Pioneer Bible Translators
August 31, 2026
Dear Friend,
       You and I are standing on the threshold of a moment that generations of faithful Christian men and women gave their lives to reach—when every person on Earth can have God’s Word in their own language. 
       This year Pioneer Bible Translators turns 50.  In five decades, churches like West Village Christian Church have helped put more than 500,000 verses of scripture into the hands of people who never had them.   
       But I’m not writing to mark an anniversary.  I’m writing because we are closer than any generation before us to seeing every person on Earth have God’s Word in their own language.
What Bible translation makes possible goes beyond a finished Bible.  It’s a person reading God’s Word in their own language for the first time—believing it, obeying it, sharing it with others—until churches are planted, the Gospel spreads, and whole communities come to know Jesus. 
West Village Christian Church is already helping in other ways, especially through your support of missionaries—and that means more than I can say! 
Your church continues to answer the Great Commission call in meaningful ways.  But it will take all of us, working together, to see God’s Word go from a translated page to a changed life—read, believed, obeyed, and shared with others. 
It takes an average of $35 to put one verse of scripture into a language that has never had it.  $3,500 translates into 100 verses.  $35,000 translates a thousand verses.
Every verse translated brings someone closer to God’s Word—and every finished translation is a door opened to the Gospel, to the Church, and to lives transformed by Jesus. 
That All May Know Jesus,
Greg Pruett
President

 Years ago, I had a coach who wanted his football team to get stronger. He couldn’t make us show up for another practice, but he could strongly suggest some more time be spent in the weightroom if we wanted a better chance of winning in the next season. He made sure the doors were open for us by 5am every morning, even when he himself was rarely there, and he gave us a little pep talk that I will never forget. He told us to start with one day. Don’t think about the months of work ahead, just one day. Wake up tomorrow and get up.  And after that day is over, do just one day more. And after awhile all of those ‘one days’ eventually turn into weeks and months, and sometimes years of effort that change you and shape you, and improve you, if you are willing to work for just one day more.
Pual tells the believers in Corinth that “I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.” A disciplined, righteous life that is lived for Jesus is not immediate. It would be so much easier for all of us if the water not only washed away our sin, but also our inclination for sin. Rather, Paul describes the long, effort filled process of overcoming the old self so that we can stand with confidence before the King that died for us.
Just remember that it starts with one. One day, one moment, one decision that is given to Him rather than our own desires. It is time that we beat our bodies, our desires, our old selves into submission. It starts with one.