Oral Bible Translation School | YWAM Perth

"People are amazed when they realize God speaks their language. Now, he is no longer an English god…he is their God.” – testimony

The Bible is the greatest agent of transformation other than God Himself. Throughout the centuries, men and women of God have given their lives to bring Scripture to nations and peoples. The result has been salvation, discipleship, revival and transformation of societies.

For 639 years the Bible has been available in English. Many Christians have numerous translations of the Bible in their homes. However, there are approximately 2,184 languages groups across the earth who have never had one translation of Scripture in their mother tongue. This represents over 250 million people without access to the Word of God. Many of them are unreached and unengaged. Most are from oral cultures or suffer from high levels of poverty and illiteracy. In order to see lasting change, we need to give them access to the Gospel, to Jesus Christ, and the truth contained in Scripture in their own language.

The Oral Bible Translation (OBT) School combines the power of language and God’s Word in oral format to nations who have been waiting to have the Bible in their own language. Training received in the school will equip you to bring Scripture to nations in a way they can engage and that is uniquely theirs. You will gain understanding of oral cultures, the impact of the Bible on societies and Bible translation theory. You will learn to effectively facilitate an oral Bible translation workshop and join an actual project for hands-on training. On the school we work together with Faith Comes By Hearing, using cutting-edge Bible translation software. We partner with local language speakers and qualified translation consultants from the larger Bible translation world. The school is project-based and requires students to participate in an OBT workshop during the last 3 weeks of the school.

Topics covered:

Introduction to ending Bible poverty, Introduction to orality, Language and culture, Bible translation theory, Oral Bible translation process roles, operation of Render OBT software, Bible translation tools and original text, setting up a workshop, leadership and unity, recording, story sets, training mother tongue translators and hospitality.

“…people do not live by bread alone; rather, we live by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.” – Deuteronomy 8:3