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Empower the greatest workforce in the world

We deploy the open-licensed content, tools, and training church networks need to freely translate the Bible themselves.

THE CHURCH IN EVERY PEOPLE GROUP
THE BIBLE IN EVERY LANGUAGE

Like wildflowers suddenly blanketing the landscape, churches are springing up overnight. These church networks are hungry for the Word of God in their heart languages. They have the people required to do the Bible translation work. We provide the tools and training to translate accurately.

More than 7,000 languages are spoken in the world. 50 of those languages are called "Gateway Languages." Why? Billions of people speak a Gateway Language and another language. So, resources translated into the Gateway Languages are the bridges to reach all the remaining languages of the world with Scripture.

The global church desperately needs the Word of God in every language. But the digital tools, content and training that empower accurate Bible translation are not available in all the Gateway Languages. We deploy those needed resources under an open CC BY-SA 4.0 license. Anyone can use these resources to freely and accurately translate Scripture with no copyright barriers.

Engaging the world through Church-Centric Bible Translation

Through our Gateway Languages Strategy, we’re training churches to translate open-licensed Scripture and digital tools into all the world’s major languages. From there, every language group on earth can translate their own Scriptures!

What do Others Say about Church-Centric Bible Translation?

Partnering with Bible translation leaders

“God is using unfoldingWord to innovate in ways that engage churches to own Bible translation needs for their communities. Wycliffe counts it a privilege to partner with unfoldingWord in these efforts!”
John Chesnut
President, Wycliffe Bible Translators

Join the Movement

Your investment will help empower church networks worldwide to translate the whole Bible into their ethnic languages for the very first time.
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Stories From the Field

  • Ten Times Faster

    • March 14, 2023

    Imagine you are ordering a new internet connection or cable TV or maybe something new from Amazon and you get the message saying, “Your town is too remote and we can’t serve your area at this time. We...

  • Meet Amy & Priscilla

    • March 14, 2023

    unfoldingWord operates as a catalyst for the Church-Centric Bible Translation movement. We collaborate as part of the body of Christ to develop and implement strategies and unrestricted biblical resou...

  • Jeremiah and the Occult King

    • May 04, 2023

    When Jeremiah* first heard that his Chadian church-planting network needed his help translating unfoldingWord® Open Bible Stories (OBS), he was skeptical. “I thought Bible stories were for children, l...

  • The Exponential Journey

    • April 10, 2023

    Khartoum, Sudan, April 2021. I was sitting in a small hotel conference room with the leaders of Greater Reach Alliance and half a dozen representatives of unreached Sudanese people groups. We were ta...

  • Chad's Unreached Receive the Gospel with Joy!

    • June 05, 2023

    “Giving Jesus to any human being is the best gift you can give to that person. Only the gospel can change the ugliness of man,” says Jeremiah,* one of the Chadian leaders of CCGP,* unfoldingWord’s chu...

  • Iran: Bibles in every language

      ...

    • Escape from Kharkiv

      • June 13, 2022

      BAM! A rocket penetrates a building, shattering windows and shaking foundations. Clatter! Bomb debris splatters cars, building façades, and adjacent roofs. Bang-Bang-Bang! The jackhammer staccato of A...

    • Innovation in Bible Translation

      • March 13, 2023

      unfoldingWord catalyzes innovation in Bible translation. Your gifts and prayers are enabling remarkable new developments! One of those is happening in a state in Asia. It began with translationCore. ...

    • Breakthrough in Chad

      • July 04, 2022

      Three churches were birthed when a local chieftain, who formerly combined Islam and the occult, came to Christ. In the another community, new believers were baptized, and two new churches were planted...

    • OVERCOMING the ODDS for 300,000 PEOPLE

      • April 06, 2022

      The challenge Pastor Manish was facing seemed insurmountable. His 300,000-member South Asian mountain people group desperately needs Scripture in the language they understand best. Pastor Manish, an e...

    • Ruska Roma celebrate first Scripture in their language

      • September 20, 2021

      EASTERN UKRAINE — To Stephen K., holding a Ruska Roma translation of 3 John means more than a chance to celebrate with his Roma friends. It’s the answer to 10 years of prayer.  In April, a team of fou...

    • Escape from Kharkiv

      • June 28, 2022

      BAM! A rocket penetrates a building, shattering windows and shaking foundations. Clatter! Bomb debris splatters cars, building façades, and adjacent roofs. Bang-Bang-Bang! The jackhammer staccato of A...

    • Oscarcito and the Yanomami

      • June 23, 2022

      Hernán walked out to board a missionary’s small plane deep in the South American rainforests. Then he paused, turned around, went back to his house, and did something unusual. “I feel like I should le...

    • SOUTH ASIA GATEWAY LANGUAGE TRANSLATORS OPEN the GATES to TITUS

      • April 06, 2022

      Imagine you had never heard of Noah’s Ark, Joseph’s many-colored coat, Moses and Pharaoh, or David and Goliath. You could not call on their inspiration and encouragement, because your language did not...

    • A Scrap of Paper that Changed a Life

      • March 13, 2023

      It was 2006. A young Islamic man, walking home in Khartoum, Sudan, found a scrap of paper that changed his life and began his journey to the forefront of Church-Centric Bible Translation. His name is ...

    • Bible Without a Village

      • December 27, 2021

      On December 4, our Spanish Gateway Language partners held their first translation workshop with Portuguese translators. Portuguese is the Gateway to 530 people groups representing about 50 million peo...

    • Iran: Bibles in every language

        Transform Iran President Lazarus Yeghnazar dreams of the day his country, Iran, will have Bibles in every local language. Using unfoldingWord's translation tools and Biblica's newly-revised Farsi Bibl...

      • Maryam the Librarian

        • March 08, 2023

        Maryam was a little girl living near the Iran/Iraq border when war broke out in the 1980s. When she was still very young, her family moved to Tehran to escape the fighting, but the move did not fill t...

      • Paying the Price of Persecution

        • March 13, 2023

        "We have been invited to the police station many, many times," said Pastor Vic*. "We have been harassed and so has the Bible translation team. Some of our original team members left because of the ris...

      • Zafar's Favorite Tool

        • March 13, 2023

        This year, unfoldingWord completed the initial training of the Russian Gateway Language team. All 50 Open Bible Stories and nine Scripture Book Packages are now available in Russian, serving as the Ga...