June 19, 2024
March 9 marked the launch of the new Shekgalagari Bible and completion of a more than 14-year journey – to create a Bible for a language spoken by more than 78,000 Bakgalagari people living in the southern African nation of Botswana.
The Bible Society in Botswana recently completed the Shekgalagari New Testament in collaboration with Lutheran Bible Translators, finishing the first translation of the Scriptures in Shekgalagari.
An initial print run of more than 10,000 copies of the New Testament was produced through Amity Press.
Ofentse Collen Maruping, General Secretary and CEO of the Bible Society in Botswana is excited for what this new translation will mean to the Bakgalagari people:
“Our hope for the speakers of Shekgalagari is that this newly published New Testament allows them to connect with God’s Word in away that opens hearts and minds to the Gospel. We have already been greatly encouraged by the response to this New Testament and are looking forward to its distribution to Shekgalagari speaking areas.”
Before the Shekgalagari Bible, the Bakgalagari people were forced to use a Bible in another language with aging text – making the Bible difficult to engage with:
“This Bible will make a particular impact for these people because of the challenges of the Bible available in the majority language here, Setswana. Although the Bible is useable, it was translated in South Africa over 100 years ago and the vocabulary and grammar are quite different to the way it is spoken in Botswana today, which makes understanding difficult. There is almost a second set of “church terms” that one needs to be familiar with to read that Bible. Our Shekgalagari New Testament used that Bible as a base text, making it familiar to the people, but in their own language in a way that we have already seen people understanding passages of Scripture in new ways,” Maruping shares.
The theme of the March 9 launch event was “Morimo o bola o logka o bua Shekgalagari boobo”, which translates to “God Speaks Shekgalagari too” – a powerful message that God speaks directly to the Bakgalagari people who have the heart language of Shekgalagari.
During the project, distance and COVID-19 provided hurdles to progress for the translation team:
“There is almost 1400 kilometers between the northern-most and southern-most villages where Shekgalagari is spoken, and many villages are remote and inaccessible without 4×4 vehicles. That makes travel to those areas difficult for things like community checking and distribution,” Maruping explains.
“Another challenge we faced was related to COVID-19 and the restrictions that were put in place here in Botswana. Restrictions on travel and movement between districts made it hard for us to get to areas for community checking and restrictions on the size and duration of public gatherings made our workshops shorter and less effective during those years.”
Partnering with Lutheran Bible Translators and Faith Comes by Hearing allowed the Bible Society in Botswana to also distribute audio Bibles alongside the physical Scriptures: “We are also excited about our audio recording and smartphone app that we hope will be a large factor in increasing the number of people who are able to read Shekgalagari; we have already seen promising results of that in another language project here in Botswana.”
The Bible Society in Botswana have now completed 2 New Testaments and 1 full Bible.
Everyone at the Bible Society is eager to see more lives impacted as they engage with the Bible in their own heart language. Among other projects, the Bible Society in Botswana are excited about the upcoming Wayeyi New Testament launch, expected late next year or early 2026:
“We are hoping to publish the Wayeyi New Testament in late 2025/early 2026. That project has had great success with some interim publications of the Gospels of Mark and Matthew; the smartphone apps and audio recording as helping people in the villages learn to read Shiyeyi and increasing the effectiveness of our community checking workshops.”
The Bible Society in Botswana’s public website is available here.
