A Word They Want

The largest tribe in Africa has over 35 million people in it, and they are over 99 percent non-Christian. The first Bibles translated into the local language were designed to look just like Bibles from America. These Bibles often had a black or brown cover. Inside, the words were written using the same alphabet Americans use. Believers were encouraged to write notes on the pages of their Bibles and underline important passages.

While this format was helpful for some cultures, most people within this large non-Christian tribe found these features unacceptable for a holy book. For them, a black or brown cover signified darkness or dirtiness. The letters inside were not pretty enough to convey the message of God. When people made marks inside the book, it showed disrespect. So these people would dismiss the Bible out of hand, before they even opened it to see what was inside.

But what if the Bible didn’t have to look like it came from America? After all, in Jesus’ day, the Scriptures were often in the form of a scroll!

So, together with a team of translation experts, we helped produce a different format for a Bible. The very poorest among the tribe go to religious school all day to learn to read a style of letters called Ajami. Our Bible is written in beautiful, ornate Ajami letters that our target audience can read, and it has a cover that matches the color of their holy book.

When our audience sees these new Ajami Bibles, they grab them out of our hands. After reading for just a few minutes, they regularly proclaim, “This is the word of God!”

Now, we train local believers how to read the Ajami letters so that they can be better equipped to share these new Bibles with their non-Christian neighbors.