Writing It Down in Budik

It took a while for Eme to warm up to helping Kathy Satorius translate the New Testament into her language, Budik.

“At first it was really hard,” she said. “I didn’t even like it. I didn’t think I could do it. But after a while I felt like I was understanding God’s Word, and it was causing me to grow, and I really enjoyed that. I was able to understand what God was saying, and it gave me great pleasure.”

Reading It For Themselves

The pleasure has spread beyond Eme.

“During the teaching, … everyone has access to the Word of God, so they can actually see that what he’s teaching and what is in the Word of God is the same thing.

“It’s also helped in terms of motivating people to be able to read,” she said. “It’s motivating those who realize, ‘Wow, if I can actually read, I can participate.’”

Spreading Literacy, Spreading the Word

And it’s spread beyond the believers.

“Even those that aren’t believers … are learning to read and write their own language,” Eme said. “They’re being drawn to the Word of God; they’re becoming interested.

“Pray that not only will people learn to read and write, which is a good thing — we want people to read and write Budik — but as they actually read the Word of God for themselves, they will … be engaging the Word of God.”