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When our language helper, Lilee, asked me what kind of meat I like to eat, I attempted to say “kai kap muu kap NGUA” (chicken and pork and beef). But instead, I came up with ‘kai kap muu kap NGU” (chicken and pork and SNAKE)! Lilee gave me a funny look and replied in English, “Really?!” –K.R, Laos

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Our language tutor was teaching us to pray in the Indonesian language. We write out our prayer for his review and then read/pray them before class begins. My wife was thanking God for his mercy, but omitted an “h” sound in the middle of the word. She thanked God for his spider webs instead! —D.C.

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After dismissing his congregation, a missionary in Germany went to the back door to greet people as they left. He greeted each member with a handshake and smile and told them, “Gutten nackt.” They realized that he meant to say “Gutten nacht” meaning good night, but grinned or snickered because he had actually said good naked. The preacher was greatly embarrassed when a member at the end of the line corrected him. —Christine

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A basic conversation goes something like this: Sabaidii! Jao sabaidii baww? (Hello, how are you?)

Khoi sabaidii. Jao dee? (I’m fine. [How are] you?)

Khoi sabaidii. (I’m fine.)

It’s a good thing Jon was only practicing his language skills because instead of saying,

Jao dee (How are you?), he accidentally said, Jao dai! (You die.)!

—Chris, Laos

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I knew a little Spanish, so our Spanish Pastor asked me to translate his remarks to the English congregation because he was uncomfortable addressing them with his broken English.  I was dismissed from this translation assignment after the first practice run.  I would have thanked the English congregation for all of their help and chicken (pollo) rather than for their help and support (apoyo). —MW

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Scriptures for Sranantongo

Bob and Liz PattonIt was September 1986 and the Pattons’ plans were drastically changed when Dr. Patton opted to move to the city rather than join forces with the liberal group in control of medical practice in the interior of the country. It had been just two weeks since the couple had moved to Suriname’s capital, Paramaribo, when civil war broke out in the interior. Had the couple stayed in the interior, they would have been cut off from their mission while in only the beginning stages of language learning. God had a definite plan for them in Paramaribo.

Upon graduating from the University of Rochester in 1971 as an Internal Medicine Specialist, Robert Patton had embarked for Liberia, Africa, where he served as professor and head of Internal Medicine at the University of Liberia until 1976. More importantly, it was there in Liberia that he accepted Jesus Christ as his Saviour in 1974. Surely, he never imagined then where God would later lead him and what monumental tasks he would accomplish in just twenty-four years.

In 1986, the Pattons found themselves in Suriname learning the national languages of Dutch and Sranantongo. For the first five years he was in Suriname, Dr. Patton taught at University Hospital in the mornings and dedicated his afternoons and evenings to soul-winning, language learning, church planting, training national pastors, and establishing various ministries. During this time, Dr. Patton grew increasingly frustrated with the limited scriptures available in the Sranantongo language. He was using a Moravian translation of the New Testament from the 1800s, but its imprecision and antiquity made it a less than desirable version upon which to build a ministry. Furthermore, Dr. Patton longed for a translation of the Old Testament. In 1991, God showed him clearly that he should resign his teaching position and begin translating.

Dr. Patton approached this very serious project with fear and trembling. He worked carefully and steadily to translate a Bible faithful to the Received Text into Sranantongo. The translation team included himself and six natives. First, Dr. Patton studied the scriptures under consideration, consulting a conservative commentary when necessary for clear understanding; then he made a preliminary translation and passed it off for independent review by two nationals (separately). Two more cycles of revision by Dr. Patton and review by other nationals then followed. After a final revision, it was considered complete. The entire Bible was translated by 1997 and published by Bearing Precious Seed in 1998.

God blessed the Pattons’ diligent work. Not only is their Bible translation the most sold version of the Sranantongo Bible in Suriname, but it has also been shared through their radio programs. Dr. Patton has synthesized commentaries using his translation notes and their corresponding scriptures. These commentaries are helpful resources for national pastors and have also been broadcasted via radio.

You can read more about Dr. Patton on his website, teachingmissions.com.

Summer 2020

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From Tijuana to Thailand

Alejandro and Josefina RojasI was born in a town in Baja California, Mexico, into a Roman Catholic family. In 1984, my grandmother gave me a book in Spanish entitled All About Mexico. It told of the various Christian denominations in Mexico. I decided that when I lived in a big city with a Presbyterian Church, I would attend it. Later, when I lived in Puebla, Mexico, I found a phone number of the Presbyterian church in the yellow pages. I called and asked how I could be a member of the church. The person said I needed to accept Jesus Christ. He explained to me the plan of salvation, and I accepted Christ as my Savior.

While studying at the University in Puebla, I met Roger Reeck, an American Bible translator teaching English there.. He had translated the New Testament into an Indian language in Oaxaca, Mexico. I thought I would like to participate in this task, but also saw that it was beyond my ability. (Later at BBTI, I learned that Roger was a friend of Rex Cobb when he worked in Oaxaca, Mexico).

In 2005, my wife and I began to attend an Independent Fundamental Baptist church in Tijuana, Baja California. My pastor gave me the privilege to be in charge of the accommodations and food for missionaries that attended our missionary conferences. Also, I was the treasurer of the missionary fund. I felt that I needed to go and do something in Bible translation, but I lacked the courage.

At our 2019 missions conference, I discussed my interest in Bible translation with our church’s missionary to Chiang Mai, Thailand. He told me of the opportunity to reach Thai people and those in restricted neighboring countries. He told me of the need for Bible translation and suggested I talk with Dr. Bill Patterson, a consultant with the Trinitarian Bible Society. Bill Patterson recommended Baptist Bible Translators Institute. My pastor counseled me to ask the advice of missionary Bruce Martin, who also recommended this institute.

My dear wife, Josefina, is accepting and supportive of my involvement in this ministry and is also preparing at BBTI for missionary work in Thailand.

by Alejandro Rojas

Summer 2020

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Sranantongo of Suriname

Bob and Liz PattonSuriname is situated on the northern coast of South America. Its history is almost as diverse as the vegetation that grows in its tropical climate; Suriname was first explored by the Spanish in the 16th century, settled by the British in the mid-17th century, and became a Dutch sugar colony in 1667. Indigenous populations and escaped African slaves were pushed into the interior of the country where they established their own tribal languages and cultures.

Since Suriname didn’t gain independence from the Netherlands until 1975, the national language is Dutch, but because Suriname has been influenced by so many countries and cultures, an English-based creole language called Sranantongo is spoken by a majority of the population as either a first or second language.

Along with linguistic influence, the Dutch also brought Moravian influence (followers of John Huss) in the early 18th century who translated the New Testament and Psalms into Sranantongo in 1820. Unfortunately, this translation was not very precise, and its language is now archaic. In the 1970s, a Bible translation group (SIL) began working in Suriname to translate the New Testament into Sranantongo from the Critical Text. In 1998, Robert Patton, MD, DD finished his translation of the entire Bible from the Received Text a few years before the Critical Text (SIL) New Testament was completed.

To date, Dr. Patton’s translation has sold over 20,000 copies: enough to put the complete Bible into the hands of one in twenty-five people. To God be the glory!

Summer 2020

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A Postage-Stamp Call

Nathan Fritz Family

Nathan Fritz was born into a Christian family. At age six, his father, Rocky, became pastor of First Baptist Church in Amboy, IL. Even though he heard the Gospel over and over, it was not until age twelve that Nathan truly believed on Christ as his Saviour. Tina knew nothing about Jesus until age eight when her mother first took her to church. It took Tina several months to understand her need of salvation, but when she saw herself as a lost sinner, she trusted Christ.

Nathan became interested in various countries through his hobby as a philatelist. His church supported many missionaries, including the Mumfords in France. (They served there for fifty years!) Brother Mumford, Nathan’s pen pal, sent stamps from various places, among which was a place unknown to Nathan, Cape Verde. He had no idea where this country was, but he made it a point to find out. Nathan learned that Cape Verde is a group of fifteen islands located off the western point of Africa. He now wonders why the Portuguese explorer, Dinis Dias, called it “Verde” (green). Maybe it was green in 1445, but today, with only ten inches of annual rainfall, it is anything but green. Although it is located nearly four hundred miles from the African continent, the sandstorms from the Sahara Desert cause many problems for the people of Cape Verde. As Nathan’s interest in the country grew, so did his burden for the people. Their lives are dominated by African and Roman Catholic superstitions. Several of the islands have no gospel witness.

Cape Verde was a strategic station for Portugal’s African slave trade. Portuguese involvement in slavery continued into the 20th century, but world-wide slavery to sin continues until this very day. The Fritz family is working to end spiritual slavery in Cape Verde by extending the invitation of Jesus Christ. “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). They proclaim, “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (John 8:36).

Nathan and Tina grew up playmates and competitors in Bible quizzes. Tina became the church pianist, and they worked together in children’s ministries. Nevertheless, they did not become interested in each other until Nathan’s junior year at Crown College where he majored in missions. He graduated in 2006, and they were married a month later.

When they arrived at BBTI in 2016, Nathan and Tina had four beautiful children: Andrew, Lydia, Ruth, and Grace. Anna was born just before Christmas 2017, four months before they left for the field. Sent by their church in Amboy, IL, and aided by Baptist International Missions Inc. (BIMI), they are completing their first two-year term in Cape Verde. They are learning Portuguese, the official language, and then will learn the common Creole language. Nathan preached his first sermon in Portuguese after eight months. He teaches in a seminary and also in a chronological Bible study. Both he and Tina conduct individual Bible studies. God allowed Nathan to take part in distributing the New Testament to 13,000 school children, putting God’s Word in nearly every home on the islands of Fogo and Brave.

As the Fritzes neared the end of their Advanced Missionary Training at BBTI, they said, “We couldn’t imagine going to the field without the many things we have learned here.” Later they wrote, “We are hard at language study.  I cannot begin to tell you how much we have used all the knowledge you tucked in our toolbox” (July 2018). “We were just saying AGAIN last night how much BBTI prepared us for being overseas.  Thank you both SO much for your investment in our lives” (April 2020). Pray for the Fritz family and for the many more like them that are needed right now in Cape Verde!

Summer 2020

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God’s Word Is Not Bound

“The entrance of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple” (Psalm 119:130). The apostle Paul tells us that God’s Word is not bound. “Wherein I suffer trouble, as an evil doer, even unto bonds; but the word of God is not bound” (2 Timothy 2:9). The writer of Hebrews expands on this: “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword” (Heb. 4:12a). We know this to be true because we see it in the Bible, we read about it in history, and we have experienced it in our own lives.

The story is told of an unsaved anthropologist who warned a jungle chief, “There are some people called missionaries, and they have a book called the Bible. Don’t allow them to come to your village! They will destroy your culture.” The chief smiled and said, “You are too late. They have already been here. And it is very good for you that they came, otherwise I would have already killed and eaten you!”

Light is on its way to the 121,000 Tenek Indians of the state of San Louis Potosí, Mexico. In 2006, Tenek speaker Fernando Angeles and his wife, Christy, began translating the New Testament under the direction of Bibles International, a division of Baptist Mid Missions. This formal equivalent received text translation was completed in 2017. These descendants of the great Mayan empire can now hear God speaking their language. At the conclusion of the Tenek New Testament dedication service where the Gospel was preached in English, Spanish, and Tenek, an elderly man told Christy, “I couldn’t understand a word of the Spanish, but I could understand every word of Tenek, and I have faith.” In the past, the Gospel has made little impact on the Tenek nation, but pray that will soon change. Pray for the distribution of the Scriptures and for Tenek-speaking laborers to preach them!

In 1973, Baptist missionaries Ron and Cheryl Myers went to Thailand. There was still a war raging in that area, and the Myers labored and mastered both the Thai and Isan languages with North Vietnamese and Laotian troops only six miles away on the opposite side of the Mekong River threating to invade. With strong convictions concerning the Scriptures and how they should be translated, they took on the responsibility of putting God’s Word into the Isan language of Thailand and Laos, spoken by over twenty million souls. The project was completed in June 2016 and published under the auspices of Bearing Precious Seed Global. There is much demand for these New Testaments, and they are bearing much fruit in both the free and communist countries. The Isan New Testament has also been recorded and is being broadcast by radio. Pray that the light of the Isan Scriptures will shine brightly and give much understanding to the Isan nation!

In 2005, BBTI graduates Dan and Jennifer Olachea were sent to Uganda, Africa, by the Central Baptist Church of Ocala, Florida, with the help of BIMI. They began working in Mbarara, Uganda, with the goal of giving the 3.4 million Runyankori people a formal, well-translated copy of God’s Word in their heart language. Dan helped to train six Runyankori native translators, and they labored eleven years with him to accomplish this great task. Work has begun on the Old Testament that will give even more light to the Runyankori people.

When the Word of God is presented to people in the official language or a trade language of their country, they may understand very little of it. Even if they comprehend much, it is always a foreign book. But when it is in their heart language, it has much more authority. They can hear God speaking their language! Friend, did God speak to your heart this morning as you read His Word? Why was that? Because you have a Bible in your heart language. There are still three thousand seven hundred language groups that have no portion of the Bible. That fact should bother us. No doubt it bothers our Saviour!

Yes, the Bible is a miracle Book; it can accomplish wonders. But we must realize that it does nothing where men do not take it. It has no feet or wings to magically carry itself to far off places. Neither does it mysteriously appear in languages where it never existed. God does not inspire a man to write scripture in his Bibleless tongue. God inspired it once; now it must be translated. That is just how it works. God’s people realized this in the first century and began translating the Bible. Down through the centuries since, men have faced the death penalty for giving the Bible to people in their heart language. This job may be easier today, but we can be sure that Satan will fiercely oppose it. May God give us men and women with the courage of John Wycliffe, Martin Luther, William Tyndale, Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples, Francisco de Enzinas, Casiodoro de Reina, and hundreds of others before and after them. The task today requires no less dedication than theirs.

Thank God for the many places where the light of His Word has entered, given understanding, and for some, even changed the course of history. “The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up” (Matthew 4:16). But there are still billions of lost souls waiting in very dark places for the Light. We need Bible translators, Bible printers, Bible distributors, and Bible preachers. Pick up your Bible. Hold it and look at it. Now, ask yourself, “What am I doing right now to put this Book in the hands of one who sits in darkness with no Bible?”

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Waiting and Working

Nat Williams FamilyNathaniel ‘Nat’ Williams was born into a Christian family in 1978 and grew up near Rochester, New York. At age five, he prayed a prayer, asking God to take him to Heaven when he died. That was his hope for the next eight years. Finally, he realized that salvation was not in a prayer or in living right, but in the sacrifice of Christ on his behalf.

When Nat was a young child, his parents became serious about serving God. The family worked together in neighborhood children’s clubs and Vacation Bible Schools. All of this was on-the-job training for foreign missionary service. Nat taught English in Taiwan, took part in literature distribution at the Asian Games, and traveled for two years with the Institute In Basic Life Principles. He planned to serve in foreign missions, but in reality, he was a missionary already. He worked while he waited.

After graduation from BBTI in 2004, Nat moved to Allentown, PA, for further training in ministry and missions at Lehigh Valley Baptist Church (LVBC). He helped organize their Missions Research Center and worked with their ministry to international students. (Later, in 2013, LVBC would send him to the field.) Nat made a ministry trip to Chile and several trips to SE Asia during these years. This was all GMT (Good Missionary Training).

While working, Nat was also waiting for something else that a missionary needs. He met her at LVBC, and again in Thailand, where she assisted in ministry for fifteen months. Anne was born in Pennsylvania in 1983. Like Nat, she made an early, but empty, profession during VBS. Outwardly, she was mostly good, but she knew something was wrong inside. She attended the Christian school but was often in trouble for cheating and lying. On one occasion she was sentenced to a two-day suspension followed by a four-week Bible study with a lady from church. The Bible study didn’t change her, but it did show her that she was lost. At age fifteen, Anne finally truly trusted Christ and was born again.

Nat and Anne were married in July 2010, and little Paul arrived two years later. (Ellen followed in 2014, and Rachel in 2017.) God had already shown Nat that he should serve in Myanmar (formerly Burma). But Myanmar is closed to foreign missionaries. How could they reach the people there?

Thailand is not closed, and it is a very strategic place for literature distribution in restricted neighboring countries. So, in 2013, the Williamses moved there. (In 2014, Nat and his team received 2,000 boxes of Burmese Scripture to distribute in Myanmar! In 2018, 25,000 Burmese Bibles arrived!) Nat and Anne went to work, learning the Thai language. They didn’t say, “We are headed for Myanmar, why learn Thai?” They are also learning the Burmese language. They continue ministering in Thailand in church planting, Bible studies, literature development and distribution, and reaching people by teaching English.

The family makes frequent trips into Myanmar even though they cannot live there yet. It is a place of much Christian nominalism. Most people have no idea what real salvation is. Nevertheless, Nat has met and helped some faithful Baptist preachers. Besides the Burmese, the Williamses also want to reach the people of other languages and ethnic groups there; many of them are Bibleless and unreached.

Nat and Anne are team players. They may not minister to thousands, but they strategize and labor, teaching individuals who may very well reach the multitudes. They have learned that God leads by opening doors and sometimes by closing them. Their record shows that they are interested in people, not places. They are working in Thailand while waiting for an open door to Myanmar.

Spring 2020

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Southern Aymara of Peru

Photo Source: Pedro Szekely – Flickr

The ancient home of the Aymara is perched twelve-thousand feet above sea level on the Altiplano, a high plateau near Lake Titicaca in the Peruvian Andes. Although life is challenging due to very poor soil and a region susceptible to both drought and flood, the nearly three hundred thousand Southern Aymara have found a way to sustain a vibrant culture. Fulfilling social obligations is very important in these communities, which are usually composed of large family groups. Each person takes part in the husbandry and agricultural tasks that are central to their lifestyle.

To a casual visitor, it may seem the Aymara people have already embraced the Gospel. However, while the name of Jesus and the symbol of the cross are common, these people are just a step away from paganism. Four hundred years ago, they were first introduced to Christianity by Catholic missionaries. In response to these new teachings, the Aymara simply blended Christian terminology and stories with animism, creating a folk-religion that worships both Jesus and natural “spirits.”

The Southern Aymara have no Bible to lighten their darkness and expose the error of their beliefs. While the Central Aymara do have a Bible translation, its dialect is so different from Southern Aymara that it is considered to be an entirely different language. There is no Bible translation in process for the Southern Aymara. Meanwhile, they continue to live and die deceived and in darkness.

Spring 2020

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Steadfast Through Trials

The Richard Johnson Memorial sits on the site of Australia’s first church.Far across the oceans, he stepped onto the shores of New South Wales. He didn’t know what lay ahead, but he had traveled the grueling eight-month voyage with a burden on his heart for the souls of the unwanted and unloved. At the young age of thirty-three, Richard Johnson had responded to John Newton’s plea and God’s call to be the first missionary to the penal colony of Australia.

Back home in England, Johnson had taken on the responsibility of delivering the Gospel to the outcasts of British society.  He had poured his heart and soul into the work of the ministry, giving himself to preaching the gospel, ministering to the sick, and doing whatever he could do to help those in need. Here in Australia, difficulties met him at every turn as he put his hand to the plough, yet, he remained faithful. The first service was held under a tree on February 3, 1788.  He chose Psalm 116: 12-13 as his scripture text, “What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me?  I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord.”
For the next four to five years, Johnson repeatedly petitioned the governor for a church building, but the petition was denied. He was told that a church was not important enough to warrant the expense. Open air services were all they had until Johnson decided to build a church with his own money. At the meager price of 67 pounds, or 80 US dollars, a building was erected and utilized for the honor of God in 1793. In a seemingly bleak turn of events, the building was burned down in 1798; however, a new governor had been instated between 1793 and 1798. God used the new governor of the penal colony to have a stone church building erected which lasted for the next fifty-eight years. In 1792, a year before Johnson built the church, he wrote a tract addressed to the prisoners in which he expressed his deepest desires. The following excerpt is but a small glimpse into this man’s heart: “I beseech you, brethren, suffer this word of exhortation. Your souls are precious. They are precious to the Lord Jesus Christ.  They are precious in my esteem. O that you were equally sensible of their value.”

After twelve years of service, Johnson was advised to return to England due to severe health problems. Not much is said about what happened to Johnson after his return; one might say he disappeared into the pages of history. One thing we do know is that Johnson was faithful; he was faithful to continue proclaiming the gospel of Christ and faithful to let men know that Jesus was the only way to life eternal in heaven. Records show that at least two hundred souls were saved in the twelve years Johnson spent in New South Wales, and even after he left, Johnson’s ministry continued.

We may become weary in the work God has given us to do. The future may seem bleak and the labor monotonous, but stay steadfast!

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Revival in America?

Many of God’s people lament the moral decline in America and are petitioning the God of Heaven to send revival to our land; no one would deny that we desperately need it! Some admit that revival is theoretically possible, but are skeptical that it will ever come. They say we have gone too far away from God. But surely, America has not gone farther downhill than Nineveh. Our perverted society is only a step behind Sodom, but Sodom would have repented if Jesus would have performed His mighty works there as He did at Capernaum (Matthew 11:23).

What results are we praying for? What will revival look like or accomplish if it comes to our country? We hope revival will yield spiritual benefits. We hope it will bring an increased church attendance, separation of church members from the world, more prayer, more love for the Bible, more souls saved in our churches and in our community, better offerings, more churches planted in America to replace those that have gone liberal or died, and more young people training for and entering the ministry. (At a large Christian college, the last graduating class of nine hundred eighty students contained only eight or nine mission majors. I have been on that campus twice and found these fine young people preparing to stay in the United States and be good, upstanding Christian nurses, businessmen, engineers, policemen, lawyers, doctors, teachers, graphic designers, computer scientists, and so forth. Few, however, are planning to be ministers in general, and fewer still intend to be missionaries and take the Gospel to where it has never been.)

We anticipate that revival will benefit our society. We hope that revival would greatly damage the liquor and drug business, close down abortion clinics, and generally bring some old-fashion decency to our country again. We probably would not say it out loud, but we may hope that revival would produce more American patriotism and converts to our political view. Yes, by all means, we should be praying for revival in America! At the same time, however, is not our prayer somewhat selfish and short-sighted?

Why hasn’t it occurred to us to pray for revival in Malaysia, Morocco, or Moldova? As far as I know, they have not experienced revival in Bulgaria, Bangladesh, or Benin in a long, long time. How many churches have been planted recently in the Netherlands, Niger, or North Korea? And what about Germany, Gabon, or the Republic of Georgia? Don’t they need revival as well? Church attendance and soul winning are needed in Lebanon, Lesotho, and Lithuania. Although devoted, separated people are praying in Afghanistan, Algeria, and Azerbaijan, they, for the most part, are not praying to our God. And talk about converts, their religion is getting them! It is adding to its number in our country, too! (We failed to evangelize them where they live; now they have come to proselytize us here!)

As worthy as our request for revival in America is, and at the risk of sounding un-American, may I remind us that Jesus did not command us to pray for revival in America. Rather He commanded us to lift up our eyes upon the fields. He said, “The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest” (Luke 10:2). And, where is the harvest the greatest? Where are the harvesters so few and so desperately needed? On foreign mission fields!

Are we really praying for missionaries to be raised up and sent out by our churches? We pray for enough money to meet the budget and support the missionaries we have. We may even ask God for new ones (to come to us from other churches) to replace the ones that have died or left the field in recent months. It seems that for many churches the best they can say is, “We are holding our own.” For the most part, we are not praying for missionaries to come from our church or our family. I hope someone somewhere is praying that God will send out missionaries from his church, but I have rarely heard it. Maybe we doubt that it can happen, or worse yet, perhaps we really don’t want it to happen! (We think we can’t afford it, or we don’t want to be separated from those we love.) We pray for what is important to us, and we usually get what we pray for. “…ye have not, because ye ask not” (James 4:2d). Then is our lack of new missionaries a reflection of our lack of prayer for them?
Should we stop praying for revival in America? Absolutely not! It would be wrong to not pray for America! “Moreover as for me, God forbid that I should sin against the LORD in ceasing to pray for you:” (1 Samuel 12:23). However, if our prayer does not include a sincere, fervent begging for God to send laborers to the other one hundred and ninety-four countries, to the other seven thousand ninety-six languages, and to the seven thousand plus unreached people groups, then our prayer is short-sighted at best and selfish at worst. (I almost added “sinful.”)

Maybe God would be pleased to answer our prayer for revival if it included His entire harvest field. My Bible does not say, “For God so loved America…” It says that God gave His Son to die for every sinner in the world. If we were infused with God’s love and desire for all the world, doesn’t it stand to reason that He would be more willing to answer our prayer for revival in our own country?

“And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him” (1 John 5:14-15). Yes, we cry out for revival and all the blessed results that it will bring to our homes, our churches, and our country; but the number one result of real, God-sent revival must be complete obedience to the Great Commission of our Lord Jesus Christ!

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We were living in Petrozabodsk when my friend, Laura, came to visit. Conversing with my neighbor, she said that she had arrived Friday. But instead of saying “pyatnitsa” (Friday), she said “p’yanitsa” (drunk). She realized her mistake as soon as the words were out of her mouth, and we all smiled as she frantically exclaimed, “No, no! Not p’yanitsa, pyatnitsa!
Pyatnisa!” —Amy, Russia

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The new missionary told his congregation the story of the man with 100 bees. (They were puzzled; they had never read this story!) One bee was lost so the man left the 99 in the fold and searched for it. The man found his beloved bee with a hurt leg. He carefully wrapped it, gently placed the bee on his shoulder, and carried him home!  (Realizing the missionary’s mistake, they all smiled as they pictured the man carrying his abeja “bee” instead of his oveja “sheep.”)

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Burden Becomes Plan

BBTI student Ben MuldoonSimeon, a deaf man in Ghanta City, Liberia, sat nearly eight hours to hear doctrine and Scriptures explained to him in Sign Language. However, he was still hungry for more. Here was a man that could honestly sing, “More about Jesus would I know.” The image of this young deaf man that was eager and hungry for truth is etched in my memory.

I grew up in a pastor’s home in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and was saved at age seven. My parents raised their children to be involved in church ministry and to have a burden for the world. My dad, Wil Muldoon, was called into overseas missions at age sixty-one, and he is still serving in Papua New Guinea at age seventy. His commitment to follow Christ has had a profound impact on my life.

In 2013, I went to Bulgaria for the Deaf Olympics with Silent Word Ministries International. During this trip, a burden for Eastern Europe and the Deaf of the world grew in my heart. During my junior and senior year of college, I worked with the Deaf at Bill Rice Ranch and was involved in a deaf ministry at a local church. My burden grew. Seeing my parents in PNG in 2015 was a highlight and after teaching in the Bible institute there, I fell in love with investing in men who are hungry to learn.

The Deaf, Eastern Europe, and training men were all swirling in my head and heart upon arriving back in the United States, but I didn’t see it as an actual possibility. God was patient with me as He showed me more and more of Himself and His burden for the Deaf. On January 1, 2016, David Bennett, my mentor, challenged me to sincerely see if God wanted me to invest my life in training deaf men in Europe. After two months of praying and receiving counsel from my parents and pastor, a conviction settled that, what had started out as a burden, was actually God’s plan for me.

The next steps were training: theological training at Seminary, deaf training in Liberia, ministry training in a nine-month apprenticeship under a pastoral staff in Tennessee, and missions training at BBTI. The next major step will be full time deputation to start a deaf church and training institute in Eastern Europe!

by Ben Muldoon

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After lunch, the congregation spends time in Q&A about the morning message. People were stumped by a question about how long it took for Elijah to get to Mount Horeb, and several answered that it took three days. I spoke up, boldly saying, “si sip meu.” I mistakenly thought that meu in meu ni (today) and in meu ni wan (yesterday) meant day. Everyone laughed because I said that it took Elijah forty hands.

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When our evangelist friend visited us, he preached through a translator. A story he told began like this: “I was out in the lake swimming with the water over my head.” Our translator stopped abruptly with a very confused look on his face. He could not understand how a person could be both out of the water and in the water. Even more, the water was, apparently, over the person’s head??? (James, Russia)

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Ten Years Later

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The Jason Ottosen Family—serving faithfully in the mountains of Papua New Guinea since 2012Ten years ago, we featured the Ottosens in the Winter 2009 issue of Lift Up Your Eyes. Cherith Stevens spent ten months in Papua New Guinea, and then, rather unexpectedly, God gave her a husband worth waiting for. She became Mrs. Jason Ottosen, and the two were on their way to PNG to help reach the Kamea tribe in the mountains of Gulf Province. Today, there are six Ottosens ministering there in the village of Komako! The newest missionary is nine-month old Josiah. In March 2012, Jason and Cherith went to PNG with their first daughter, Grace Elisabeth, who joined their team in September 2011. Melody Joy followed in September 2013. Their third daughter, Hannah Faith, arrived the last day of September 2016 and soon began helping to win the hearts of the Kamea people. A lot can happen in ten years!

The Ottosens began adjusting to life in PNG and learning two languages (Melanesian Pidgin and Kamea) in the village of Kotidanga where other BBTI graduates serve. A young man from Komako, a village ten hours north, walked to Kotidanga several times to attend church services and to ask for a missionary for his village. (Ten hours for a Kamea man was a twelve-hour hike for Jason.) Many others have arrived in Kotidanga, begging for church-planting missionaries for their villages. The Ottosens have made Komako their home since 2013 and have established the Komako Baptist Church.

Missionary work in Komako is not all fun and games! A church member named Ems recently died, leaving a wife and five sons. Some members of his clan blamed another clan (also with family members in the church) of killing Ems by witchcraft. Many from the two clans continued to attend services, albeit with the wrong motive. But the Word of God began to work in their hearts. Paimba, Ems’ oldest brother who was leading the conflict, got saved, as did Suwanas, another of Ems’ clan who is the oldest and most respected witchdoctor. Here, as in other places, sickness and death are not seen as the result of natural causes. There is always a hidden spiritual reason. If death is believed to be caused by witchcraft someone must pay! Only the Gospel can break this vicious cycle of ignorance and revenge.

Why would a missionary family endure such isolation and primitive living conditions in a place with no roads or electricity? Why would they pay exorbitant rates to fly in and out of their village? Why would they hike ten hours to the nearest Baptist mission to use wi-fi? Once a church member, upon hearing a missionary lady tell of the living conditions on her mission field, said, “I would not live there for a million dollars!” The missionary responded, “I wouldn’t either; but I will live there for Jesus!”

In the midst of such debauchery, superstition, violence, disease, and enormous spiritual darkness, God is at work. Scripture is being translated. Souls are being saved. Lives are being changed. And the church of Jesus Christ is being built in places where Satan has reigned supreme for centuries. We have received exciting prayer reports from the Ottosens over the last ten years. (A book needs to be written about God’s blessings!) There is much more to do.

The Ottosens desire to see men trained, serving, leading, and spreading the Gospel throughout their mountainous area. Raford Bart is one such man. He is small in stature and the youngest of several brothers, but has been very faithful to church. His faith has been strong despite being tested through discouragement from his brothers and ridicule from his wife. Recently Raford raised his hand to follow the Lord’s leading anywhere. Pray for the Ottosens as they disciple and train men like Raford.

Winter 2019-20

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Billions of people in the world are bilingual and even multilingual. It is not unusual for people in India or Africa to speak four or five languages. Why should it be so difficult for missionaries to learn a new language or two? Perhaps we are going at language learning in the wrong way. The normal procedure for our missionaries is Bible college, deputation, and then a language school on their chosen field. There is a vitally important step that is usually overlooked: pre-field linguistic training such as has been available for Baptist missionaries at BBTI for nearly fifty years. Some have greatly benefited from it, however, the vast majority have either not known of its existence or chosen not to take advantage of it.

The language school method of language learning presupposes that a school is available for the language the missionary needs to learn. Language schools teach trade languages such as French, Portuguese, Spanish, Swahili, Arabic, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc. There are 7,151 languages in the world, and it would be safe to say that 6,000 or more of them have no language schools. Yet there are billions of lost souls that speak these languages: souls for whom Jesus died, souls that He desires to save, and souls that deserve to hear the message in their heart languages. Some of these languages have only a few hundred speakers while others have several million. With few exceptions, our Independent Baptist missionaries are not attempting to reach people whose languages have no schools because of the seemingly impossible language barrier. Many of these languages are still unwritten which of course means they have no portion of God’s Word. An estimated eighty-five percent of our missionaries go to only fifteen countries and then only to the major trade languages. Most of these countries have several other language groups. For instance, in the African country of Côte d’Ivoire, there are 77 languages besides the official French. Would you not agree that all people deserve to hear the Gospel in the language they understand best, just as we did?

A language school where one is available is a good idea but not when the missionary first arrives on the field. We suggest that he begins vigorously learning the language from the people and progress to a point of fluency in a more natural way. Schools are not the natural way to learn languages. We did not learn our first language in one! The method of language learning that we suggest may sound radical to Americans, but it works, and it is usually better and faster. This plan will require extreme dedication and diligence on the part of the missionary. If he is too undisciplined or unwilling to take on this responsibility and become a learner, leaving behind the mentality of a student, then he should simply go the language school route and live with its results and limitations.

We are not suggesting that the missionary simply go out with the people and “pick up the language” the best he can. No, we are suggesting a plan that involves a tried and proven method. The missionary can go to the field with this method and begin using it upon arrival. But he must learn the method here first. Before you ask, the answer is no; he cannot learn it on the internet. And it will take time. (Missionaries spend the necessary time to prepare theologically in Bible college and financially on deputation. Why should they not spend the necessary time to prepare linguistically?)

This natural language learning method is part of the overall nine-month Advanced Missionary Training (AMT) program of BBTI which provides many language and culture learning tools that are not available in Bible colleges. The first skill we teach is phonetics. I have said it a thousand times; one more time will not hurt: No missionary should attempt to learn a new language without first studying phonetics! (At BBTI both husband and wife take the same classes.) Students spend at least one hundred fifty literal classroom hours learning to recognize and reproduce any sound they may encounter (there are about eight hundred of them). Because he learns to produce the new sounds exactly as the native speaker, he can speak a new language with little or no foreign accent. An accent does not disappear with time; from the beginning, he must keep from superimposing his English habits on the new language by forming new habits that will last for life.

The missionary student uses his newly acquired phonetic skill for a following course, Situational Language Learning. This includes using a language helper (I did not say a language teacher) who speaks a foreign language well. (In recent years, we have used Sina-Sina from Papua New Guinea, Japanese, Korean, Khmer from Cambodia, and Spanish.) The student learns how to elicit the language from the helper in a step-by-step process, beginning with simple object-like words and slowly increasing the length of the utterances. In a short time, he is fluent in all the sounds of that language. In a few weeks, he, along with a partner, will progress to eliciting and learning dialogues natural to the native culture such as buying food in the market. If his target language has no language school, he can continue using this method for as long as needed. If a language school is available, he can enter it after a few months and advance rapidly in grammar and more vocabulary. He begins at the top of the class because he is not struggling with pronunciation. He will sound like a native. Speaking and acting like a native should make him much less of an outsider. He will be comfortable with the people and hopefully they will be more willing to listen to his message. They may even tell him, “You eat our food, you spend time with us, you talk like us. Hey, you are one of us!”

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Natural Language Learning

August 5, 2022 No Comments

Billions of people in the world are bilingual and even multilingual. It is not unusual for people in India or Africa to speak four or five languages. Why should it be so difficult for missionaries to learn a new language or two? Perhaps we are going at language learning in the wrong way. The normal procedure for our missionaries is Bible college, deputation, and then a language school on their chosen field. There is a vitally important step that is usually overlooked: pre-field linguistic training such as has been available for Baptist missionaries at BBTI for nearly fifty years. Some have greatly benefited from it, however, the vast majority have either not known of its existence or chosen not to take advantage of it.

The language school method of language learning presupposes that a school is available for the language the missionary needs to learn. Language schools teach trade languages such as French, Portuguese, Spanish, Swahili, Arabic, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc. There are 7,151 languages in the world, and it would be safe to say that 6,000 or more of them have no language schools. Yet there are billions of lost souls that speak these languages: souls for whom Jesus died, souls that He desires to save, and souls that deserve to hear the message in their heart languages. Some of these languages have only a few hundred speakers while others have several million. With few exceptions, our Independent Baptist missionaries are not attempting to reach people whose languages have no schools because of the seemingly impossible language barrier. Many of these languages are still unwritten which of course means they have no portion of God’s Word. An estimated eighty-five percent of our missionaries go to only fifteen countries and then only to the major trade languages. Most of these countries have several other language groups. For instance, in the African country of Côte d’Ivoire, there are 77 languages besides the official French. Would you not agree that all people deserve to hear the Gospel in the language they understand best, just as we did?

A language school where one is available is a good idea but not when the missionary first arrives on the field. We suggest that he begins vigorously learning the language from the people and progress to a point of fluency in a more natural way. Schools are not the natural way to learn languages. We did not learn our first language in one! The method of language learning that we suggest may sound radical to Americans, but it works, and it is usually better and faster. This plan will require extreme dedication and diligence on the part of the missionary. If he is too undisciplined or unwilling to take on this responsibility and become a learner, leaving behind the mentality of a student, then he should simply go the language school route and live with its results and limitations.

We are not suggesting that the missionary simply go out with the people and “pick up the language” the best he can. No, we are suggesting a plan that involves a tried and proven method. The missionary can go to the field with this method and begin using it upon arrival. But he must learn the method here first. Before you ask, the answer is no; he cannot learn it on the internet. And it will take time. (Missionaries spend the necessary time to prepare theologically in Bible college and financially on deputation. Why should they not spend the necessary time to prepare linguistically?)

This natural language learning method is part of the overall nine-month Advanced Missionary Training (AMT) program of BBTI which provides many language and culture learning tools that are not available in Bible colleges. The first skill we teach is phonetics. I have said it a thousand times; one more time will not hurt: No missionary should attempt to learn a new language without first studying phonetics! (At BBTI both husband and wife take the same classes.) Students spend at least one hundred fifty literal classroom hours learning to recognize and reproduce any sound they may encounter (there are about eight hundred of them). Because he learns to produce the new sounds exactly as the native speaker, he can speak a new language with little or no foreign accent. An accent does not disappear with time; from the beginning, he must keep from superimposing his English habits on the new language by forming new habits that will last for life.

The missionary student uses his newly acquired phonetic skill for a following course, Situational Language Learning. This includes using a language helper (I did not say a language teacher) who speaks a foreign language well. (In recent years, we have used Sina-Sina from Papua New Guinea, Japanese, Korean, Khmer from Cambodia, and Spanish.) The student learns how to elicit the language from the helper in a step-by-step process, beginning with simple object-like words and slowly increasing the length of the utterances. In a short time, he is fluent in all the sounds of that language. In a few weeks, he, along with a partner, will progress to eliciting and learning dialogues natural to the native culture such as buying food in the market. If his target language has no language school, he can continue using this method for as long as needed. If a language school is available, he can enter it after a few months and advance rapidly in grammar and more vocabulary. He begins at the top of the class because he is not struggling with pronunciation. He will sound like a native. Speaking and acting like a native should make him much less of an outsider. He will be comfortable with the people and hopefully they will be more willing to listen to his message. They may even tell him, “You eat our food, you spend time with us, you talk like us. Hey, you are one of us!”

Please Send Me!

June 30, 2022 No Comments
Jessi Pontius

Growing up in a Christian home, it was easy for me to realize as a child that I needed to trust Christ with my eternity. Trusting Christ with my life, on the other hand, was not so easy.

God first dealt with me about surrendering my life to Him when I was eleven or twelve years old. I had been reading my Bible (a habit I was still trying to start) when I came across Isaiah 6:8, “Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.” I had never heard God speak to me from His Word in such a way, and I really did not understand what the verse meant. I knew it was very important, but I did not see how. I had a slight feeling that this was God calling me to the mission field, but I denied it and moved on.

As I grew older, I realized what God was saying through that verse. Still, I denied it, convincing myself that God had not called me to the mission field.

Around the age of sixteen, I decided I was going to go into the Lord’s service—as a paleontologist. I wanted to show through fossils that God was Creator. Although a very nice plan, it was not God’s plan for my life. God brought this squarely to my mind through the passing of a loved one a year or so later. I had never felt the reality of death quite so strongly until that time. It made me wonder about the eternity of those who have never heard the Gospel. God showed me through that trial that although Creation ministry is good, His plan for my life was to be a missionary. I was finally ready to say what I had read a number of years before: “Here am I, send me!”

God first led me to Massillon Baptist College and has now placed me at Baptist Bible Translators Institute to prepare me for the mission field. Ever since I surrendered my life fully to God, He has only strengthened the desire in my heart to share His love with those who have not yet heard. Where God will finally lead me, I do not know, but I am so excited to see His plan unfold. All I can say is, “Here am I! Please send me!”

Spring 2022

I Surrender All

June 25, 2022 No Comments

Elisabeth on her last birthday

Tom and Barbara Needham were farmers, and they went to Cameroon, Africa, to teach the people better farming methods. There a missionary led them to Christ. They returned to Iowa, sold the farm, went back to Cameroon as missionaries in 1991. Their daughter Elizabeth, the fifth of seven children was two years old at the time. There she grew up and served the Lord with her family. She learned Pidgin English and Fulfulde, the language of the Fulani Muslim people, as well as sign language. Elizabeth was homeschooled and was saved at age six. At age twelve at summer camp, she was memorizing the words to the hymn their group was about to sing. “All to Jesus I surrender. All to him I freely give.” She realized that it was not true of her, but she immediately surrendered all! Suddenly she had a burden to reach the lost.

Cameroon is divided into two parts; one speaks English and the other French. The Needhams worked in the smaller English-speaking section until forced to move to the French side because of violence that arose in 2018. Elizabeth is currently learning both French and French Sign Language.

Elizabeth graduated from the Baptist College of Ministry in 2012 and then returned to Africa. She and three of her sisters attended BBTI from 2019 to 2020. She was an excellent student and a blessing to all each day. Elizabeth’s childhood friends named her Sangle which means “joy,” and to this day, she wears a perpetual smile. She returned as a missionary to Cameroon in January 2021.

Through her church, Elizabeth ministers to women and children, but God is especially blessing her outreach to the deaf. Here are a few testimonies:

“One deaf man who trusted in Christ last week said, ‘I want my wife and all my deaf friends to hear this same preaching.’ He invited us back the next Saturday to preach to all the deaf that he could gather but was disappointed that none of them came. We taught him how to share the Gospel with others and arranged to meet him again next Friday to meet his wife and other deaf friends. Another deaf man who was a Jehovah’s Witness also trusted in Christ two weeks ago after Synthia and I had witnessed to him multiple times. He came to church with two friends and really enjoyed it. He is still holding to his connection to the JWs, trying to decide which one he will follow. Another deaf woman told me, ‘I have gone to church many times, but I have never heard before what you have told me today about Jesus.’ She was so surprised and amazed to hear that Jesus died to take away her sins. Today I stopped by to give her a Bible. She was so happy! Charnelle, another deaf woman I have reached out to came to church last Sunday. She told me afterward, ‘I do not understand anything in the church that I have been attending. I just sit and stare at the pastor until he is done. But here you interpreted for me, and I could understand. I want to come back next week.’ Charnelle’s deaf husband came to me with one of the tracts I had given her. He told me he is a believer and said, ‘This paper is so true…I want to gather all my deaf friends in my house on Saturday and explain to them all what I read in this paper, and I am going to invite them all to church on Sunday.’ One very tall deaf man with large hands stood in front of the rice shop where he loads and unloads 50 kg bags of rice. He meekly listened to the Gospel and asked questions. Then he prayed a sweet, simple prayer, ‘Jesus forgive me. I believe in you.’”

We praise the Lord that He allowed us to have a small part in a great work in Africa. But what if Elizabeth had not surrendered all? Most missionary kids do not return to the mission field. Thank God Elizabeth did!

Spring 2022

We Have His Promise

April 18, 2022 No Comments
John Geddie
1815 – 1872

“The love of Christ banished the terrors of the law.” Those were the words of John Geddie concerning his salvation at age nineteen in 1834. He tirelessly preached this same message of Christ’s love as a missionary in the New Hebrides islands for twenty-four years.

John was an avid reader; his favorite subject being stories of mission efforts and the desperate need of the Gospel in unevangelized areas. After completing secondary school at Pictou Academy in Nova Scotia, he studied theology. Small and slightly built, he was often referred to as “little Johnnie.” While at seminary, his health became so poor that he was told to give up his studies. He promised the Lord that if his health were restored, he would go as a missionary to a heathen land. On March 13, 1838, he was ordained and began pastoring a church on Prince Edward Island.

During his time as pastor, he promoted foreign missions which was a new idea to the colonial churches. Up to this point, they had sought financial aid for their own work, but had not considered sending out missionaries. It took several years and many pleas, but a mission society was finally formed. John and his wife were the first missionary volunteers. Their destination was Aneiteum, an island in the New Hebrides where people practiced cannibalism.

The Geddies arrived in New Hebrides in 1848 and soon felt the reality of their situation. They were on an island, surrounded by people from whom they had much to fear and whose language and customs they did not know. Geddie wrote, “We have His promise, at whose command we have come hither, ‘Lo, I am with you alway.’”

Their first task was to learn the unwritten Aneiteumese language. Then they began to print materials and teach the people to read. After three years and much labor, John had won a total of ten people to the Lord. Several times, while walking the trails, spears and clubs were thrown at him. He once faced an angry crowd of men who threatened to kill him for interfering as they strangled a young widow to death that she might “join her husband in the afterlife.” He unwittingly violated some cultural taboos and made the chieftain angry. But eventually the message of Christ’s love penetrated the hearts of the people and hundreds turned to the Lord.

As people were saved and their lives changed, John began to teach them and send them out to other islands with the message of the Gospel. People came from all over the region to see what had happened in Aneiteum. One group even brought a pig in the hopes they might use it to purchase a teacher to take back to their village. When John Geddie died on December 14, l872, a tablet was placed behind the pulpit of the church in Anelcauhat which reads: In memory of John Geddie, D.D. When he landed in 1848, there were no Christians here, and when he left in 1872, there were no heathen.”

Spring 2022

The Foot of the Cross

April 4, 2022 No Comments

The ground is level at the foot of the cross, meaning that all are welcomed and received equally when they come to God through faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus made a full and final atonement for the sins of Adam and all his descendants. Not only does God desire that all would arrive at the cross (1 Timothy 2:4), He commands it (Acts 17:30). The ground is indeed level at the foot of the cross, but the road leading there is not. For some there are seemingly insurmountable obstacles along the way.

To the place I heard the Gospel for the first time, I drove one mile on a paved road. I passed no checkpoints, and no armed guards asked where I was going. I walked into the building in broad daylight. It was not an underground church service. I feared no retaliation from a religious system. No family member opposed my going or persecuted me afterward. I heard the message in my language without it going through an interpreter. If I did not know better, I might think God loves me more than most people in the world. For me, the road to the cross was smooth and easy. I wish it were for everyone.

Most in the world know nothing about the cross or that there is even a road to it. No one gets to the cross without the message of the Gospel, and it simply has not been declared where they live. Contrary to God’s will, these poor souls live and die without the Gospel.

Another huge obstacle is social control, commonly called peer pressure. A society keeps its people in line with the threat of punishments. Punishment might be mild like gossip or ostracism or as serious as death. We have heard of a father killing his child that converted to Christianity. It is much easier to get to the cross from North Carolina than from North Korea! The fear of exile from a family or group is terrifying. A Muslim in Indonesia told a BBTI graduate, “I am an Indonesian, a Sunda Muslim. If I trust Christ, I am no longer a Sunda. If I am not a Sunda, I am nothing. I have no home, no family, no house, no relationship. I know I am a sinner, and I do not want to be punished for my sins. I know Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world, but I would rather risk suffering eternally in the lake of fire than to lose my social identity in this life.” (Missionaries in these difficult places are not going to see quick results; we need to be patient with them.)

To illustrate this difficult struggle against social control, consider the following from BBTI graduate Emanuel, who along with his wife, Courtney, works with Afghan refugees in Greece:

“Iman is not like the normal Hazara Afghans that are the majority here. In fact, there is a lot of fighting between Iman’s Panjshir group and them. Iman says they all convert easily because they don’t take their religion seriously. They will change again later from Jesus to something else when the situation affords. Iman on the other hand owns his faith. He has a very strong national pride that relates to his religion…But then here comes the dichotomy. For all this die-hard insistence, in the same conversation he will confess that he is tired of religion and wishes there were a way to connect with God directly without going through books, prophets, and go-betweens.

Over the weeks, we have had many conversations about the identity of Jesus. We showed him many scriptures, each of them shedding more light, but still, he would insist that he cannot accept that Jesus is God. We learned not to press the point. Instead, we befriended him, along with many others. We built trust, and he started coming and reading the Bible. When his younger brother was missing for days, we prayed with him. We let him talk about his life, his brothers who are fighting the Taliban, his mother whom he loves more than any other person, the three cows they have, the customs and values they live by, the climate of his mountain home, why he left it, the challenges along the way, and how he misses his family. For every hour we have spent teaching, we have spent as much listening. Slowly he was drawn in.

Now, he enjoys the Bible more and interacts with it better than most Christians I know. I can give him a passage, and he will read it and then preach it to me. He would make a great preacher. He loves Jesus… Still, he could not accept Christ’s identity. Until recently that is.
The other day we had a God-ordained hour with him, showing repeatedly that Jesus was in fact worshipped by men and angels, that he not only permitted it, but God commanded it, and that one day every tongue, including Iman’s, will confess that Jesus is Lord. At the end, he confessed that he believes it is true, but he has a family, which I suspicioned, for all his claims of independence, was the real reason he could not accept Jesus as the Son of God. If Jesus is right, his family, his nation, his heritage, has been mistaken for hundreds of years. That is an incredibly hard pill to swallow for one who is not bitter and hurt by his native culture, but proud of it…For such a person to become a follower of Jesus, what must he lose? Father, mother, brother, and sister, yes, Islam. He must find a new reference point, with new values, new beliefs, a new community, a new Lord and Master, a new Book, a new road, a new everything. Nothing old can stay the same. All that is dear to him must be eclipsed by One who beckons to him with nail scars in his hands and feet.”

It was easy for me to accept Jesus. I did not lose my family, my job, or my country. Not so for many. What will it take to get people like the Sunda Muslim or Iman down the road to the cross? Someone must obtain specialized training for the task. He must give up all he knows and loves and go to where they live, he must patiently learn new tongues and cultures, and he must not look for shortcuts or quick results. He must be willing to walk a difficult, dangerous road with the seeking sinner until they reach the level ground at the foot of the cross.

Spring 2022

March 28, 2022 No Comments

We asked our language helper for the two statements: (1) That is a shovel. (2) That is not a shovel. I felt certain he didn’t understand my instructions because the two statements sounded identical. I challenged him by confidently saying, “You are saying the same thing.” What was I doing, correcting my language helper when I knew so very little about his language? I felt so foolish when I realized that though the two statements did have identical sounds, there was a difference in the stress placed on one of the syllables. —Charlie, Ghana

 

March 21, 2022 No Comments

The missionary’s  audience was a little perplexed as he told them the disciples were all on a “rock” in the middle of the sea.  The audience wondered why the disciples were there and how they even got there. It was even more confusing when the missionary illustrated that Jesus Christ is our “boat” that never moves.  They were curious to know how the motionless boat represented Christ.  The message was clarified when the missionary realized he had confused the word “dunga” (boat) with “dhunga” (rock).  —Justin

 

March 14, 2022 No Comments

In Nepali culture, as in many cultures around the world, children are often a conversation piece. You often hear compliments such as kasto ramro chhori! which means, “What a GOOD girl!” given to the parents. However, an untrained foreigner who attempts to reproduce this compliment could easily offend the other parent by saying, kasto ramro chori! which means, “What a good THIEF!” —Justin

March 7, 2022 No Comments

We finished our first semester of Hebrew a few weeks ago. We are enjoying a break but are also looking forward to getting back to our studies. We now know enough Hebrew to be dangerous, and if we’re not careful, get into conversations past our understanding. The word for the phrase see you later is “lehitraot,” but I didn’t say it right. What I said was the word for pasta; it’s so easy to get some strange looks! —M.P.

 

No! No! Yes!

February 28, 2022 No Comments
Cliff and Mary Middlebrooks are sent from Redemption Baptist Church in Decatur, Alabama. cwm1611@gmail.com

by Cliff Middlebrooks

I had thought that missionaries were an extinct species who had all died off in the day of David Livingstone. But shortly after the Lord saved me, I met my first real, live missionary! Then, while serving a tour of service in Korea in the Air Force, I asked people in America for the names of missionaries that might be in my area. Every time I had leave, I took the bus as far as I could and then hiked back into the mountains of Seohae-Dong to help a missionary who operated an orphanage for the Deaf. After separating from the service, I laid a map out before the Lord and asked Him to send me to the Pacific Islands as a missionary. His answer was a resounding “no.”

My wife Mary and I busied ourselves in the work of the Lord. Over the last forty years we have served in many different capacities. We always sought to do what God led us to do as He led us to do it. Each time our ministry and focus changed and we asked the Lord, “What would you have us to do?” it was always preceded with, “May we go to the mission field now?” His answer was always “no.” However, we took young people on short term mission trips. As our son and several students that we had taught over the years surrendered their lives to the mission field, we resigned ourselves to the idea that perhaps the Lord felt a better use for us was to train others and send them off to serve on the foreign field.

After pastoring for a number of years, we found ourselves at the same ministry crossroad. This time, when we asked if we could go to the mission field our hearts began to be convinced that the answer was yes! (At first, we did not admit it to each other for fear the other would think we had lost our minds!) We needed confirmation that this was truly the will of the Lord and not our own desire. So, without saying much to anyone about why we were going, we went to Nicaragua seeking for answers. And God did answer!! He opened door after door and began to lay detail after detail in place for us. Some people have called us crazy for going to the mission field at our age when most people are thinking of retiring. We call it the greatest privilege of our Christian lives.

Winter 2021-22

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