On the 18th of March 2024, at Kongo in the Nabdam District, six partners signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to herald a planned program of action for the translation of the Holy Bible into Nabt. On the one hand were those partners based within the Nabnam district: Bishop Isaac Yen, the President of the nine-member Nabt Language and Translation Project Committee (NLTPC), Rev Fr Samuel Zure who represents the Catholic Church, Pastor Nicholas Y. Sebire who represents Nabnam for Christ, and Mr Paul Wooma (PRO) who represents the Nabt Nkor NGO. On the other hand were our foreign partners: Mr Konlan Kpeebi representing the Ghana Institute of Linguistics Literacy and Bible Translation (GILLBT) and Mr Brain Cochran who is the Field Project Manager – Anglophone West Africa representing Seed Company .
The MOU was for the first phase of the whole translation project and will span a period of three years from 1st April 2024 to 31st March 2027. Within this period four permanent translators are projected to translate the four Gospels in the order Mark, Luke, Matthew, and John. The MOU anticipates that by 2027 the Gospels will be published in printed text, recorded in audio, while Luke is synchronised in video. It also envisages an intensive mass campaign of literacy in the Nabt Language.
The signing of the MOU marked a momentous occasion in Nabdam history as it brought an icing on the cake to several years of painstaking processes towards getting the Holy Bible translated into Nabt.
Rev Fr Baba Abugri, CSSp, the brainchild of this great endeavour, smiled and thanked God, the Chiefs and Elders of Nabrug, the staff of Nabt Nkor NGO that spearheaded this project, the Nabdam District Assembly, the Christian community and of course the good people of Nabrug for their kindness and support so far. In some few years from now, humanity and for that matter the Nabnam will have the opportunity to read the Bible in their Native dialect.
Perhaps one might ask: “Why is this project important? The simple answer is that, besides the fact that Nabt still remains a spoken language and so needs to be written, Traditional Religion is still very influential in Nabrug, especially among the illiterate population. Hence, Christians, out of ignorance of the scriptures, succumb to fear of these spirits. Some are also taken advantage of by false pastors who capitalise on their ignorance and exploit them. Having the Bible in Nabt thus seeks to address these issues: Personal transformation, Evangelism, encouraging personal reading and understanding to bridge the gap between the elite and non-elite in Bible knowledge.
We conclude by thanking our benevolent partner, the Seed Company of the United States of America, GILLBT, the translators and the leadership of the various Christian groupings in Nabrug for sacrificing your time and effort to see to the successful completion of the project.
Coming together is the beginning
Keeping together is progress
Working together is success.
Henry Ford (1822-1947)
Paul Wooma
PRO — NLTPC
Representative — Nabt Nkor NGO
