If you are familiar with the Wale language from Wala in the Upper West region of Ghana, you will know that it is a tone language. The word ‘gondo’ depending on how it is pronounced could mean ‘skirt’ or ‘good’. This means that if our recording team do not do due diligence in recording audio Bibles, certain words in the Bible when used will be misconstrued and misunderstood by the very people it is meant to edify. This is just one of the challenges that technicians face whenever they go into the field to record audio Bibles in indigenous languages. In this particular instance, they had challenges with accommodation, the extremely hot weather and mosquitoes that refused to be curtailed with repellents. But thanks be to God that despite these challenges, the recordings were finally completed. The recording team used a total of four weeks to complete the recording of the New Testament in their indigenous language using indigenes to record the Bible into the ‘Wale’ language.

This particular recording took place in Wala, a largely non-Christian community in the outskirts of Wa in the Upper West region. The people are mostly farmers and cattle breeders with children of school going age also engaging in this venture. Though it is a largely non-Christian with people of other faiths, the Catholic and Baptist churches have established their presence in the communities and gradually breaking grounds with the good news of the gospel. The people of Wala have in the past benefitted tremendously from printed Bibles donated by churches and missionaries that have carried out evangelism work in the community, unfortunately, the community is largely illiterate. Thus on Sundays, there will be a table full of Bibles from which church members can choose from and read for themselves but because they are largely non-readers, they cannot access the word of God for themselves.

Now that the Wale audio Bible has been recorded, the work of Theovision International will be of immense help within the community in that after the audio Bibles have been recorded they will be returned to the community through the establishment of listening groups that will help the listeners access the word of God in their own indigenous language. The radio stations will also broadcast the word of God to reach many within the community and beyond that are familiar with the language. What a relief!