Dan & Rachel King

  We are the King family – Rachel & Dan, with Aaron (16) and Lydia (12)

I was a Careforce worker at Sale West Community Church many years ago when Steve Rankin was curate there. In 2013 we moved to Tanzania in partnership with Wycliffe Bible Translators.

In Tanzania, most people speak the language of their own people-group at home and in their own communities. But very few have access to the Bible in their own heart language, or are able to hear the Gospel explained in the language they understand the best. Very few learn how to pray in their heart-language. These are huge barriers to the transforming power of the Gospel. Translating the Bible into every language is a vital and urgent task for the people of God worldwide.

I work as a Translation Consultant for Bible translation projects in Tanzania. In essence, this means that I oversee the training of local Bible translators, work with these teams as they translate the Scriptures, and then check them for accuracy. For example, right now in 2024 I am working with a pair of languages from the western edge of the country, Ruwila and Konongo – we have translated the Jesus Film into their languages and are now working our way through the early chapters of Luke’s Gospel, with the hope of publishing the whole gospel by the end of 2024. Every verse has to be discussed and meticulously checked for accuracy, but also to ensure that the language is correct for the users to understand it as easily and clearly as possible.

I am also filling the post of Translation Co-ordinator for Tanzania. This means that I am co-ordinating all the actual translation work going on in the country at the moment. We have 18 language projects in action right now, with several new starts planned for 2024-5. There are also 16 languages in which we have already published complete New Testaments and we are looking at ways of enabling those groups to make a start on translating the Old Testament soon.

For this Old Testament work, our first goal is for the Nyakyusa and Ndali people-groups (numbering over 1.5m people) who are engaged in the challenges of distributing the published NTs and training pastors in how to read and use them. The people and the pastors are desperate to begin work on Old Testaments in their languages so that they can provide the churches with complete Bibles. This will need funding and careful planning. These groups have established their own Bible Translation Organisations to oversee and administer all Bible Translation work in their areas, one group even buying a herd of cows in order to fund Bible Translation through their milk sales!

Rachel (a GP here in Wales) also continues in the medical mission she undertook in Tanzania. She  supports The Olive Branch for Children, and is designing and initiating a project to improve health education in schools and communities in the Sangu region where there is little or no government-led health provision. This is a very remote area close to our hearts – Rachel visited in person in November 2023 and will continue to work closely on this in the coming year.
   

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For more information about about our other mission partners go to the Mission Partners page