I had a chance to share last week in our gathering. The previous time I shared I asked people if they had heard the creation story. Most had, but three Tuvans present had not. So next time I decided to share the story and invite Tuvans. At the last minute I was given a copy of Genesis in Tuvan.
A friend read out the story. The Tuvans were very happy to hear it in their own language.
I then shared about the story of the fall over the next number of chapters. It is actually a very dark and sad story, full of evil and wickedness. I found that my heart broke as I saw how much God was grieved by the sin of the world. The final fall happened at the tower of Babel as the nations also rejected God. This was the deep estrangement between God and humanity.
At the beginning of God's plan for salvation he tells Abraham that he wants to bring the nations back to himself.
We are only part way through the salvation story. There are still thousands of nations that will come back to God. God is patient and will wait, he is not willing that any should perish, even though many will.
The time will come when God's glory does cover this earth and all the nations will glorify him. This is exciting but still a long way off.
It seems so much clearer to me now. I am here because I love God and want the nations to come back to him.
The Tuvans have a story of Jonah in their folk lore. So next time I will share this story. Once again it will be read in Tuvan and I hope that many will come.
4 comments:
It's interesting to hear that the Tuvans have the story of the Flood. Whatlanguage is your congregation's service on? What nations are your ch-ch friends from?
They may have the story of the flood- I don't know. But they do have the story of Jonah. Meetings are in Russian. There is some translation from English or Korean in to Russian sometimes.
People come from many nations:
Russia
Korea
China
Tuva
Yakutia
Mongolia
Austria
Canada
Australia
Ghana
And others at different times.
When you mentioned Tuvan peoples it kind of rang a bell. So we checked our world music collection. Sure enough, that was where we had come across the name before! We have a CD that includes a track of Tuvan throat singing!
If the Creation account and Jonah are translated into Tuvan, then I'm guessing that the gospels are already translated, as translators seldom begin with OT passages.
Glad to hear the message was well received. Would you say that the indigenous peoples in your group are believers or seekers?
Isn't it a shame and i believe wrong that translators start with the NT. Some believers some seekers.
Yes they have the full NT.
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