How to Pray for a Language Being Surveyed

Pray for the Survey

“…send some men to explore the land…see what the land is like and whether the people there are strong or weak, few or many.” (Numbers 13:2a,18, NLT)

Pray for a clear picture of how many languages are spoken in the area of survey.

Pray that a good cross-section of the people will be willing to provide examples of dialects and language(s) they speak and to answer questions about those dialects.

Pray that information supplied will be accurate.

Pray that people will be patient with and eager to help the surveyors.

Pray that people will not let local prejudices or antagonisms cause them to distort the data they give the surveyors.

Pray that the people talked to will be guided by God to offer critical information that surveyors did not know how to obtain.

Pray that those gathering data will be able to determine the areas in which each language is spoken and the best location for translation.

Pray for the People Group

“From one man He created all the nations throughout the whole earth. He decided beforehand which should rise and fall, and He determined their boundaries. His purpose in all this was that the nations should seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward Him and find Him...” (Acts 17:26-27a, NLT)

Pray that the people will be friendly, cooperative and quick to understand the purpose for the survey.

Pray that the group being surveyed will be eager to have their language written, as a means of preserving their culture and as a bridge to national and world languages and literature, including the Bible.

Pray those who are deeply searching for God will be among those contacted, and that they will speak up.

Pray that God will prepare the hearts of the people for the coming of the Word of God.

Pray that their participation in survey might inspire some of the people to be interested in future translation work.

Pray for the Future Translation

“Don’t forget to pray for us, too, that God will give us many opportunities to preach about His secret plan” (Colossians 4:3a, NLT)

Pray that God makes clear the best way for the Scripture to be brought to the group being surveyed, whether through an existing or new translation.

Pray for wisdom for those assigning priority to translations for different languages.

Pray for those making the most difficult decision of all--whether or not to translate for a given language still without Scripture.

Pray that no group surveyed will be left without Scripture.

Learn more about language survey.