He choked up, started to cry, and we all joined in!

They had been working on the New Testament translation for many years. They were consultant checking the final book – Revelation. The consultant said, “That’s it!”

What happens next? Anti-climax, exhaustion, relief, celebration..?

One of the national translators was asked to pray.

That was it: he choked up, started to cry, and we all joined in! There were prayers, but I’m sure the Lord listened to our overflowing thankful hearts more than our words.

Revelation 3:7 says that no door God opens can be shut; it may start to creak as it closes but it is only for a while and it never fully closes before he fully opens it.

And so we rejoice with this translation team; we give thanks to God; we pray for the typesetting and printing; we look forward to the day when this language group will dedicate and celebrate God’s Word in their heart language… and we continue to remember 1,967 languages that are still waiting for the translation to start.

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Changed the world recently?

No, I thought not. We rarely do, come to think of it. But God does… all the time and the wonderful, exciting, scary thing is that he wants us to be part of it. Part of his mission to the world he created.

I really appreciated Eddie Arthur’s recent post We Are Not World Changers

Eddie wrote the blog in response to seeing a number of tweets and articles from churches and mission agencies claiming that the people involved in them are changing the world. Eddie was not convinced.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe that these people are not wonderful, hard-working, dedicated and well-intentioned. I just don’t believe that they are changing the world. Oh, and I don’t believe that the world isn’t being changed. I just don’t believe that they are the ones changing it.

A few years ago a colleague and I got a bit annoyed with more than one mission agency whose advertising encouraged people to believe that by going on their short term summer teams, they could make a difference.

I think we would both have agreed with Eddie’s thesis…

Let me explain. When Christian ministry (be it through a church or mission agency) is successful  it is God who achieves that success; not the church or agency. Paul planted, Apollos watered, but God caused the seed to grow. God calls us to work alongside him. He uses our efforts – the slick and professional as well as the gauche and embarrassed - to bring glory to himself. We serve God and God changes the world.

As we get together tomorrow as a Wycliffe Bible Translators church engagement team, my prayer is that we will look to God and listen to his promptings as he invites us to be part of enthusing the UK and Irish churches to be part of God’s mission to his world through Bible translation.

What a privilege to be invited by God to work alongside him!

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A wee office in East Belfast…

… not too far from where there have been six nights of demonstration and rioting.

Flag riots East Belfast

Normally it’s pretty quiet around here. We just get on with our work – praying for and promoting the work of Bible translation throughout the world today. We get on with it by day and stay away from the area by night.

This week has been interesting. The office is pretty quiet this afternoon as I sit here writing this all alone, but it’s been fairly busy all week.

An American / N. Irish couple has started work this week having returned from assignment in the Philippines. They join our other staff (all N. Irish… OK, one has her English husband) who have worked in Ivory Coast, Mali, Democratic Republic of Congo and Senegal. Another N. Irish member has been visiting from his flying assignment in Australia. An Argentinian couple popped in the other day for a chat.

Some of these are preparing to move on: to further study before returning to Senegal; to take up a new role in West Africa; another to Cambodia – but that’s just for a wedding and he’ll be back. He deserves a break having just completed the production, printing and distribution of 4,000 copies of our local news and prayer magazine Wycliffe News.

And of course in the background, there has been Andy, our friendly IT man, sorting out our computers remotely from England.

Church elders have been here too this week: two with our Australia assigned pilot and another who was on a trip with me 10 years ago to Cameroon.

As I say, it’s noisy down the road of an evening and that’s what makes the headlines. God’s work tends to go on quietly under the media radar.

Me? I’m delighted that we have two final year university students applying for linguistic / literacy roles when they graduate – and an A level student wanting a GAP year role somewhere to use his IT skills to help Bible translation. And three more A level students are coming for work experience in the next few weeks.

God is working away in a wee office in East Belfast. Isn’t it brilliant?

Take a look at what we do in Wycliffe Bible Translators UK here.

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One Little Vowel…

… or how God ‘dvu’-ed the world!

It was just about bedtime when I got a Facebook message from a friend and former Wycliffe short termer.

Hi Uncle John!

Ages ago you posted a link to a story about vowels…! I think it was changing vowels at the end of the word ‘love’ in a particular language changed the meaning and this is how they discovered about God’s love. Does this sound familiar?!? If so, could you tell me where to find the story as I’d like to share it at house group on weds. Thanks!

It wasn’t much to go on, but a few minutes research produced the answer. It was a brilliant story from Cameroon about how a Wycliffe translator was inspired by a dream to find the key to understanding God’s love in the Hdi culture. Here’s an extract…

Lee asked the Hdi translation committee, which included the most influential leaders in the community, “Could you ‘dvi’ your wife?”  “Yes,” they said. That would mean that the wife had been loved but the love was gone.

“Could you ‘dva’ your wife?” “Yes,” they said. That kind of love depended on the wife’s actions. She would be loved as long as she remained faithful and cared for her husband well.

“Could you ‘dvu’ your wife?”  Everyone laughed. “Of course not!  If you said that, you would have to keep loving your wife no matter what she did, even if she never got you water, never made you meals. Even if she committed adultery, you would be compelled to just keep on loving her. No, we would never say ‘dvu.’ It just doesn’t exist.”

Lee sat quietly for a while, thinking about John 3:16, and then he asked, “Could God ‘dvu’ people?”

One little vowel ending to a verb opened up the understanding of God’s love for the Hdi people in Christ. Read the whole story here on the Wycliffe Global Alliance website.

I honestly can’t remember where my young friend picked this story up from me, but since the celebration of Jesus’ birth as a human baby is so imminent, it seems appropriate to blog it (maybe) again.

 

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Ears to hear?

I was at this conference last week with Wycliffe colleague John Young and we both found it thoroughly worthwhile and challenging.

Over 80 people had ears to hear!

Last Wednesday 28 November, Presbyterian Mission Overseas held a special conference entitled “Ears to hear?” to give people the opportunity to hear how God is calling men and women to build his Kingdom in their particular culture and context – Asia, Africa and eastern Europe.

It was also a time for PCI members to listen carefully and learn from our partners, seeking to discern what God might be saying to us.

The main speakers were leaders from around the world, who are currently receiving sponsorship for their studies in the UK from PCI:-

• Jorum Mugari – Zimbabwe
• Andor Ferko & Zsuzsi Soos – Romania
• Maqsood Kamil -Pakistan

The Moderator, Rt Rev Dr Roy Patton, led devotions at the beginning of the conference and worship was led by three of PCI’s current leaders-in-training – Andor Ferko, Zsuzsi Soos and Peter Jenei (from Hungary).

Over 80 people from various congregations attended the conference, which concluded with lunch.

I appreciated the summing up one liners from three BMO people:

Lord, give us time, give us wisdom, and give us strength.  Gordon Campbell

Lord, help us never to leave your promises no matter what happens to us in Ireland.  Helen Johnston

The Gospel is transformation. Transformation begins with repentance. Give us repentant hearts.  Mark Welch

 

 

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Evelyn Sloan 18 May 1949 – 27 October 2012

A godly lady, a caring and gentle friend and a wonderful work colleague!

Evelyn Sloan, a member of Wycliffe Bible Translators for 27 years, died on Saturday 27 October 2012. I was asked to speak at the funeral yesterday at St Mary’s Parish Church, Dundonald on behalf of her Wycliffe colleagues. This is what I said.

Since sending out news that Evelyn had passed away on Saturday afternoon, I have received many messages from Wycliffe colleagues via e-mail and Facebook. Some of these colleagues are here today; others are abroad and have asked me to pass on their sympathies to the family.

In these messages, the same words kept appearing: caring, welcoming, lovely, gentle, humble, godly. Evelyn showed Christ to other people.

Evelyn’s desk in the Belfast office is still referred to as “Evelyn’s desk” – no one else has permanently occupied it since she retired. Quite often recently I have looked up from my desk, looked through the open door and across the space to Evelyn’s empty desk. I miss Evelyn in the office.

Why? Quite simply because Evelyn Sloan was a godly lady, a caring and gentle friend, a wonderful colleague.

As Ruth and I drove to Donegal on Sunday morning, we listened to a CD in the car. It’s called Waymarks: Songs for the Journey produced by the Northumbria Community. As we listened and sang along, we thought – these words are so appropriate to Evelyn.

I would like to share these Scripture based words with you. The song is called Brother, sister, let me serve you.

Brother, sister let me serve you.
Let me be as Christ to you.
Pray that I might have the grace
To let you be my servant, too.

We are pilgrims on a journey.
We are brothers on the road.
We are here to help each other
Walk the mile and bear the load.

I will hold the Christ-light for you
In the night time of your fear.
I will hold my hand out to you;
Speak the peace you long to hear.

I will weep when you are weeping.
When you laugh, I’ll laugh with you.
I will share your joy and sorrow
Till we’ve seen this journey through.

When we sing to God in heaven,
We shall find such harmony
Born of all we’ve known together
Of Christ’s love and agony.

Brother, sister let me serve you.
Let me be as Christ to you.
Pray that I might have the grace
To let you be my servant, too.

Richard Gillard  © 1977 Scripture in Song

That’s what Evelyn did throughout her years with Wycliffe Bible Translators: first at the UK Centre in England; then in Nairobi; latterly in the Belfast office. Evelyn served others.

And so I say to Evelyn’s family and to her St Mary’s family… today with you, her Wycliffe family thanks God for a godly lady, a caring and gentle friend, and a wonderful work colleague!

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“What do you have? …Ok, I can use that!” Jesus

For the disciples in Matthew 15 it was:

“What do you have?”

“Seven loaves and a few fishes…”

“Ok, I can use that.”

And Jesus fed 4,000 plus people in a deserted area in Gentile territory – and continued the process of teaching them who he was and what he was about.

For me and my wife, almost 25 years ago, it was:

“What do you have?”

“Seventeen years teaching experience in Belfast…”

“Ok, I can use that.”

And Jesus led us into Wycliffe Bible Translators and took us to a boarding school for missionary children in a very rural environment where we taught some wonderful children of equally wonderful missionary colleagues for eight years.

First year at Vavoua International School

I’ve been thinking about this idea since last Sunday morning…

Jesus says: what do you have that I can use? So you can help me in my mission to the world that I created.

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“But can you embrace a četnik?”

Radovan Karadzic

Driving to the office this morning, I listened to a report of the opening of the Radovan Karadzic trial at The Hague. Karadzic denies 10 charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity during the war in the 1990s.

The genocide charge against him relates to the deaths of more than 7,000 Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) men and boys in Srebrenica in 1995. It was the worst atrocity in Europe since the end of World War II.

Later in the office, I read this morning’s episode of the account of Joseph’s life in Genesis 42 on SU WordLive. One of the commentaries referred to comments from the Croatian theologian Miroslav Volf’s memories of the 1990s in the Balkans.

Croatian theologian Miroslav Volf has explored deeply the theology of forgiveness and reconciliation. His book Exclusion and Embrace grew out of his own experience of the brutal wars that engulfed the Balkans after the collapse of communism. In the Introduction he writes:

‘After I finished my lecture Professor Jürgen Moltmann stood up and asked one of his typical questions, both concrete and penetrating: “But can you embrace a četnik?” It was the winter of 1993.

For months now the notorious Serbian fighters called “četnik” had been sowing desolation in my native country, herding people into concentration camps, raping women, burning down churches and destroying cities. I had just argued that we ought to embrace our enemies as God has embraced us in Christ. Can I embrace a četnik – the ultimate other, so to speak, the evil other? What would justify the embrace? Where would I draw the strength for it? What would it do to my identity as a human being and as a Croat?’

(M Volf, Exclusion and Embrace, Abingdon, 1996)

The Joseph story in Genesis is about lots of things: about how God was working through one family to prepare a people who would ultimately have the responsibility to bless the surrounding nations and point them to God; about how God was working through others including Ishmaelite slave traders and the Egyptian Pharaoh to bring his plans to fruition.

But at the personal level, God was teaching Joseph about forgiveness and reconciliation… and reading this story prompts us to consider the importance of forgiveness and reconcilation in our own lives.

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Elvis is alive and well and translating the Bible in Central African Republic!

And Elvis was an atheist!

Sorry, not this Elvis, the Elvis of the album cover, but Elvis Guenekean! Elvis, from Central African Republic, was an eager student of humanistic philosophy and dead set against the Christian faith.  But as he got involved in translating the Scriptures into his own language and, as his Christian wife persistently prayed for him, God’s Word brought Elvis into a relationship with Jesus. That’s why Wycliffe Bible Translators do what we do!

There are lots of great stories around the Wycliffe Bible Translators websites and blogs at the moment, but I really enjoyed this one about Elvis Guenekean from the Central African Republic.

Wycliffe colleagues working on this project have come home to UK and Elvis is now leading the project!

Elvis Guenekean

The whole story can be read here on the Wycliffe UK Blog.

 

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The Impact of an Irishman’s Prayer

Did you read my recent blog about the Irishman from Belfast who prayed for 62 years for a people group in Brazil?

Canela village from the air

 

He spent sixty-two years of his life talking to God about the Canela people of Brazil – twenty two of those praying for a Canadian couple  who helped translate the Bible into the Canela language?

Today I have discovered who the man from Belfast was!

Amazingly I have known his son Paul for over 30 years; I taught two of his grandsons Mark and David in Belfast before I joined Wycliffe Bible Translators. This afternoon Paul gave me a copy of his father’s autobiography.

WATCH THIS SPACE

11 August 1990 Canela people at the distribution festival of the partial Bible into their language.

Meanwhile why not read the original article that got me interested in the story at wycliffe.net – and then get in touch with the Wycliffe office in your country, ask for the name of a language still without God’s Word and get praying! There are still over 2,000 of them!

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