Daniel Delma and Elizabeth Delma

I was born on February 4th, 1948, and was named Daniel by my parents, Pastor Dabila Delma and Yabre Oubda, they wished I would become a good servant of God as Daniel was.

Before I was 7, my father taught me how to read the scripture in Moore, our language. I was able to read the four gospels before going to school, and I helped my father teach the new converts how to read the scriptures when I was ten.

In 1965, when I was in secondary school, I received the call of God. I accepted my call, but I had to wait for the right moment to go to a Bible school. I went on October 1968 and graduated in May 1971.

I married Elisabeth in the same year on June 12th, and we started our ministry straight away. By God’s grace, we have seven children, three daughters and four sons, all saved and almost all are helping in churches. We have four grandchildren.

I served in my father’s church in Zabre then I opened a Christian school for the Assemblies of God church in October 1971, and served as the pastor of the church. After two years I came back to Ouagadougou where I served in three different churches, two as a helper and one as founder.

From 1964 to 1969 I was interpreting for French missionaries that preached the good news. In 1970, I first translated a book into Moore, “Calvary Road”, and I discovered that this was my call to translate, write books and teach people. So I translated all our Sunday school lessons into Moore from that time until 1985. I translated the International Correspondence Institute (ICI) lessons
into Moore too, and Pilgrim’s Progress, the children’s version.

From 1978 to 1983, I received training in linguistics and translation, and Bible Greek for translation purposes. I tried Hebrew, but I could not go far because of the cost.

I am a member of the Burkina Faso Assemblies of God National board since 1979 as an assistant secretary of the executive committee.

After improving my English by intensive courses, I was involved in Bible translation projects with the Bible Alliance from 1991 to 1998 when the contract was broken. But from 1999 to January 2007 I worked on the Full Life Study Bible translation into Moore, and the dedication was on January 29, 2007.

I started a new church on May 16th, 1999, named Eliel Church. By God’s grace we are almost 300 attending church there. The church is built on the property of a Christian private school I opened in October 2002. We have 6 classrooms now, with about 400 students that hear the word of God 15 minutes each school day.

Eliel church initiated a training center to help widows, orphans, abandoned children and hard living women. We try to find sponsors for the poorest children and the orphans. We feed many widows, orphans and needy people.

In addition to that, God joined Jerry Swanson’s and my path together since 1992, with the same burden on helping in church building, giving food in times of hunger or to needy people. By God’s grace we have been able to build almost 400 church roofs all over the country of Burkina Faso. God is using him mightily to build His kingdom and to bring relief in many families lives.

Daniel Delma