Building Awesomeness

Now I realize that the title of this post may seem haughty, even arrogant.  But let me explain.  What is awesome is not me, but rather the work that I get to do.  What is awesome is the amazing participation by many mission organizations, increasingly ready to share and work together.  What is awesome is that we see the beginning of mission partners using Progress.Bible to plan together, to see what others are doing, to explore where translation is needed, and to coordinate efforts.  Believe me, this is awesome!

And for me, the exciting part is that I get to be a part of making this possible.  Progress.Bible is a web portal where partners and organizations working in Bible translation can go to gain insights and understanding that support decisions and strategies and cooperation.  Want to know the languages that have no Scripture?  That have old Scripture–perhaps translated in the 1700s–that need a more modern translation?  Want to know how much Scripture has been completed in any of the 7,097 languages of the world?  Want to discover who has translated, is translating, or planning to translate the Bible in a language of Papua New Guinea or any other country?  Want to know where a local church is asking for help to receive the Word in their heart language?  Want to know where literacy programs already exist to help people read translated Scripture?  Want to know where the gospel of Luke has been translated, allowing a Jesus Film (video) to be produced?  Or the languages that have audio recordings of the New Testament? In the near future we will consider reaching out to other audiences.  Imagine church planters or evangelism partners being able to see where Scripture has been translated so they can build on that foundation; or for Bible translators to request help in discipleship or Scripture impact programs. Progress.Bible brings this information together so mission partners can coordinate plans and work together.

This page presents information about translation in the languages of Papua New Guinea. Each dot on the map represents a language.  Users can see global summaries or zoom in to see information about a particular part of one country.  Mission organizations can see other organizations working in a language and what they are doing.  Partners can even make plans and declare their intent to engage in future work.

And the tool that we are using is awesome too!  A few years ago, we made information available by creating spreadsheets with thousands of rows of numbers and text.  Imagine looking at all that data and trying to answer a simple question like “What languages do not have any Scripture?”  I’m sure you remember hearing that a picture is worth a thousand words?  The tools we are using allow us to use all that data and convert it into visualizations that distill the critical information into summaries, different charts that communicate in different ways, even maps to show where things are happening in just a glance.  It allows the user to customize or filter the data to answer specific questions.  And if someone really wants a spreadsheet, it can still present tables with thousands of rows and columns too.

As a youth I recall memorizing explanations of the parts of the Lord’s Prayer.  I remember the description of what it means to pray “Thy Kingdom come.” The answer is, “God’s kingdom will certainly come even without our praying for it; but in this prayer we ask that it will come to us, that we will be a part of it.”  The work that we are doing is not anything as big and eternal as the coming of God’s kingdom.  But as this work is unfolding and bearing fruits and helping us to work together in mission, maybe this really is helping to advance God’s kingdom on earth.  I know the satisfaction that I get to be a part of this work.  And that is awesome.