Check This Out!

You can read about Wycliffe Bible Translators in Christianity Today! BUT for the WHOLE story about how Wycliffe DOES help fight poverty, read below!

Below is an excerpt from an e-mail we (as members of WBT) got today from Wycliffe's President, Bob Creson:

The May issue of Christianity Today magazine contains an encouraging article by John W. Kennedy called “The Not-for-Profit Surge” ( http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/may/15.22.html ). Subtitled “Even in tough times, your favorite charities are doing better than anyone expected,” the article reports that many parachurch ministries like Wycliffe, especially those that depend on “the missionary deputation model of raising funds,” are surviving the recession better than other organizations. Personal relationships and the opportunity to invest in ministries with tangible results make a huge difference.

I think you’ll be very encouraged by the article, too, but I suspect you’ll stumble, as I did, at one incidental statement: Wycliffe is described as having “little to do with fighting poverty.” The fact is that Wycliffe workers have been fighting poverty and providing new hope for individuals and communities ever since our work began.

He goes on to tell a personal story of a couple of weeks ago where he witnessed physical and community needs being met by Wycliffe Bible Translator missionaries.

Why wasn’t the author of the Christianity Today article aware of Wycliffe’s attention to the physical and economic needs of the people we serve? Probably because we haven’t done enough to present our work in this way. We’ve traditionally presented ourselves as Bible translators by choice and literacy specialists/linguists/researchers/community development workers more out of necessity. We’ve talked about spiritual results, but we haven’t said much about other kinds of results—at least as an organization. As individuals we’ve kept our partners informed of our ministry to the whole person, but as an organization we haven’t usually made a big deal of it.

Now it’s time to raise awareness of the impact our work makes beyond Bible translation. Certainly Bible translation is and always will be our primary focus. It’s the particular focus for reaching the nations entrusted to us, and others, by God, and I am not suggesting that we would dilute the public’s understanding of who we are.

But the facts are that Bible translation has never been done in a vacuum, and the results have never been measured purely in spiritual terms; it’s always been part of a larger package. It’s always included ministry to the community’s physical, social and economic needs, and that ministry—now called holistic ministry—is an increasingly important part of the story. For people today—especially younger people—meeting the needs of the whole person is a very high value. This is not something new that we need to add to our Bible translation ministry. It’s already there. We just need to learn to talk about it in today’s vocabulary, and let the truth be known. That’s what Wycliffe USA has begun to do.

In response to the comment in Christianity Today that we have little to do with fighting poverty, I wrote a letter to the editor, hoping to begin to address this misperception. Many are surprised, I said, to discover what gets started when Bible translation takes place in a community: literacy, education, improved healthcare, access to clean water, human rights, government relations, and community empowerment. All of these, of course, combat poverty.

If you would like your partners to know more about our holistic ministry in the context of Bible translation, you can find videos and stories on the internet. For stories, explore www.wycliffe.org and www.wycliffe.net . For short videos about ministries like health and trauma healing, go to http://www.tangle.com/Wycliffe or http://www.youtube.com/user/WycliffeUSA . For links to all Wycliffe USA social media, go to http://www.google.com/profiles/wycliffeusa .