The first local church was established in the year 2003 in Colombo, the capital city of Sri Lanka. A faithful couple whom the Lord had gained at this time was used by Him to go around the city to place the ministry books in English in bookshops in various cities. They also handled the Rhema distribution work in collaboration with India. The feedback was not significant as only about 23.8 per cent speak English.

As the churches began to expand in Sri Lanka, the need for the ministry books to be translated to Sinhala began to be felt deeply. The official languages of Sri Lanka are Sinhala, Tamil, and English, the last of these being widely used for education, scientific, and commercial purposes. Since ministry materials in Tamil were available from India, our burden was to translate them into Sinhala, which is spoken by 70% of the population. However, it was not until 2012 that the Lord gave us a sister as an additional translator, not to mention her gracious family being supportive of her commitment because of much prayer and petition. This sister, proficient in both Sinhala and English, took a deep interest in the ministry books. Coming from a Christian denomination and prior to that from a Buddhist background and having authored several books on Buddhism, she was very much enlightened by the content of the books, and within relatively a short period of time, the seven Rhema-distributed books (Basic Elements of the Christian Life, Vols. 1, 2, 3, The All-inclusive Christ, The Economy of God, The Knowledge of Life, and The Glorious Church) were translated into Sinhala in coordination with the Rhema serving ones of both USA and India.

Subsequently, we were able to print 200 copies of each of the seven Rhema books for the benefit of the Sinhala-speaking saints spread throughout the local churches for their enjoyment and edification. This also helped develop the reading habit of the saints, who were more acquainted with merely listening to preachers than receiving enlightenment of the word through prayer and study.

Then, beginning in June last year, with the help of Rhema co-workers serving in the United States and India and by the grace of God, we ventured into advertising the Sinhala Rhema-distributed books online. As a result, it took no longer than half a year for us to find that 45,721 readers have browsed our online page and that from among them thirty had expressed their great appreciation of our page, while 1,413 posted their comments. Many of these were negative partly because Sri Lanka is predominantly a Buddhist country. (But it is not without religious tolerance altogether.) However, what is very encouraging to us is that 2,651 people furnished complete information to us and were willing to subscribe to our publications. In February 2021 we also received from India a thousand copies of the first volume in Tamil of the Rhema-distributed books, of which two hundred copies were distributed among the saints.

Finally, we are indeed joyful and indebtedly thankful to the Lord for having graced us with boldness to undertake the serious and extremely difficult task of translating the New Testament Recovery Version into Sinhala. We are thankful to LSM for their tireless and enduring support in love to help us in this, beginning with training three saints in a one-year Greek course to equip them with the required competency. This half-decade or so project was joyfully launched on May 1, 2021. In the meantime, the Lord provided another brother for the typesetting work. He too underwent a short course in India conducted by LSM there. Therefore, we are all the more joyful that the Gospel of Matthew is now nearly ready to be printed as a provisional publication as a foretaste for the saints eagerly awaiting it. The translation and proofreading of the Gospels of Mark, Luke, and John, and the book of Acts, including the verses, the footnotes, and the outlines, have been completed. We are blessed with three dedicated saints serving full-time on the translation of the Sinhala New Testament Recovery Version. We pray that the Sovereign Lord will preserve their spirit, soul, and body in this work. We ask the saints everywhere to join us in this prayer not only for the Sinhala New Testament Recovery Version but also for all the literature work in Sri Lanka unto the praise of the glory of His grace in His economy here and unto eternity.

At present we have nearly 22 local churches spread throughout the northern, eastern, north central, central and western regions of Sri Lanka and if God is willing three more churches are likely to be established shortly within these regions. The Tamil speaking saints of the northern and eastern regions benefit immensely from the translated ministry material available from India. In this respect, we thank the Lord for their contribution through translated ministry material. The Tamil-speaking saints in these churches are now eagerly waiting to receive the printed Tamil New Testament Recovery Version due next month. Saints will certainly be blessed and be duly fed and nourished with its unique footnotes to the same degree the English-speaking saints now enjoy. The quality of church life will assuredly be increased and thereby the testimony also strengthened. The saints treasure the preciousness of the footnotes and the outlines of the Recovery Version with the further help of the life study series without which the Word of God cannot be fully enjoyed with joy unspeakable full of glory much the same way that the Ethiopian eunuch glorified God after Philip explained to him the portion in Isaiah the latter was struggling to understand.

The majority of the Sinhala-speaking saints in the local churches spread throughout the rest of the regions, also in like manner, enjoy the translated ministry material despite limited resources of translated material. They heavily depend on co-workers constituted with the truths to minister to them according to the ministry of this age. Nevertheless, we endeavor by the grace of God, to bring home to the saints, the riches of Christ, for their enjoyment by giving them the truths of the ministry through conferences, online or physical, held at least three times every month for all the churches in Sri Lanka. They enjoy the enlightenment of these truths to such an extent that recently nearly all the responsible brothers from distant areas gathered for such a meeting in a remote village despite severe transportation turmoil prevailing throughout the country for lack of availability of petrol or diesel to run even a motorcycle. Some sisters also in the meantime willingly came there, and prepared a very rich meal notwithstanding the rising cost and short supply of food items. Furthermore, the sisters themselves on their own requested to participate to enjoy such a meeting in the afternoon. They said that they had never heard these truths while they were in their former Christian communities. They sighed in relief when they hear the truths of this ministry, but when they practice these truths they also face opposition and persecution amidst joy on behalf of His testimony.

The majority who are Sinhala-speaking saints are now eagerly awaiting the day when they will possess a copy of the New Testament Recovery Version in Sinhala. Despite translation work being steadily in progress, they may have to endure probably about three more years before they receive a copy of their own. However, as a foretaste, the book of Matthew will soon be printed as a provisional publication, which will bring much joy to them. May the Lord bless, preserve, and bountifully grace the good work of the LSM Literature ministry among other services and the laboring saints, for building up the body of Christ, for His good pleasure. We thank and praise the Lord for this unto His eternal glory.