Today is Christmas Day, the first day of Christmas. So here’s a fun video to watch and listen to, that very familiar song ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’. Each day I’ll be putting up a link to a different version of the song (some traditional, some not-so-traditional!) This one is by a variety of Christian artists. I particularly like Mark Hall of ‘Casting Crowns’ who is definitely not a rapper!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBBAEy1Xw9w&feature=player_embedded#)
The charity I want to look at today is the Bible Society
(http://www.biblesociety.org.uk)
As a teacher of languages, it’s perhaps inevitable that I’m interested in Bible translation. This charity is involved in Bible translation: what is so shocking is that more than 4,400 languages in the world still wait for even one book of the Bible. It’s involved in more than 550 translation and retranslation projects, but is also involved in getting the Bible onto audio (a billion people can’t read, but only 3% of languages have the Bible in audio) and into Braille (every 5 seconds, someone goes blind, but the complete Braille Bible exists in only 35 languages.) Moreover, the charity is not just involved overseas, for in our own country, the Bible is no longer a point of references for everyday life and Christians often lack the confidence to apply the Bible’s message in a society that increasingly sees it as irrelevant. In England and Wales, the Bible Society works with the worlds of the media, politics, arts and education to show how the Bible connects with life and have programmes to make the Bible available for prisoners, refugees and people in special need.
Our church regularly receives magazines from Bible Society, so do make sure you get your copy and read more about what this charity is doing!