Bringing the Scriptures alive
in new ways in Sri Lanka

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Seventeen years of fighting between troops of the Sinhalese-dominated government and Tamil Tiger rebels seeking self-rule left Sri Lanka with serious economic and social scars. A ceasefire was eventually signed in early 2002, but even now a final settlement remains just out of reach. This is the climate which has so strongly influenced the work of the Ceylon Bible Society (CBS) for so long, causing it financial difficulties and disrupting its activities but also fuelling hunger for God’s Word among ordinary Sri Lankans living in difficult conditions.

Anxieties

While the civil war raged, it was appropriate that CBS directed a considerable proportion of its energies towards producing Selections and other materials which addressed people’s anxieties and confusion (see World Report 357/14). More recently though, the Society has felt able to devote more attention to addressing other areas of need. These include the fact that although literacy is generally high in Sri Lanka and many different types of printed biblical material are available, there are still people among the Christians who make up eight per cent of the population who are unable to read. There are Christians in both the mainly Hindu Tamil community and the mainly Buddhist Sinhalese community, but lack of literacy is believed to be a particular problem among Tamils who work on the tea plantations in the central highlands.

Literacy

In 1999, CBS received a visit from the Rev Dr Robert Rice, the founder of Literacy and Evangelism International. This visit proved to be the starting point for a literacy program involving training people to work as literacy teachers. Their teaching materials consist of a series of three primers available in both Sinhala and Tamil.

The Society now holds many literacy workshops across the country at which people acquire the necessary skills to use the primers to both teach literacy and foster knowledge of the Scriptures.

Visually impaired

Meeting the Scripture needs of the visually impaired is another task which CBS is now tackling enthusiastically. Under the auspices of the Faith Comes By Hearing audio cassette ministry, the whole of the New Testament has now been recorded in Sinhala, a development which will benefit both the non-literate and the visually impaired. As part of the Society’s outreach to the visually impaired, staff recently visited a special village for the blind. The reactions of those who listened to the cassettes were very positive: some people reported that the recordings spoke directly to their heart, some listeners found them interesting and easy to understand, while others saw their potential for use in further developing their faith.