In 1958, Ron and Stella Heath were put in touch with some visually impaired young people at a training centre in Surrey near where they lived. They looked for braille material to help these people grow in faith. They found Ada Trench who lived in Cumbria and produced a Christian braille magazine called ‘Torch’. They purchased some of the magazines and in time Ada asked them to take over the editing. Stella and Ron came to realise that the ‘Torch’ magazine was a vital resource for Christians locally and internationally.

In 2011 the language of braille which was varied and added to the problems of resources and the sharing of, was modified to UEB for all English speaking countries. This makes creating resources much easier and gives them a wider range of users. In 2024 it is noted that although there have been improvements in the resources available there is still no NIV Bible available in the new version. The plan is to transcribe the NIV Bible but investment is needed in transcribing the text and in production of the braille. A full Bible consists of 40 volumes of braille.

The United Bible Society has agreed to donate towards the cost of transcribing the text, which is a wonderful step forward in this project. If you think you can help towards these costs and so make God’s word available easily to visually impaired people then please donate via their website https://torchtrust.org/support-us/donate/ or write a cheque payable to ‘Hornchurch PCC’ and write ‘COM Torch Trust’ on the back, and deliver to St Andrew’s Church, where it will be collated and a donation given to the charity at the end of the month.

Arlene Trump