Making New Paths for Expressing the Christian Gospel

A Christian would not want to say in praise of God:
"I repented of my sin, placed my faith in Christ, who redeemed me. And now God has forgiven me. I am saved!" The experience of salvation includes all of this. It is a mystery repeated time and time again as countless millions hear the Gospel and believe. Some also read it in their language, but most hear and believe based on an oral explanation of who Jesus is and what he did on the cross for those he came to save.
The Nzime had ways of saying this, but no awareness of them. The words in bold characters were very difficult to translate when we arrived in 1976:
"I repented of my sin, placed my faith in Christ, who redeemed me. And now God has forgiven me. I am saved!"
Imagine removing them! "I ...of my ..., ... in Christ, who ... me. And now God has ... me. I am ...!"
What is left of your testimony if you cannot say these key ideas of the Gospel?
"Repent": It was a term that was frequently rendered as "turn heart". This conveys half of the meaning, but leaves out the important aspect-- turning away from something. The solution was to add this missing element by saying "show:back to evil and turn heart".
"Sin": In common use, Nzime people neutralized "bad things/evil" and "sin". The latter term was little known and little used. We discovered it during the revision process and have been restoring it to prominence. Passive knowledge of the word has become active knowledge. It is syom in Nzime, syem in Badwe'e.
"Place faith in": This as undifferentiated from "believe/trust as speaking the truth". The way we ended up finding the right way to convey the meaning of this idea was through a study of oral literature. In Nzime, they render it "lean your back" against Jesus. In Badwe'e, they talk about "leaning the drying rack of your hopes" against him.
"redeem" : This was rendered by a word borrowed from Bulu. In Badwe'e, they use a different expression: "to remove from being in hock without any further risk". This employs the use of an ideophone that indicates that what was expected to be difficult, i.e. redeeming the item in hock, was actually easy.
"forgive" : This is indicated by the use of the expression "remove the tokens of evil deeds that are bent out against us". This is used when the sins forgiven are not publicly proclaimed. They are recognized and made note of by the offended party, who mentally "bends a finger" that assists him in keeping a record of the wrongs committed.