By Nicholas Osei-Wusu
The Bible Society of Ghana says it needs about Ghc23 million to translate the Holy Bible into the “Sign Language”.
When the ongoing translation of the Holy Bible is completed, Ghana will become the second nation in the world to have translated the Holy Bible.
A Member of the Ashanti regional Chapter of the Bible Society of Ghana, Mr. John Akowua, made this known at the launch of this year’s Bible Week Celebration in Kumasi.
“Currently, only the U.S. has a complete Sign Language Bible. It took about 40 years to translate the complete Holy Bible. We started the translation last year and we hope to complete it within 30 years. It costs $60 or over GHC700 to translate every verse of the Bible. In total, it will cost about GHC23M to complete the project and we count on donations by Christians, individuals, and organisations to achieve this,” Mr. Akowua told GBC’s Nicholas Osei-Wusu after the official launch.
The Bible Society of Ghana seems to use the Sign Language Bible to evangelise to the hearing-impaired community in Ghana.
Established in 1965 by the Christendom in Ghana, the Bible Society of Ghana exists to, among other purposes, make the Holy Bible easily accessible to as many residents in Ghana as possible by making it affordable through translation from its original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek languages.
The Society has set out to translate the Holy Bible into all 50 officially recognisable local dialects.
So far, it has translated the sacred book into 10 of the local dialects, with three others in only the New Testament.
Data from the Bible Society of Ghana shows that it takes the Society, a minimum of 15 years to complete a translation project at an average cost of GHC 7 million.
At the launch of this year’s Ashanti Regional celebration of Bible Week at the Gospel Light Assemblies of God Church at Dichemso in Kumasi, Mr. Akowua said that the use of hardcopy of the Holy Bible cannot be replaced by anything, including mobile phone applications, because of certain unique features the hard copy possesses for readers.
Mr. Akowua also explained that donations to the Bible Society are used to undertake other activities towards evangelization of the world for Jesus Christ and therefore appealed to people and organisations to support its activities.
A Guest Preacher, the Head Pastor of the Baptist Family Church, Reverend Dr. Kwame Kwarteng, touching on the theme for the Week’s celebration “The Bible, a Guide for Peace, Unity and Development”, challenged Christians who constitute the majority of the country’s population, to positively influence this year’s electioneering toward maintaining the prevailing national peace.
“I expect any other candidates in the elections to immediately call to concede defeat and call to congratulate the winner if he observes from the votes tally the likely outcome,” he advised.
The Baptist’s Minister entreated Christians to aim at completing their religious purpose on earth but not see themselves as competitors as politicians and others do.
The launch was used to raise funds to support projects of the Bible Society and distribute Bible Tracks and new membership forms to members of the congregation as part of the society’s membership drive.
The week-long celebration will be climaxed on the 11th of this month.
