The Chronicles of Meng

For those who would like to check out a little bit more about Davar and some of the things they do you can view some promo videos here ...Also just want to encourage you if you would like to get in touch or be added to our newsletter list, please leave a comment or email me at either matthew.meng@davarpartners.com or matt@ywamrustenburg.org

Have you ever stopped to think about the privilege and blessing it is for those of us in the "Western World" to have a Bible in our own language. Sometimes multiple Bibles, both audio and text, varying translations, with or without concordances. As I know a lot of people have a daily morning devotional I want for you to imagine with me the following scenario... You wake up early one morning, perhaps a little groggy from a late night the day before. You stumble out of bed and begin whatever is your daily routine. Perhaps you are like me and you head to the kitchen for that first cup of coffee. You breath in the aroma and grab a cup along with your Bible and go to your dining room table or wherever you do your morning devotions. You sit down, take a nice hot sip of coffee and open your Bible only to discovery that it isn't printed in your own language or worse yet, it isn't even a Bible? Now imagine with me that you suddenly realize there are no Bibles in your own hea...

Hard to believe we are already nearing the end of June and 2014 is nearly half over! Next month though marks a significant celebration as we will be joining with the narrators and proof listeners who helped complete the Setswana Audio Bible to celebrate and dedicate its release. While it will be just a simple party with cake, coffee, tea, and prayer, it will be very satisfying to be able to handout the Audibibles to those who worked so hard to see it come to fruition. July also will mark the beginning of my travels with Davar. I will be headed to Mozambique for a celebration event dedicating the Makonde Audio Bible and doing a vision casting session with 100+ local ministry leaders helping to promote audio Scripture engagement among the Makonde people. From there I will be headed to Zambia for an OM Missions conference that Davar is a part of and then Lord willing I will be headed to Guinea in either September or October. And 2015 is looking to be even busier! Needless to say I am ...

In my last post I talked about the need for audio scripture among the 60%+ of the world's population that are oral learners. Today I want to present some of the challenges faced in bringing them the Word in their own heart languages.  According to ethnologue.com their are 7106 known spoken languages in the world today. Of those their are roughly 1919 languages with not even a single verse of scripture translated. Of the roughly 513 languages with a full Bible translations available only around 120 have been recorded into audio and there are only around 650 languages NT recordings available. Obviously translation is a great need, but the task is not a simple one or a quick one.  To translate a full Bible can take roughly 12 yrs, but that is not including the time it take for a translator to be trained or the time it takes for the translator to learn the language and culture which can easily double the initial time frame. But what do you do in the meantime to disciple and...

"Most people don't realize that over two thirds of the world are comprised of oral learners. Oral learners are found in cultural groups in villages and cities around the world. As such, over 60% of the world's population can't, won't, or don't hear the Gospel when we share it, simply because it is often coming to them through literate means they do not understand and to which they do not relate. They are visually impaired, illiterate, or functionally illiterate. Further, 29% of the world's population remains unreached and unengaged with the Gospel. One of the major factors causing this lack of engagement is because they are oral learners." The above is an excerpt from Davar's Interactive Bible Discovery Course Manual and it paints a pretty clear picture of the challenges faced by those carrying the Gospel to the unreached. Of the world's roughly 7 billion people, nearly 4.35 billion are oral learners. That though is only part of the issue. ...

After several crazy months of change and new things I am at last getting back to updating our blog. For those who have been following via our newsletter and email updates you know that we are now living in Pretoria and that I(Matthew) have been working with Davar Partners International now since March. It has been quite the roller coaster ride moving from Rustenburg but at last we seem to be hitting our stride here in this new season. I have been slowly getting up to speed at Davar, learning all that they do and the vision and goals of the ministry, not to mention what my role is. In short Davar is dedicated to promoting scripture engagement among the various Bible-less oral peoples around the globe. My role in this currently ranges from helping organize and facilitate translations to conducting training with ministry leaders and pastors in orality and scripture engagement among oral learners. Recently I had the privilege of training 22 pastors and leaders from a small African comm...