New Church Life November/December 2016 | Page 58

new church life: november/december 2016 translations of the Writings in modern languages. We have 13 Portuguese translations in the system, 10 French, plus four each in Chinese and Korean, and several in Spanish, Dutch, German, Czech, Norwegian and Swedish. All are cross-linked to Bible translations in those languages, too. This is great, not just because it puts them out there for everyone to use, but it also supports the work of New Church ministers and lay people around the globe. What’s Coming Up? Long term, we are working on four main fronts: • We need the site to be a great place: • To read and explore the Word • To read and explore the Writings for the New Church • To find plain language explanations of the Word’s inner meaning and of doctrine • To study and learn, over the long run, either with other people or solo For each of those fronts, we need users to be able to work in their own comfortable language. That’s a big undertaking, but it’s really important. To be able to do these things requires pretty advanced software. It’s new; we’re trying to do something that’s quite unique. It costs money, so we need to keep fund-raising. (Huge thanks to everyone who has helped so far!) It also requires, we think, a crowd-sourced effort involving scores of New Church people. Yet, despite the need for a lot of work, we think this project is already providing a very high-leverage way to reach hundreds of thousands of people, and that it’s a springboard to much bigger things. Here’s what we’re working on now. One of our projects is called “The Writings for Everyone.” Essentially, we want to make the most of the already translated works of the Writings. It’s amazing how much translation has been done. The other day, Carroll Odhner told us there are works of the Writings in as many as 99 languages! Right now we are focused on importing works of the Writings in translations that: • Have digital versions already available • Are in reasonable shape to be imported • Have matching Bible translations in the same language • Have at least some New Church people who use that language who can be helpful resources We have a few more French ones to add, and we’re eagerly awaiting some Spanish translations. We’ve got much more to do in German, and we’re going 568