A couple of years ago, as each language completed the book of Luke, we had celebrations out in the language community to announce the presence of mother-tongue scripture!
These days, we don't get to have as many celebrations because we are often holding off until we have the whole New Testament to print other books. There are a lot of practical reasons that have gone into that decision, but those would probably bore you to hear, so I'll focus on the fun that we had last week.
We got to print the book of Genesis in Ikizu (Kabwa Genesis is coming later this year as well)! Its a big book, 50 chapters, and not in the New Testament, so why not print it!!!
We didn't have a big celebration in the community, but instead a very sweet and intimate "book release" at the office. A local bishop came and prayed over the books as we opened the boxes. The bishop also brought a local pastor who is from the Ikizu language group and that pastor translated the bishop's prayer into Ikizu on the spot. It was beautiful, and I may have had a couple tears in my eyes by the end.
The books can now be taken out to the community and distributed!!! It is always encouraging and exciting to see the physical fruit of our labors here in Musoma.
Congrats to the Ikizu translation team and yay for the Ikizu language community.
