The Story of the Bible Story Book

Bedtime stories are important--sometimes far more important than we initially realize. For example, a Sinti Romany* mother was reading Bible stories to her young daughter at bedtime. In German, because they live in Germany. The daughter asked, "Mama, is this in our language, too?" The mother started writing the stories in their language and pasting them into the book. But then the story of the storybook became even more interesting.
This mother is married to a Romany man from a different group who speaks Calderash, an entirely different Romani language. They attend a church with members of both groups. A Calderash mother wanted Bible stories in her own language for her own children. With help from Wycliffe Bible translators and a German Romany organization, this bilingual book was put together in both languages and published.

How do I know all this? Because now these enterprising Romany parents want to record the stories on CD--in both languages--with the church's children's choir singing in between the stories--in both languages. Keith and I visited them last week. This coming week (Friday, 6 October) Keith will be going back to this church in Germany to record one of the moms reading the stories in one of the languages. The rest will follow. Though we are not sure what the ultimate result of that "rest" will be. These parents started with bedtime stories for their own children in their own homes. Their goal is to reach many others in many different places--with CDs, books, songs, YouTube, Facebook, and face-to-face. God knows how far these bedtime stories will go!

If you feel led to pray for this project and want to receive more in depth requests and updates, please contact us.

*There are over 20 different related but distinctly different Romany languages. In this blog, we use "Romany" for the people of these related ethnic groups and "Romani" for the languages.