As part of the 2020 Partnership, a team from Create International Taiwan traveled to a unreached people group in Southeast Asia to record voices for an animated gospel presentation, The Story of Hope. Although these people have a population of 1.6 million and are united by a common minority culture, there is no widely-used writing system for their languages.
In order to receive the message of the gospel in a way that they can understand, plans for an audio-visual resource in the artistic style of the people was developed in the previous months. Concept art for Jesus, Adam and Eve, and angels sent via the Internet were shown to the local believers for their feedback. Suggestions were made as to the color and clothing styles for a more contextual look. The script was also translated from the national language into the local mother tongues.
Arriving at the airport, surrounded by palm trees and a warm breeze, the team was welcomed by the project partner, a long-term worker who works closely with the local believers. A recording studio had been prepared and the first believer came to record in his native language.
For this believer and his people, the national language is not his mother-tongue and many of his own people do not speak or understand it well. With no access to a local church or even knowing a Christian from whom they can hear the gospel, they are cut off from hearing the good news. The believer expressed a great desire for his people to know the message of the gospel, and we prayed together that God would speak through him the
good news clearly.
The mother-tongue language of this people is actually made up of several languages or dialects, with varying levels of intelligibility between them. To maximize the spread of this resource, plans to record several languages were made. At the last minute, however, some local believers were unable to come, because of storm clean up from a major typhoon that had hit a few days earlier. Others were told by a church leader that there was no need to translate the gospel into the mother-tongue because the national language was better.
Working through these details and misunderstandings, God provided a young believer that the team was able to train to do the remaining recordings. Now the gospel is available to see and hear in three languages, and the remaining three will be available at the end of this year.
Please pray that many from the “L” group will come to know Jesus within their cultural context.