The Silk Road

The Turkish Bible was first translated and published by Muslim scholars in the 17th century. By the 1960’s when OM first started to work in Turkey, the translation was considered archaic and hard to understand, particularly by younger generations.

In the 1970’s a group of Christian workers in Turkey came together to explore the possibility of an up-to-date translation. A translation team was formed and after many years of hard work, both Testaments were completed in 2001 and paved the way for church expansion and mature church leaders.

We feel ourselves privileged to have lived through these exciting years in Turkey, praying that believers would become ‘lovers of God’s Word’.

Meanwhile, after Communism fell in 1989, we found ourselves making trips into Bulgaria and discovering the unique and miraculous work God was doing amongst the 1 million Turkish speakers who live in that country. We were able to help fund an initiative to print the Turkish Bible in the Bulgarian Cyrillic script. This was later supplemented by a German Christian worker revising the text into local dialect Turkish.

NOW this has led to an ongoing project to translate an easy to read Turkish New Testament for the 9 million Turks presently living in Europe. Turkish is the mother and heart language they speak at home, but because they receive education in a host language, this translation will enable them to read and understand. George serves as team manager for this translation group and the New Testament should be completed by the end of 2021-22.