As we are preparing to launch to the field in July of 2026, one of the things we are most excited about is being a part of what God is already doing in North Africa among the Nosu* people. One special example of that is how God first made himself known to Barnabas, the lead national translator for the Nosu project. Barnabas grew up as a devout follower of the majority religion in the Nosu homeland, and as a boy, he went to a special school for studying his religion and learning the area trade language. When war drove him from the Nosu homeland as an adult, Barnabas resettled in a neighboring, predominantly Christian country and became a shopkeeper.
One night, he heard a voice saying to him, “Barnabas, get up! Go buy a Bible.” Not sure where the voice came from, he asked his roommate, “Did you say something?” His roommate replied, “No, what are you talking about? Go back to sleep.” So Barnabas tried to go back to sleep. Then, he heard the voice a second time, “Barnabas, get up! Go buy a Bible.” “That is really strange,” he thought. He heard the voice several more times throughout the night, and he thought, “What is going on? I would never read a blasphemous book like the Bible.” Eventually, he went to sleep. The next morning, he opened his shop and tried to brush off his Samuel moment from the night before, but he could not stop thinking about how strange of an experience it was. And he could not shake the sense that he should actually listen to the voice and go buy a Bible.
So, he closed up his shop in the middle of the day and set out to buy a Bible. He had no idea where he would even buy a Bible, and he just wandered around for a while. Eventually, he found a random street-corner Bible vendor. This vendor was selling Bibles in a trade language that many Nosu people knew passably, but Barnabas actually knew it pretty well because of his educational background. So, he bought basically the equivalent of the KJV in this trade language, and for days he pored over this Bible. Despite the archaic language, as he read it, he had this unexplainable but unshakeable sense that this book contained what is actually true, and that the book of the religion he had followed from birth was wrong.
Ultimately, he became a believer, but he also had a strong conviction that if the Bible is true, he had to tell his fellow Nosu brothers and sisters that it is true too. So, he helped start a church with other Nosu believers, and after receiving some Bible training, he returned to the Nosu homeland and became a traveling evangelist, church planter, and key leader in the young Nosu church. Throughout his ministry among the Nosu, he and other church leaders identified a need for a translation of the Bible in the Nosu language. It was difficult to do evangelism and discipleship from Bible translations done in the trade language that most Nosu do not know well. Heart change occurs much more organically when God’s Word is available in our heart language. Barnabas was nominated by other leaders in the church to be the lead national translator for the Nosu Bible translation because of his educational background and his heart for the Lord.
Barnabas came to Jesus without any foreigners involved. God is already up to some incredible things among the Nosu people. We are excited to be part of what God is already doing and to partner with Barnabas and other believers in this Bible translation into Nosu, their heart language. Our hope is to use the skills God has gifted us with to empower the Nosu church to spread the gospel to the rest of their people.
Ben will serve alongside Barnabas and other Nosu people as a translation facilitator. This will involve coaching the translation team in good principles of translation, as well as doing quality checks of the translation to ensure the drafts made by Barnabas and the other translators are faithful to the original Greek and Hebrew the Bible was written in. Sarah will work with local artists to commission Scripture-infused art that can serve as tools for discipleship and evangelism.
Our hope is that when a Nosu person wants to read the Bible, whether because God told them to or another Nosu believer encouraged them to, they can read it, understand it, and be transformed by it, in their heart language.
*pseudonym
Ben + Sarah
Launching in July 2026, Ben and Sarah’s work equips the Nosu* people to make the Bible accessible in their language. Nosu* is the heart language of 40 million people and less than .1% of them are Christians, but they still do not have the Bible in their language. Ben will serve as a translation facilitator. Sarah will work with local artists to commission Scripture-infused art that can serve as evangelism and discipleship tools.
*pseudonym
