Bahinemo New Testament celebrated
People traveled from all over the world--by plane, by canoe, and on foot--to celebrate the completion of the New Testament in the Bahinemo language.
The Bahinemo people received printed copies of the entire New Testament and 3,000 verses of the Old Testament in their own language recently. Missionaries who previously lived and worked among the Bahinemo traveled from the USA and Canada to celebrate this important occasion. Local people hiked for more than two days. Others made a five-hour journey by motored canoe.
NTM missionaries first lived among the Bahinemo people starting in 1987 when three missionary families moved into a small village. Over the years other missionaries joined the team and continued the Bible teaching, Bible translation and literacy training efforts.
Jason Stuart joined the missionary team when he moved into the village in 1997. After three years of intense study of the Bahinemo culture and language, he continued the translation process over the next 12 years.
Jason emphasized that the work among the Bahinemo has been a team effort. Many missionaries and Bahinemo people worked together over many years to ensure that the translation was accurate and clear. Jason had the privilege of distributing the printed New Testaments to Bahinemo church leaders at the celebration
Another missionary who served among the Bahinemo people in the 1990s, emphasized the importance of the Bahinemo people having God’s Word in their own language. He compared having the New Testament to sago. Sago is the main food of the Bahinemo people which they eat at every meal: “This talk is like our sago. If we don’t have sago, what will happen? We will become hungry and die. But now we have this sago. It is the sago that God has sent to us It doesn’t just make our bodies strong. It strengthens everything for us—it strengthens our thinking, our hearts, our spirits, everything. Now we must always eat this food.”
Praise God that the Bahinemo people now hold the entire New Testament in their hands and can read it for themselves.