The media cameras rolled in Wales as 150 children and their teachers gathered to watch faith hero Corrie ten Boom’s story last month as part of the Torchlighters Heroes of the Faith series. How did Torchlighters catch the public eye in Wales? Corrie and Betsie ten Boom were speaking Welsh; a rare find in today’s world.
The children came from four local Welsh-speaking schools and eagerly gathered to watch Corrie’s story in their own language, a treat since Welsh language digital resources are rare and Christian ones even more so. Most students and teachers in the secular schools had never heard Corrie’s story before—and now they could hear her testimony in their language. Thanks to the efforts of one of their teachers, they learned of Corrie’s faithful courage in hiding Jews in WWII Holland, her imprisonment in a work camp, and her forgiveness of the very people who tortured her. The schools were able to use the video for combined history and religious education lessons.
Welsh speakers are a minority in Wales (a part of the United Kingdom)—only 23%. Culture Trip shares that Welsh is one of the oldest living languages in Europe, but its survival has been threatened many times as English gained prominence. With the help of Corrie and Betsie ten Boom’s new fluent Welsh, school children in Wales are now able to learn their country’s language while also seeing the light of Jesus through Corrie and Betsie’s courageous faith.
Torchlighters tell amazing true stories of Christian heroes from history and our partners’ work to translate their stories into more and more languages is spreading their stories even further. If you happen to be one of the rare people who read Welsh, you can learn about the Welsh language ministry responsible for this awesome translation on Beibl.net!
If you want to hear what those school children heard, you can watch Corrie and Betsie speaking fluent Welsh in this video. For English speakers, you can find lessons of faith based on the life of Christian hero Corrie ten Boom on our watch page.
