, as the Dinangat believers have begun to drink in their new translations of Scripture, they are filled with joy. Jaspa, a Dinangat Christian, says, “I’m really tired because I stayed up most of the night reading my new Bible. It was just so sweet I couldn’t stop.” Another believer, Felix, says he wanted to cry when they were given the portions of God’s Word.

“Our desire is that the believers will continue to grow in their understanding of the truth and in their walk and relationship with their Heavenly Father,” says Schlegal. “We desire that they continue to go out to their neighboring villages to teach them the precious truth.”

Translation work can be exhausting and overwhelming. When a paragraph is translated into Dinangat, it is then read to a Dinangat person. That person then responds with what they heard; if the messages do not line up, translators have to find where the mix-up occurred and fix the translation.

Please pray for the translation team as they press forward to finish the whole New Testament in Dinangat. Pray for many more Dinangat and people in surrounding villages to receive Christ.

Click here to support the Schlegals in their ministry.

The reason for the trek? New Tribes Mission is hosting a Citizen Teacher Training Seminar.

"It is the goal of NTM to make disciples and to teach them to obey all the commands that we have been given, knowing that He is with us, even to the end of the age," wrote Ralf Schlegel, an NTM missionary in Papua New Guinea. "That is the whole commission that we have been given. Our goal is to bring more worshippers into the Kingdom, and the vision looks past this current generation to the children and grandchildren who will come behind."

Schlegel added, "Our desire is to train teachers not only in the ‘how' of doing what we do, but also in the ‘why' of doing what we do. We want them to have an answer when they are confronted by various religions and methods and to be able to logically defend the Gospel and their church planting methods."

The classes the Dinangat teachers will attend could not be more pertinent. Three quarters of Papua New Guinea have yet to trust Christ as their Savior. The more people trained to accurately preach the Gospel, the more who will hear the Truth.

Ralf and his wife, Elli, are excited to see the Dinangat Bible teachers attending the classes. Part of the vision is to bring Bible teachers from many people groups together to worship and fellowship.

The classes the Dinangat Bible teachers will attend will be taught by elders from one of the tribal churches in the area. There are 125 attending each day.

This is a new opportunity for many of these teachers. Pray that it will allow them to see the larger Body at work and that it will motivate them in spreading the Good News of Christ.