“Have we done something wrong?” our Maldivian friends used to ask after we hadn’t managed to visit them for just over a week. Maldivians (also called Dhivehis) are very hospitable, and our friends loved to serve tea and delicious food to us any time of the day and as often as we found time to come by.

The Maldives are a chain of 26 atolls with hundreds of beautiful islands southwest of India and Sri Lanka in the Indian Ocean. They are a paradise for tourists, but behind the curtain of external beauty, there is much need and spiritual darkness. The Maldives are by law a 100% Muslim nation without religious freedom. Corruption, divorce, abuse of women and girls, and drug addiction are widespread. Drug addicts and dealers may be sentenced to long terms in jail, but that doesn’t solve the problem.

Only very few Maldivians know Jesus as their Savior. After more than twenty years of Bible translation still only parts of the Bible are available in Maldivian (or Dhivehi). It has always been difficult to find native speakers able and willing to help with translation and proofreading due to fear of the authorities, reservations towards the Bible or religious convictions.