For Christians in the Middle East, witnessing isn’t always easy. In this part of the world, believers find a need for contextualized materials that can reach children, especially. Among many efforts made, one of recent origin is translating the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s “GraceLink” Sabbath School curriculum into Arabic.

The six-year-old GraceLink materials have been credited with giving children more creative Sabbath School programs, church leaders note. The innovative activities and contemporary illustrations combined with upbeat stories aid Sabbath School teachers for the birth-to-fourteen age group.

“It also gave a boost to family worship since parents could use the material during the week to help develop their children’s spiritual habits in an engaging way,” says Valerie Fidelia, Children’s Ministries director for the Adventist Church in the Middle East.

However, while the materials were fresh and exciting, they were in English.

“We taught the children’s Sabbath School teachers, those who knew some English, how to use the new materials, and some even used the teaching techniques in their classrooms in Primary School, but English is not widely spoken in the Middle East,” says Fidelia.

The vision of the church’s Middle East office was not only to have GraceLink translated into Arabic but also adapted to reflect the local cultural setting.

“We searched around for some financial assistance, but having [priced] the job we knew that we could not come up with the necessary funding on our own,” says Fidelia, who encouraged church members in Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq to make it a matter of earnest prayer.

In April 2005, Anne-May Wollan, Trans-European church region Children’s Ministries director, accompanied by Fidelia, visited Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan for Children’s Ministries training events. Wollan realized that without the Sabbath School lessons in Arabic the children could not be reached. She resolved to make it a matter of priority to help find funding.

Alex Elmadjian, communication director for the Adventist Church in the Middle East, considers this a breakthrough for the Arab World: “There is a crying need for culturally appropriate materials designed for the 337 million people in the Middle East and North Africa for whom Arabic is their mother tongue. I am proud that our church is taking this important step for the children of this region. For years many of them had to endure Sabbath School programs centered around a dated picture roll depicting mostly pale-skinned Bible characters!”

While the project is underway, additional funding is being solicited for printing and distribution. The initial phase of the venture will be to place electronic versions of the materials on the Internet to be downloaded locally as needed.