Daniel 7:14

So you know that book, Where the Sidewalk Ends?  That’s where I live :).  The pavement ends, then the road continues on in dirt for a few more meters, and there I am!   Or there we are, rather; that’s the entrance to SIL.  The guards are all wonderful and by now have discovered that I don’t speak French, so they just greet me and ask where I’m going and what room is mine.  And then inside the compound is beautiful because it’s green, which a nice escape from the desert.  Almost all of my neighbors work for Wycliff, working on some stage of translating the Bible in to local languages. 

One of my neighbors, a lady from Switzerland, said that she has lived and worked in Burkina Faso for 30 years (I’m so jealous!) and has been writing the Bible in one of the languages in Banfora.  The best part is that she said they just finished typesetting the New Testament, had it printed, and the first load of New Testaments are in trucks and on their way to Burkina Faso right now!  She said that the tribe will receive the shipment on April 14^th.  I was soooooo excited!  Ever since I heard about Wycliff, I’ve thought it was a wonderful organization.  And now to see it in action…it really is amazing.  Imagine – a goal of having the Bible printed in every one of the 6,912 languages in the world.  I keep thinking about how different my life would be if I had grown up without a Bible to read in my own language.  I look in to the eyes of these sweet children and desire with everything inside of me that they could have a Bible all their own to read, also.

I remember many many evenings when I was growing up, sitting around the fireplace on the living room floor with my sister and leaning against my dad as my mother read to us from the Bible.  Even though I was sometimes bored and wanted to read a novel instead, I know now that those times shaped me in to who I am today.  As a matter of fact, everything that I am today is shaped by the Biblical influence that I grew up with.  I think about how blessed I am because of that.  And then I think about the 13% literacy rate of Burkina Faso.  Eighty-seven percent of these precious children don’t get to have the Bible read to them at night. Did Daniel not say, "All people, nations, and languages will worship Him?" ( Daniel 7:13,14).  That therefore must include every one of the 1000+ languages on the continent of Africa.  Oh Jesus, send workers to the harvest field of West Africa.