Rvwang New Testament & Literacy

• Location: Myanmar
• Pronunciation: Rah-wong
• Target Completion Date: 2036

An isolated people group named the Rvwang, numbering around 70,000, lives in the extreme north of Myanmar, bordering China. An estimated 80% of the population profess Christianity, 45% of whom claim to be evangelical. They are a primarily agricultural community with little or no technology available and a 30%-60% literacy rate. The older generation remains more literate in the language than the younger population, because primary schools do not teach the Rvwang language.

Baptist missionaries originally evangelized the Rvwang people in the early 1900s. Bibles International contacted the Rvwang people through the ministry of Baptist Mid-Missions missionary James Garlow in 1985. Seeing the critical need for literacy improvement, Dr. Henry and Anne Osborn, along with BI literacy consultant Clarissa Barton, published a literacy primer in 1991. However, the literacy work remained dormant for over ten years because of other Rvwang groups attempting their own literacy endeavors.

BI reconnected with the Rvwang people through the efforts of Dr. Timothy Mang in 2002. Several church associations requested additional literacy materials and a new translation that would replace the current paraphrased Rvwang Bible, which many of the Rvwang deemed inadequate. BI adopted the Rvwang Bible translation project in 2012 and agreed to produce a requested Writers' Handbook.

BI literacy consultants worked diligently with the Rvwang literature committee, producing a Writers' Handbook in 2019. The Writers' Handbook aids the Rvwang in the development of their writing and helps them produce higher quality translation and literacy materials. It will also enable the believers to write gospel literature for themselves in the future. After printing the Old Testament Storybook 1 in 2015, the literacy team printed Storybook 2 and Storybook 3 in 2020, while putting the finishing touches on Storybook 4, which went to press in 2023.

The Rvwang translation team, with the assistance of BI resident consultants, produced a trial edition of the books of Matthew and James in 2019.

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