How far would you go to get hold of a Bible? You may well know the story of Mary Jones, who when she was 15 years old walked 26 miles across the Welsh countryside to buy a Bible in 1799. Or perhaps you have heard the story of Marjones, whose name was inspired by the little Welsh lass four centuries before her, a young woman from the Tabulahan language group who was inspired to play a role as a co-translator working with Robin and Delwyn McKenzie to produce the Tabulahan New Testament for her language group.
Hang on Ian, haven’t I read stories among these Rhema stories of people who took only a single page or a collection of pages from a published Bible which had been dissected and distributed to different people to safeguard it against those who wanted to wipe the Bible from their nation? Such people then committed to the task of hand copying the portion of God’s Precious Word entrusted to them so they could multiply the numbers of copies for other speakers of the language, while keeping God’s safe and secure by burying it in the forest. [See God Stories 25 – Siwah and 26 – Dong-Wha, Chai Shimei – 37]
You don’t have a copy of God’s Word? Well how far would you walk to get a copy? Further than Mary Jones?
Meet Caleb, a young man with a different spirit from the Bible:
But my servant Caleb has a different attitude than the others have.
Numbers 14:24
Allow me to introduce you to a modern day Caleb:
Every morning Caleb got up by 3.00 am to read someone else’s Bible. Once he was able to borrow a Bible for a whole week. Then he copied for 7 days, non-stop. When he got tired he just laid his head on the desk until he recovered, then he continued writing.
After a while Caleb managed to secure a copy of the complete Bible to keep for a year. He filled up five very thick notebooks, each more than 200 pages, with the precious Word of God. “I always cried for hours as I wrote, the words were so precious to me,” he said, “And after one year . . . I got my own Bible.” You read that right, Caleb hand-copied his own Bible. Much like those in England during the time of Wiliam Tyndale when the Bible was regarded as contraband and you were burned at the stake if you were caught with the English Bible in your possession.
Don’t have a complete copy of God’s Word? Would you be like Caleb who made multiple copies of the pages he held so others could read them too?
How much do you value your Bible? As much as Indo Bonang?
To Delwyn she as “one of the least of these” loved by Jesus. Delwyn hoped that Indo Bonang would still be alive when the Tabulahan people were given the whole New Testament and portions of the Old, in their language. When it happened Tania and I were present at the dedication and wanted to see Indo’ Bonang receive her copy. She didn’t attend the Dedication service as it was a considerable distance from her house and there was limited space. The next day we met up with her in someone else’s house. I had the distinct impression the people wondered why I wanted to talk with her or why I wanted to take her photo. After all she is “one of the least of these”. But I was there to record the moment when Indo Bonang received her copy of the Scriptures. After she held it for a while I asked Delwyn what it meant for Indo Bonang to hold the Scriptures in her own language. Indo Bonang laughed and said while hefting this considerable volume of words aloft, “I will die before I get through all this.”
When I asked if I could take a photo of her reading the Tabulahan New Testament, she agreed but she had to go and change her clothes to wear her finest dress. Only the finest outfit she owned was good enough to wear when reading God’s Word. I also asked why she was not smiling. She smiled a toothless smile and said, “No-one wants to see my gappy smile.” On the contrary Indo Bonang, many do. Robin and Delwyn and Tania and I to name four, and most of all Jesus does. Jesus died for the least of these, not the least of which, a little, toothless, almost deaf lady in the back of beyond. You are precious in the sight of the LORD . . . and you cherish His Word and even get dressed up to read it. That makes you more special.
How much does your copy of the Bible or the New Testament matter to you?
Will you even get dressed into your best outfit to read it?
Source: Compiled from multiple Wycliffe sources.