Easter praise

On your marks

Some simple songs of worship are sung all around the Christian world and translate fairly easily into the local language. One such song is the chorus ‘God is so good’ (for the music see Junior Praise 53 and Kid’s Source 78). This is a song that is soon learned, so your group can enjoy singing it in many other languages. This can be a way to start talking about how the Christian faith has spread right around the world, and today many people are followers of Jesus from ever tribe, culture and nation.

Get set

There are simple actions that often accompany the words. These are usually:

God… pointing up

Good… thumbs up

to me… point back to yourself

What follows are the words in various languages from different parts of the Christian world. As part of a focus on the Christian faith worldwide, different children or groups of adults and children could learn to perform these verses. If possible, each group should hold some symbol, flag or piece of craft from the appropriate country, to add colour and depth to the presentation.

If you have particular links to people in another part of the world, make sure you include their language – and if it’s not below, maybe an email to someone out there can help fill the gap!

Have a world map or atlas to hand so you can show the group where each of these languages is spoken.

Go!

Swahili: Mungu ni mwema (x 3), ni mwema wangu

French: Mon Dieu est si bon (x 3), Il est bon a moi

Sudanese: Ngun a lo’but (x 3), lepeng nyanyar nan

German: Mein Gott ist so gut (x 3), er ist gut zu mir

Kirundi: Yemw’ l-mana (x 3), yacu ni nzi-za (spoken n in Burundi)

Urdu: Khudawand bhala hai (x 3), bhala hai Yesu (spoken in Pakistan)

Russian: Bog tak veleek (x 3), ohn menyah lyubeet

Rukiga: Ruhanga ni murungi (x 3), ni murungi wangye (spoken in south west Uganda)

Romanian: Domnul este bun (x 3), este bun pentru noi

Kinyarwanda: Imana ni nzi-za (x 3), ni nzi-za cya-ne (spoken in Rwanda)

English: God is so good (x 3), he is so good to me

Japanese: Shu wa su-ba-ra-shii (x 3),Wa-ta-shi no Shu

Tamil: Jesu Nallavar (x 3), Nallavar Yenakku (to you = nallavar unakku; to us = nallavar namakku)

Nigeria: Oluwa dara (x 3), dara fun mi (in the Yoruba language)

Spanish: Dios es bueno (x3 ), es bueno para mi

Pidgin: God I gut pela (x 3), God I gut long mi (spoken in Papua New Guinea)

Nepal: Ishwar asal chan (x 3), malai dyya gharchan

Sudan: Rabuna kweis (x 3), Bihibu ana (Arabic)