NEW! Swahili (Eastern Africa)

Swahili is a lingua franca that is mainly spoken in the countries of Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania, but also in Rwanda, Burundi, and South Sudan. In these countries people would typically have a tribal language as their mother tongue, use English in education and as an official language, and Swahili as a common language in business and trade.

For many years we prayerfully asked the Lord to provide faithful workers to prepare a new edition of the Swahili Bible based on the best Biblical Texts: the Hebrew Masoretic of the Old Testament and the Greek Received Text of the New Testament. We are thankful that in recent months those prayers have been heard and, we trust, answered. Earlier this year the General Committee approved the commencement of a pilot project on the Swahili Gospel according to John with a very suitable lead translator. He is based in Kenya, and is leading a well-qualified translation team drawn from Kenya and Tanzania. In recent weeks they have begun translating the Gospel according to John.

Please remember this team in your prayers as they seek to provide a faithful translation of God’s Word for the millions of Swahili speakers scattered across eastern Africa. ‘Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain’ (Psalm 127.1).