Bible translation ‘faces challenges’

Sena women pounding grain in a village. Lower Shire River Basin, Malawi. Photo: UBS/Haldor Noss (MAI01T-12/18)

MALAWI — Barry Funnell has been working for more than 10 years as Translation Co-ordinator for the Bible Society of Malawi’s Sena (Chisena) Bible translation project, and he is acutely aware that a significant challenge is looming: when it becomes available, probably in 2003, the Sena Bible is going to be too expensive for Sena speakers, who number around 300,000 in southern Malawi, to buy.

The famine currently gripping Malawi is expected to continue and get much more severe. So how can the Bible Society of Malawi put the new Sena Bibles into the hands of people who cannot afford to buy them?

Mr Funnell says the price the Bible Society is currently charging for the Chewa (Chichewa) Bible would “definitely” be too much for the Sena people to pay for Bibles.

“Very few of the families actually have an income, most of them are subsistence farmers and they just trade. We subsidised our Sena New Testament as much as possible, but even so people struggle to buy it. I see making Scriptures affordable as the key to Scripture distribution.”

The translation team is working closely with the Sena people to promote the use and distribution of Scripture. This has included workshops with Easy Reader Portions to assist schools and teachers.

“I was quite amazed at how children were able to read or to understand when I was reading to them,” Mr Funnell says. “They really enjoyed it because it was the first time they had heard God’s Word in their own language.”

The translators have also spent time checking their work with Sena pastors. Besides the improvements they have been able to make to their translation, the team have also found opportunities to help pastors use the Scripture effectively.

Translator Paul Muotcha expresses great enthusiasm for his work. “To go through the whole Bible several times, reading every word, you know, to put it in my own language, for my Sena people, this has been a privilege.”

When asked if Sena people will understand the Bible and come to know the Lord, Mr Muotcha holds out both hands and says, “You know, they are going to receive it, as we say, ‘with both hands’.” (WR 372/22 - 11.02)