Thirteen-year-old Daniel didn’t go looking for fame. He just wanted to share something he loved.
After reading a chapter from a freshly translated portion of the Kuku Bible, Daniel pulled out his phone, recorded himself reading it aloud, and posted the video online. Other Kuku young people watched it. Then they liked it, and then they commented. The video spread across the community, and suddenly Daniel, a teenager from Uganda, had become an unlikely ambassador for God’s Word in his own language.
This kind of moment doesn’t take place without years of quiet, faithful work happening long before the camera starts rolling.
Daniel grew up in the Kuku community in Uganda, where boys his age help their families grow food, hunt for wild animals, and celebrate a successful day with singing and dancing. Life is rich with story and community. But for most of Daniel’s childhood, one kind of story was missing entirely: Bible stories in Kuku.
It’s not that Daniel’s community didn’t know God. In fact, many Kuku people are Christians. They gathered in churches, sang hymns, and heard sermons. But the Scriptures they carried were written in a language that wasn’t quite their own, read in words that didn’t reach all the way to their hearts. That’s the gap that exists when a community doesn’t yet have God’s Word in their mother tongue.
Daniel’s father, Pastor Francis, felt that gap deeply. He wanted his son, and everyone in his church and community, to know God through the Bible in words they could truly understand. So he became a Bible translator.
Translation work is an involved process that doesn’t happen overnight. Translating the New Testament requires mastering the source languages, understanding the cultural and theological weight of every passage, and carefully choosing words that are accurate, clear, and natural in Kuku. Pastor Francis and his team have been at it for years, sharing each completed book with their villages as soon as it’s ready, knowing that people are waiting.
When Scripture finally arrives in someone’s mother tongue, something shifts. The familiar stories take on new depth, and the promises feel more personal. That’s the power of heart language Scripture, and it’s why we exist.
Daniel experienced that shift. After reading from the Kuku Bible, he didn’t just feel inspired. He wanted others to feel it too. So he recorded that video, and it went viral.
Now other young people in his community are joining him, opening the translated Scriptures and finding that God actually speaks to them, in their language, in their generation.
Daniel’s community is still years away from having the complete Bible in Kuku. But thanks to translators like Pastor Francis, supported by partners around the world, Kuku kids are growing up hearing, reading, and understanding God’s Word.
