What would it take to complete the Great Commission? Every Language aims to translate the full Bible into every heart language on earth

Even at the ripe old age of 88 – just months before his passing – founder of Youth with a Mission (YWAM) Loren Cunningham was not content just to look back and celebrate the legacy of his ministry.

Instead, the American missionary was gripped by a new vision: Translating the full Bible into every heart language on earth.

Surprised by this, YWAM Singapore’s Hudson Kim said he had expected Loren to spend his last days exhorting the missions organisation to carry on with the good work that had already been started.

Instead, what Hudson witnessed challenged him.

“I found Loren not letting go of this vision until the day he was called home. Even bedridden in his room, he would be on Zoom calls with leaders all around the world.

“Loren ended up saying to us that this is probably the grandest and the largest vision that God has given YWAM in the history of our existence.”

Hearing Loren speak about ending Bible poverty was initially confounding, Hudson admitted.

“The first thing that came to my mind was: YWAM? Bible translation? I can’t match the two. Why?”

However, after immersing himself in the movement, he came to this realisation.

“It’s not about Bible translation. It’s about discipleship – and discipleship of nations cannot happen without the full Bible in everybody’s hands and mother tongue,” said Hudson who is now YWAM Singapore’s Leadership Representative for this initiative.

Hudson (far right) at YWAM’s Kona, Hawaii base in the early days of the project’s incubation.

Interestingly, during this span of time, God was also working in the heart of another missionary in a different corner of the world.

Raised in Pakistan, Jeremy Curry had a life-changing encounter with God at the age of 20, which led him to answer the call into full-time missions. 

But over the last four years, Jeremy found himself captivated by a new mandate.

Having been on those same Zoom calls with Loren, Jeremy recalled being struck by his mentor’s strong conviction for every people group to hear the Scriptures in their own language. 

“I was really cut by this. And I said, ‘A spiritual father should not have to beg his children. As a spiritual son, I will do whatever it takes to understand and follow through with this.”

Jeremy (centre) is the Founder of Fire and Fragrance Himalayas, which is an offshoot of YWAM.

Disclosing how he had first moved to Nepal with “a passion to finish the Great Commission”, Jeremy confessed that some of that “youthful optimism” had begun to wane as he started to approach his 40^th birthday.

“Are we going to be one more generation that will work at the Great Commission but not finish it?” he wondered.

Pointing out that the Great Commission requires both Gospel proclamation (Mark 16:15-16) and discipleship (Matthew 28:19-20), Jeremy said: “It’s very hard to make deep disciples without the Word of God.”

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“If we want to aim at finishing the Great Commission, we must have an assessment of where we are as the global Church. It has been 2,000 years. How are we doing? What is our health check-up?” 

The problem today: Language or dialect?

Highlighting that there are still so many Bible-less communities, Jeremy said that their team believes that 98% of the world does not have the full Bible in their heart language.

While the recorded number of languages in the world is around 7,170, they estimate that the figure is closer to 50,000.

“There are often five to 20 mother tongue languages inside each one of these (accepted) languages,” observed Jeremy.

So although the full Bible is available in over 700 trade languages, this only accounts for 1.5% of all the languages in the world.

Another problem is misclassification.

Through his missions work in the Himalayas, Jeremy has come to discover that although some mother tongues have been categorised as dialects, these are actually distinct languages.

Recounting a region in Nigeria where a group of kings spoke 120 different languages, Jeremy said that only one king received a Bible in his mother tongue, as the rest of the languages were considered dialects.

Instead, the other kings were told to “go to that king, learn his language and use his Bible”.

Sharing that he lives in an area with strong Tibetan influence, Jeremy also described a time when he played the Nepali Bible on his phone and the locals responded by nodding their heads and saying that they had heard it before.

But when audio stories in their language were played, he was shocked by their response.

“A crowd gathers; they’re laughing, they’re talking to the phone,” said Jeremy. “It’s a completely different psychological response to something in your own heart language.”

Heart languages are emotional, while trade languages are cerebral, observed Jeremy. Pictured is the Goljung village in the Rasuwa district of Nepal.

Addressing doubts about whether these mother tongues are dying, he added: “It’s a valid question. But what we’re finding is that most people in the world are not just bilingual. They’re trilingual or quadrilingual. 

“They do speak a trade language, which is for buying and selling. But I can testify, across Africa, in Asia … these (heart) languages are very alive.” 

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The solution could be something ancient

Historically, missionaries would live among locals and learn their language and culture before translating the Bible, a process that could take up to 20 to 30 years – an entire generation.

However, the movement that was birthed from Loren’s vision, which was launched as Oral Mother Tongue (OMT) Bible translation in 2022, empowers native speakers to translate the Word of God over a period of 18 months.

Sharing that they were inspired by how Martin Luther took just 11 weeks to translate the New Testament into German in 1522, Jeremy threw out this question: “What if the solution wasn’t something new but something old?

“This was the example of a local church leader who was a mother tongue speaker being activated to translate the Word of God into his language.” 

What Jeremy and his team have found is that many places around the world – even the more remote ones – already have a small population of Christians.

Calling on churches to adopt a Bible-less people group for a three-year period, Jeremy shared that they are looking to launch 300 translations over the next year if funds are available.

“There’s incredible hunger. We have over 300 languages across Africa and Asia excited, waiting for a Bible.

“These kings and Pastors are crying because they’ve waited 100 years. They’ve had the Gospel, no Bible. They’re so excited.

“What gift do you give an African king?” he asked. “What project can you do in a year and a half that would change an entire people group? I can’t think of something better than the gift of the Word of God.” 

After the full audio Bibles are done in 18 months, translators will then be equipped and commissioned as church planters to reach their community.

A Bible movement in every language

To streamline the translation work and provide greater accountability to the global Church that is being invited to partner through giving and prayer, a separate entity from OMT was created a year ago.

Registered as a non-profit in the US, Every Language will work not just with YWAM, but also the body of Christ all over the world.

Through Every Language, the global Church will be connected to local translators and church planting groups, and also able to track the progress through dashboards that display data such as chapters uploaded and minutes listened to.

In their visit to Singapore in February, the Every Language team shared their vision with church pastors and Christians in the marketplace and other organisations.

Aside from offering financial support, receiving updates and praying, churches can also send teams to visit, such as flying in for the dedication of the New Testament or full Bible when it is completed.

Explaining that existing missions initiatives such as preaching the Gospel, crusades and social service projects are all good, Jeremy said: “But if we could add a full Bible as an initiative to engage a people group, we could see deep transformation of individuals and communities.”

Currently, Every Language has six translation hubs – Nepal, India, Nigeria, Myanmar, Singapore and a country in the Middle East – but its goal is to have 24 in its 10th year. The non-profit has also set a target of finishing 50,000 languages in 15 years (2040).

In countries where the work has already begun, translators are supported with food and housing, and are paid a stipend progressively as sections of Scripture are uploaded.

In Africa, around 200 Bible translations have started, out of which 10 full Bibles and 76 New Testaments have been completed.

For some of these African languages, there are even retired Pastors who have joined the team and are able to translate the full Bible in less than six months because they already know it so well.

Elaborating that these mother tongue Bibles would be close to an ESV equivalent, Jeremy said that accuracy and community checks are also built into the process.

A Scripture council comprising local church leaders (interdenominational as much as possible) looks at theology and doctrine, while native speakers weigh in on language naturalness and acceptability.

Once approved, passages of Scripture are made available to oral communities via a distribution app. This elderly lady (left) is hearing the Book of Psalms in her heart language of Rasuwa Tamang.

“Technology truly has changed the game,” said Christopher Chun, Vice-President of Translation. Based in India, he has also been helping to fulfil Loren’s vision over the last three years.

All that is needed is a translation app on a smartphone that has been developed to capture audio based on distance and decibel, Christopher added.

While the Bible is read out in the source language (eg English, Mandarin) and given an almost literal translation by a native speaker in the group, the app only records the mother tongue version and automatically removes the source. Reviews and refinements can also be easily done.

When translations first started in Africa, teams had to use a Zoom recorder and spend hundreds of hours to manually edit audio files on a laptop.

Over the last one-and-a-half years, however, God has graciously provided people who have come alongside as technology partners, accelerating this process.

“We realised that if we want to turn every smartphone into a translation studio, we need a mobile-first approach. Every one of these phones could be an audio Bible player,” said Jeremy.

The first version of their app was built by a medical school student who taught himself app development.

“God just downloaded it to him. He had lines of code in his eyes, and he would go in and type the lines of code and just see this programme be built.” 

Jeremy (right) with Matthew (left) who helped develop their first app.

Christopher, too, was amazed. “(Matthew) didn’t have any experience in coding. Even if you talk to him today, he would say, ‘I don’t know why I said ‘yes’”.

The current version of their app, on the other hand, was developed by an “AI vibe coding tech team with genius coders” who had also been working on their own solution when they decided to join forces.

By leveraging advancements in technology, translating from trade language Bibles (instead of the original Greek and Hebrew text) and not relying on foreign linguists or international consultants, Every Language has been able to cut down on costs drastically.

While translating a full Bible under traditional methods might set one back by US$1 million, they are now able to do this for US$25,000 (in Asia) and US$15,000 (in Africa).

Even though they have chosen to use a church-based, smartphone-enabled approach as well as local believers to translate and approve the Word of God in their own language, Jeremy acknowledged that other translation organisations may have different models.

“These groups are great, and we honour the years of toil and efforts. These methods and efforts must carry on,” he noted.

Echoing this point, Christopher emphasised: “We want to run together with everyone.”

“We just want to finish the Great Commission. We want to see Revelation 7:9 – every tribe, every tongue, every nation – become a reality,” he said, adding that their team is open to partnerships.

“That was always Jesus’ plan from the beginning: That the Church, whether a parachurch or local church, would be one. That we would finish this task.” 

Christopher speaking with members of the YWAM Singapore team that have also been trained to become mobilisers of the vision.

Encouraging churches in Singapore to consider what it might look like to see the Great Commission fulfilled, YWAM Singapore’s Hudson shared a reflection he recently had at the LoveSingapore Summit.

“I just had a question that just arose in my mind as I was sitting there listening to different ones talk about blessing the nations.

“We can send teams out. We can train people. We can mobilise. But could it be that Singapore’s call to be a blessing to the nations is, in part, to help gift the full Bible to every mother tongue on earth?

“It’s like this is our blessing – from Singapore to the nations.”

To find out on how to support this project in prayer and giving, reach out to Hudson Kim (hudson@ywam.org.sg). As Every Language’s implementing partner in Singapore, YWAM Singapore is helping the non-profit with communication and channelling of funds from the churches here.

To donate directly to this work, click here.

A Bible Movement in Every Language Read more

by Every Language

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