Presbyterian Moderator visits Wycliffe Office

What made my visit to Wycliffe Bible Translators so energising and interesting was the way the Wycliffe members understand the Bible as story.Their strap line is “The Bible: the Story everybody needs”, and they are enthusiastic about bringing that story to everyone.  And Wycliffe have set themselves the audacious goal of preparing a Bible translation in every language that needs it by 2025.

Stafford Carson

Today we welcomed Stafford Carson to the Belfast Wycliffe office: in the picture above are Evelyn Sloan & Stephanie Angus who work in the Belfast office; Dorothea Jeffrey (Bible translation consultant); myself; Stafford Carson and Stephen Fry (Chair of Wycliffe NI Council).

Why the visit? In June 2009 the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland recognised Wycliffe as one of a number of agencies doing what no one church or denomination can easily do, playing a vital role in the building of God’s Kingdom around the world. This is elaborated on the website of the Presbyterian Board of Mission Overseas:

Recognising the importance of Wycliffe Bible Translators, in Presbyterian Mission Overseas we are beginning to explore ways in which we can forge closer links with Wycliffe acting through its office in Belfast.
To this end, we commend the work of Wycliffe and would encourage our congregations to support them in any way they can.

We shared Wycliffe’s passion that everybody should have mother tongue access to God’s Word; our contention that God showed the way through the translation of himself from divinity into humanity through his Son Jesus Christ; the opportunities that we offered to churches and individuals to contribute to Wycliffe’s vision; and our involvement with BibleFresh.

Showing Stafford one of the New Testaments produced with NI input

Stafford left us with this encouragement:

I do hope that we can promote the work of Wycliffe across our denomination.