by Allan Starling

 

Steve looked puzzled. “Hey, Jim, what did you say you do at GRN?”  

“I do what we call Language Tracking. It’s not that mysterious, Steve. Why the baffled look?” 

“Well, I’m thinking after you’ve counted the three or four hundred languages in the world, what do you do with your time? Eat donuts?” 

Jim laughed. “There’re a lot more than a few hundred. To start with, how about 7,152 officially recognized languages, not counting 232 different sign languages. And that’s not all.”  

“What’s next?” 

“Mounds of dialects we call language varieties. Like 11,652 and counting! We keep finding more. Not to mention another 786 names we can’t identify.” 

Steve threw up his hands. “I give up! Looks like you don’t have time for donuts. But I still don’t know why you’re counting them.” 

Jim smiled, “I’m tracking them, not just counting them. And the reason is that Jesus told us to go into all the world and to preach the Good News to everyone. We can’t do that unless we know who they are, where they are, and how they speak. We also keep track of over 6,600 language varieties where GRN has made recordings of the Good News.” 

“Oh, that’s impressive, but by my count, it leaves around 12,000 language varieties that don’t have anything in their language.” 

“Yes, Steve. That’s way too many. Fortunately, many are close enough to another variety so they can understand the messages, and others we’ve missed may have the Jesus Film or an audio Bible translation produced by a different group. But sadly, many simply have nothing in their language.” 

Steve furrowed his brow. “But how do you know where to begin, Jim?” 

“We try to give top priority to the three thousand unrecorded languages worldwide where less than two percent of the speakers are believers. Then there’s a smaller group that are completely unreached. They have no believers and no Christian resources, but these are in extremely difficult places to reach.” 

“So, what does GRN need in order to tackle this seemingly insurmountable task?” 

Jim looked up to the ceiling. “We need,” he paused. “A miracle! We can’t get it done by ourselves. We also need more researchers, more techies, more recording teams to go out there and make the recordings on location, and definitely more prayer partners.” 

Steve slapped Jim on the back. “I’d better let you get back to your language counting, I mean tracking. And seeing you are so busy, do you mind if I eat a donut on your behalf!”