The Wasa face many challenges. The areas where gold is mined are damaged by erosion that causes flooding and ruins the land for farming. Also, many Wasa living in poverty mine gold illegally. These small, unregulated operations use chemicals and heavy metals that contaminate drinking water.
A second challenge is the Wasa language. Some of the older Wasa fear its demise. In an effort to modernize, children are punished for speaking their language in school. “English is a global language. Practice it now!!!” is written on at least one schoolroom wall.


Another challenge is the great spiritual need of the Wasa. Although their primary religion is listed as Christianity, its form is Non-Evangelical Protestantism which focuses more on social issues than a personal faith in Jesus Christ. Only Biblical teaching can correct this erroneous teaching, but there is no Bible in Wasa. A translation has reportedly begun. Will you pray for the Wasa and for those that are translating God’s Word for them?

Spring 2023-24

Our call to the mission field started when a ministry in Romania, supported by our church since the early 1970s, asked if anyone wanted to help on a construction project. I did not have any vacation time, a passport, or even a way to financially go. I told the Lord that if he would provide the way, I would go. He did provide! While in Romania, I passed out tracts and churches invited me to preach. After that trip, I knew the Lord would eventually have me go into missions but did not know where or when. I knew I needed to wait on the Lord to show me where he wanted me to be and when I was to go, so I remained active in our home church by serving in the bus ministry, jail ministry, nursing home and anywhere that I could help.


I met Lisa in 2001. On our second date, I told her that I believed the Lord would have us on the mission field, and that if she were not willing to go, we should not continue our relationship. Being close to her family, she did not automatically say yes, but did say she would pray about it. That night, sitting in her car before going into her third shift work, she looked up at the sky and thought of all Jesus had done for her. At that moment, she knew. If missions was what the Lord had for her, He would help her through it. Lisa let me know she was willing to go, and we married a year later.


I had been going to Romania on mission trips every two to three years since the year 2000. In 2007, while on one of those trips, I realized that I was ready to stay. The desire in my heart to be in Romania was honestly more than the desire to be in America. I became sure of the call to go.
I tried to schedule meetings and look for a mission board, but every door I tried was shut. I waited on the Lord, asking Him to open the door and make it obvious when it was time to start the deputation process. In 2012, the Lord answered that prayer in specific ways, showing us it was time for me to quit my job and go on deputation. We started full-time deputation with little support, but God answered prayer and provided a place for us to stay. I knew God would take care of my family.


In 2014, the Lord led us to BBTI to prepare for the mission field. It was hard to wait on the Lord to open doors in his timing instead of mine, but God’s timing is best. He used our lack of support to prompt me to contact churches in other states and keep me in America long enough for missionary training. At the right time, he gave us the support we needed, and we went to Romania.

Winter 2023-24

We cannot overestimate the value of a missionary. Humanly speaking, he is the only one standing between a group of people and Hell! If a missionary leaves the field prematurely, he is often discouraged and feels that he has failed the Lord and those people who believed in him. He, his church, and his mission agency should be asking some questions: What went wrong? What could have prevented it? And what should we do now? A missionary that we know well worked with his wife and children in a very remote mountain village, accessed only by plane or helicopter. Alone, they faced a very frightening experience and were in imminent physical danger. Almost miraculously, they were rescued by helicopter. They returned to the States very traumatized. Their pastor—the one who should care most—spoke with them for less than one minute and then apparently wrote them off as quitters. Talk about adding insult to injury! What they needed was a thorough debriefing with caring, competent counselors.


Gospel Furthering Fellowship (GFF), under the direction of BBTI graduate Rodney Myers, specializes in proper preparation for the mission field. This includes a strong recommendation that the missionary acquire Advanced Missionary Training at BBTI. They also offer help and debriefing, not only for their own members, but for any Baptist missionary. Consider the words of GFF Missionary Care Director Chris Luppino in his article, The Crisis that Few are Talking About:


The closing challenge of Jesus to His disciples in Mark 16:15 is clear, compelling, and challenging. They were to take the Gospel to every living person in every corner of the world. It is Jesus’ commission to the Christians of every generation during the church age. He highlighted one of the challenges to fulfilling His command in Matthew 9:37 where He said, ‘The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few.”


In comparison to the need, the number of laborers (missionaries) is small. In the face of the challenging task of cross-cultural evangelism and church planting, many of the laborers are weak. The inherent weaknesses are amplified by the fact that missionaries are often sent woefully under-prepared. The director of our mission was challenging a pastor with some of the difficulties the missionary that his church was sending was likely to encounter and with the need for him and his wife to be properly prepared. In response to a list of the challenges that the missionary could reasonably be expected to face the pastor replied, “He will just have to learn as he goes along.” [Fortunately, that missionary couple did attend BBTI and are now successfully learning a tribal language that people told them is impossible to learn!]

Once laborers are sent, they are often neglected. If they “crash and burn” or just quietly go away (leave the field), the ridicule, blame, and scorn is usually targeted at the missionary. They are labeled as quitters, not being “tough” enough, not being made of the right stuff, or being a John Mark. We have no words to describe the sending church, sending pastor, or sending agency that let them down. If we are going to take the Gospel to each living person in every corner of the world, we must do better…much better!
The crisis that few are talking about is missionary attrition. A 2017 survey of 745 former missionaries cited a lack of missionary care as the number one cause of missionary attrition.


Gospel Furthering Fellowship is an Independent Baptist mission service ministry. We do not send missionaries or start churches. GFF serves churches that send missionaries to start churches. We come alongside churches and missionaries by using our experience and expertise to encourage and promote long-term missionary service among unreached people groups. Churches have a biblical mandate to intentionally, not accidentally, produce career missionaries. We are honored to serve them as they seek to do so.

We at home cannot possibly understand what a new missionary faces. He is concerned about the children’s welfare and education. Culture stress is often overwhelming. The pressure he feels from his supporters to produce results may derive from his own mind, but it is there, nonetheless. The missionary is tempted to take shortcuts and minister before learning the language. When language learning suffers, he eventually realizes his inability to effectively communicate. Why didn’t someone warn me that this language and the hearts of these people would be so hard? This dear man of God and his wife may question their spirituality. Surely, if we were right with God, we would love these people!
Missionaries may feel reluctant to share with anyone, including their pastor, what they are going through. After all, they told him and a bunch of others what they were going to do. They never entertained a thought of failure. The pastor needs to exercise his gift of discernment, read between the lines, investigate, and be sure that his missionary family is indeed doing well. Even if he does not suspect a problem, a personal visit might be a great encouragement to his missionary family.
It is the work of the church to get missionaries to the field. It is also the work of the church to keep them there. If they return early, it is the duty of the church to love and welcome them as the heroes they are. The church should attempt to restore and resend them. Compassionate care, not criticism, is needed.

Winter 2023-24

Ten thousand Pame live in San Luis Potosi, a state of central Mexico. They call themselves Xiúi meaning “indigenous.” The Pame cultivate maize, beans, squash, and chili which constitute their main diet. However, the soil is poor and rocky and many Pame are migrant workers.

Pame traditional religious beliefs in spirits, witches, and gods have mixed with Catholicism brought by the Spaniards. Pame call the Sun and the Catholic God by the same name. Likewise, they call the Moon and the Virgin Mary by the same name.

They need the truth found in God’s Word. But is it worth the time and toil of translating the Bible for a relatively small people group? Someone thinks so! And that is the rest of the story.

In 1980, BBTI graduate Rex Cobb began working in Bible translation among the Zapotecs in Oaxaca, Mexico. The people of his remote Zapotec village were suspicious of Americans, and it became increasingly difficult to minister among them. Bro. Cobb began to pray for Mexican nationals to assume the work of reaching their own indigenous people. In 1987, Rex learned of a Bible institute in the mountains of Chihuahua, Mexico, which was beginning to train students to do just that. God had answered his prayer!

He moved to northern Mexico and for four years taught the skills he had learned at BBTI. The first class had thirty-five students. Bro. Rex later moved on to church planting, and as the years passed, he wondered if he had made the right decision to leave the work with the Zapotecs and invest his time in training Mexican missionaries. Recently the Lord confirmed that yes, it was the correct decision.

Last March, at a mission conference in Gainesville, Texas, Rex met Dr. Neftalí Santos MD, a Mexican missionary to the Pame people of the state of San Luis Potosi. Neftalí taught the Pame people to read and is directing them as they translate the Bible into Pame. Neftalí studied linguistics and Bible translation at the Instituto Bíblico Maranatha in the city of San Luis Potosí. His teacher? Jorge Rocha, one of the students in Rex’s first class at the Bible Institute in Chihuahua! What a joy to learn how God has used Dr. Jorge Rocha to challenge and train dozens of men in the work of missions. Wondrous are God’s doings in our eyes!

God has a plan to reach every tribe and nation with the Gospel. He thinks it is worth the time and toil to translate the Bible for a relatively small people group. Neftalí thinks it is worth it and so do we! We are grateful He lets us get involved and has even let us see some far-reaching effects of BBTI’s ministry.

Fall 2023

Linguistics

There were many notable events in 1973. The infamous Supreme Court ruling Roe vs. Wade made legal the murder of sixty-six million babies over the next forty-nine years. The Watergate scandal was a top story for most of the year, and President Nixon assured us that he was not a crook. Vice president Spiro Agnew resigned over a tax evasion issue, and Gerald Ford was confirmed by the House of Representatives to replace him. The Twenty-fifth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified. The American Baseball League adopted the designated hitter position, and Secretariat won the Triple Crown. After the loss of over 58,000 men and one woman, we pulled out of Vietnam and gave South Vietnam to the
communists. Also, that year Papua New Guinea gained its independence from Australia.

It was not announced on national news or even on local news, but in September of 1973 the Baptist Bible Translators Institute (BBTI) began in a Sunday school classroom of Rolling Hills Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas. Before that time, no Baptist school existed to train missionaries in linguistics, language and culture learning, and Bible translation principles. The vision for BBTI grew out of the frustration of a Baptist missionary trying to minister in Spanish to a group of Indian people whose understanding of Spanish was extremely limited. George Anderson thought maybe he had missed the class at his Bible college that dealt with language learning. He inquired and found that no such class was given at his college or at any Baptist school in America, Canada, or England. In light of Christ’s command to teach all nations, George thought this was very strange. He learned that there are still thousands of unwritten languages with not a word of the Bible and where language schools do not exist. George correctly reasoned that if these people were to ever hear the Gospel or read God’s Word, they needed missionaries with specialized training to reach them. There are two kinds of men: One says, “This is not right. Someone ought to do something about it.” And the other kind says, “This is not right. I am going to do something about it.” George learned that training in linguistic and cross-culture communication was available at the non-denominational organization New Tribes Mission. The New Tribes leaders graciously agreed to accept George and his wife Sharon and train them with the understanding that the Andersons would use it to begin a similar school for Baptist missionaries. George asked his supporting churches to be patient with them for two years while they acquired this valuable training.

BBTI began with the Andersons and three other families: the Duffees, the Huddlestons, and the Cobbs. Realizing that a Sunday School classroom is not an appropriate place to train missionaries, we began praying and searching for a larger rural property. We had no money, but with the help of Paul Henderson, pastor of Central Baptist Church in Bowie, Texas, we were given one hundred seventeen acres of land with three houses five miles from Bowie. The move was made on April 1, 1974, and by then a fifth family, the Christensens, had joined the group.

Missionaries need to learn building skills, and repairs to our old houses provided plenty of on-the-job experience. The many hard and unpleasant tasks such as digging a ditch were classified as GMT (Good Missionary Training), and we did them as to the Lord, knowing that we were building something that would last. Today there is housing for four staff families and a dozen other families or single students. A multipurpose building was constructed in 2004 and an addition to it is currently in progress.

Advancements have been made in the field of linguistic and cultural anthropology, and BBTI has tried to keep pace. The courses of Teaching English as a Foreign Language, Chronological Bible Teaching, Greek, and Jungle Camp have been added but much is still the same. Certainly, the goal of training missionaries has not changed. BBTI has had three directors: George Anderson, Charles Turner, and Rex Cobb.

The tuition-free specialized training is given in one nine-month school year.Enrollment has never been large; it has averaged thirteen students per class. Our best representatives have been our graduates and students that visit churches on deputation. We accept students from like-minded churches with their pastor’s approval. Since 2006, we have promoted the work of missions and our Advanced Missionary Training weekly on fifty-five radio stations and in this quarterly publication. Our graduates have worked in Bolivia, Uruguay, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Colombia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Mexico, Bahamas, China, Mongolia, Taiwan, Nepal, Russia, Israel, Tajikistan, Korea, Japan, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, Papua Indonesia, Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, India, Jordan, Uganda, Kenya, Liberia, Tanzania, Ghana, Zambia, Cameroon, Malawi, Cape Verde, Republic of Congo, South Africa, Ivory Coast, Botswana, Ethiopia, Lithuania, Hungry, Romania, Republic of Georgia, Armenia, Croatia, Greece, Greenland, and to the Chippewas Indians in the United States. Others are preparing to go to Iceland, Burkina Faso, and to some countries mentioned above. Graduates are using the skills they learned at BBTI in cross-cultural evangelism, Indigenous church planting, Bible translation, and literacy.

Thank God for half a century of blessings. We glance back, but we gaze forward. The task is still before us, even greater than it was fifty years ago because the population has doubled. By the grace of God and with the prayers and support of God’s people, we plan to continue to prepare missionaries for their challenging task of language learning, cultural adaptation, and communication of the Gospel. If we were on the right path a half century ago, and we believe we were, then we plan to stay on that same path. Technology is helpful in some ways, but it will never replace flesh and blood missionaries going where people have no knowledge of Christ and staying until there is a thriving church with a well-translated Bible and a desire to take the Gospel to the regions beyond them. That is the plan for the next fifty years or until Jesus returns!

Since I could not get animal crackers for our Noah’s Ark lesson, I decided to be creative and make cutout cookies. At the store, I found what I thought was flour. The packaging read Heljedino Brašno, and I knew the word for flour was brašno so I grabbed the package and headed to the checkout. I learned the hard way that heljedino is the Croatian word for buckwheat. Let me just tell you, buckwheat sugar cookies do NOT taste good! —Sarah, Croatia

Stephen Metcalf 1927-2014

On June 7, 2014, Stephen A. Metcalf, a faithful church planter and evangelist to Japan, passed away. He ministered in Japan for forty years with his wife Evelyn and their five children. However, Stephen did not always want to be a missionary to Japan.

Stephen was born on October 23, 1927, to George and Bessie Metcalf. The Metcalfs were missionary translators in Taku (now Dao-Gu), a mountainous Lisu village one weeks walk from Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province in Southwest China. At a young age, Stephen learned to fluently speak English, Mandarin, and Lisu. In 1934, when he was seven years old, his parents took Stephen to join his sister Ruth at a boarding school in Yantai. Except for Christmas visits, Stephen grew up in Yantai and rarely saw his parents.

By 1937, World War II was imminent. The Japanese invasion of China did not affect Stephen until 1942 when he and his schoolmates were imprisoned. Sickness continually plagued the filthy, cramped attic where the nineteen young men were initially quartered. Hepatitis A and a raging fever nearly killed Stephen, but God miraculously spared his life. As he lay weak and alone, his conscience convicted him of his sins. Overwhelmed, Stephen confessed His sins and believed that Jesus Christ died and rose again for him. In the following months, Stephen’s faith grew through missionary biographies that fellow inmates lent him. By the time Stephen was moved to the Weixian internment camp, God had taught him perseverance, faithfulness, and thankfulness. However, Stephen struggled to learn forgiveness.

Who could blame Stephen for despising the Japanese? His circumstances appeared to justify his attitude. Over two-thousand men, women, and children were confined within the sixty-acre internment camp. Sanitation was deplorable; water was inadequate; food was rationed; and medical supplies were scarce. Self-preservation was the daily mode of life. Individuals who retained ethical and religious convictions were either admired or scorned. Yet one such man’s godly character influenced others in Weixian.

Eric Liddell, famous Scottish Olympic gold medalist and missionary, chose Christlikeness over self-centeredness. Of all the prisoners, he easily could have demanded his rights and misused his influence. At the pinnacle of his athletic career, he left Scotland to be a missionary teacher in China. Instead of evacuating the country with his family in 1941, Liddell remained. He firmly believed that only faithful obedience honors God, despite any personal cost. Even in Weixian, Liddell continued obeying God as he served his fellow prisoners.

In 1945, just months before World War II ended, Stephen heard the words that impacted the rest of his life. During a Bible study on Matthew 5:43-48, Liddell taught: “When you hate, you are self-centered. When you pray, you are God-centered. Praying changes your attitude. It is hard to hate those you pray for.” Listening, Stephen was deeply convicted. He realized Liddell’s personal obedience to the Truth had changed his attitude toward the Japanese guards. God used Liddell’s testimony to break Stephen’s unforgiving heart. Together, the men began praying for their captors.

Days later, Liddell approached Stephen with a pair of patched running shoes. Stephen’s own shoes were completely worn, useless protection against the winter temperatures. Unconscious of his friend’s personal sacrifice, Stephen gratefully accepted them. Only weeks later did Stephen realize that he was walking in Liddell’s shoes.

One month later, tears stung and blurred Stephen’s eyes as he gazed down at his shoes. He tried to steady himself under the weight of his friend’s coffin. Though a brain tumor silenced Liddell’s earthly voice, his words echoed in Stephen’s memory. As he reflected on Liddell’s life, Stephen’s grief suddenly turned to resolution. At that moment, before God, he vowed to go to Japan as a missionary after the war.

Liddell’s obedience influenced Stephen’s obedience. Years later, in 1952, Stephen recalled Liddell’s words again as he began his life-time ministry in Japan. He no longer wore Liddell’s physical shoes, yet he daily walked in Liddell’s spiritual shoes. Both men’s obedience resulted in countless Japanese salvations!

When we obediently live the Truth, others will believe the Truth. Obedience reveals Absolute Truth which powerfully transforms lives for eternity. Through His own obedience, Christ fulfilled the law and the prophets, demonstrating that the Word of God is Truth. His obedience to the Father’s will changed men’s eternal destinies (John 5:30, 6:38)! Christ set the example for us (Phil. 2:8; Heb. 5:8; 1 Pet. 2:21). His obedience cost Him everything. Likewise, obedience will cost us everything. Nevertheless, Christ’s obedience commands and compels our own obedience. We have a choice. We know the Truth. Yet Truth without obedience will never save a lost and dying world.

Christ wore the shoes of obedience, and He commanded us to follow Him. Obedience is a personal choice in response to a personal command. Though initially individual, our choice is eternally influential. Will we obey the Truth? Will we walk in Christ’s shoes? Will others walk in our shoes?

Spring/Summer 2023

Marco Paulichen Family
Missionaries to Uruguay

Marco Paulichen was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada in 1978, and his wife Patricia was born in Ontario a few months earlier. But two could not have come from more distinct backgrounds.

Marco’s mother was from Argentina, and his father was from Uruguay. Marco’s first language was Spanish. His parents were devout Christians and raised Marco in church where he heard the Gospel often. At age five, his Sunday school teacher led him to Christ.

Patricia’s mother was an unsaved, single mother who left Patricia soon after her birth. Though she eventually returned, Patricia grew up in broken homes feeling unwanted and unloved. By age twenty, she was using drugs daily and attending drinking parties each weekend. By the grace of God, Patricia was given a gospel tract by a street preacher. It showed her that she was lost and on the way to hell, but she did not know how to respond. She asked her friends about the way of salvation, but none of them could help her. She tried self-reformation, attempting to please God. This only led to deep depression and thoughts of suicide.

Patricia was in an office building for a job interview when she literally bumped into the young electrician working there. She gladly accepted his invitation to attend his church: later he led her to Christ on their first date. Her life changed drastically; she was a new person. Eleven months later, she married that young man! They have been serving the Lord together for twenty-four years.

Marco and Patricia felt led of God to go take the Gospel to Uruguay. Along with their teenage children Josh and Josephine, they attended BBTI from August 2017 until May 2018. Josh and Josephine studied BBTI classes in the morning and worked on their homeschool assignments in the afternoon. They all excelled. Marco, a master electrician, made many needed electrical improvements at BBTI.

In October 2018, the family arrived on the field prepared to learn the language and culture of Uruguay. Because of Marco’s paternal roots in the country, he and his children are allowed dual citizenship of both Canada and Uruguay. Patricia has been granted residency. They do not struggle to obtain visas like many other missionaries; they are allowed to travel in other countries of South America without restrictions. The children are also entitled to educational benefits. While in Canada, Josh and Josephine studied music at the Royal Conservatory, and in Uruguay they were admitted into a classical music conservatory. This has resulted in many good contacts for the family’s church planting ministry in the interior city of Salto.

Having never lived in Uruguay, Marco has had to learn the country’s unique Spanish. He was able, however, to soon begin the Iglesia Bautista Fundamental in their home. The church began in the living room, kitchen, and under the carport. God blessed and the church grew. They currently meet in a rented building but are looking for a building in a better location. Marco preaches on the radio five days a week and sets up a literature table in two open-air markets where he witnesses for Christ. Thank God that the Paulichen family is faithfully giving the Gospel to the lost in their city. However, many more missionaries are needed for the places where the people wait for someone to bring them the Good News. Pray for laborers for Uruguay and the surrounding countries. Remember that the Gospel is not Good News if it gets there too late!

Axel Quack – Flickr Licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Standing before you is a famed Drum Tower, a remarkable architectural achievement held together with groove joints instead of nails. As you admire the abundance of carvings and paintings on the multi-storied structure, music plays and a traditional song and dance begin. You are at a festival in one of the few Dong villages open to tourism.

Early mission work among the Dong began in 1910-1930 but was halted by communism when it was introduced in 1949. However, the Gospel never took a firm hold. Today only 1% of the Dong people claim Christianity. The 2020 census numbered the Dong at 3,495,993. Roughly half of them is Northern Dong and the other half is Southern Dong. While the customs and beliefs of the two groups are similar, their languages are different. The Northern Dong have no Bible.
The Dong practice Chinese folk religion. They worship their ancestors and believe in spirits and ghosts. Dong shamans use drums during rituals to appease any offended spirits.

The Dong have lived in a subtropical area of south-central China for generations. They cultivate rice, wheat, maize, sweet potatoes, cotton, and soybeans. Some raise pigs and hens. Under communism, the Dong’s standard of living has increased through the building of a solid rural infrastructure and improved education and health care. However, the Dong do not know how they can have eternal life through Jesus.

Spring/Summer 2023

Bible translation is an awesome task. Nevertheless, it can and must be done in the right way with the right method. Bible translators do not translate by inspiration. If they did, the task would be quite simple since there would be no need for checking or revising. The translator must struggle diligently to find the best possible way to say, in the target language , what God has said in the source language. He must pray for God’s help. It would be easy for us to decide translation is too much responsibility and risk. Are you not glad though, that when he gave us our first English Bible from the Greek received text, William Tyndale did not decide the risk and responsibility were too great? Speaking of risk; Tyndale was martyred by the Roman Catholic Church for his work!

The Bible does not easily fit into the target language. Though Greek did not perfectly fit into English, we can confidently say that we have God’s Word in our language. The goal of translation is to maintain the integrity of the original while making the target translation understandable and readable to the people. If the translation does not sound right, people may carry it to church, but they will probably not read it. We want the people to say, “This is our Bible” not, “This is the missionary’s Bible.”

Some passages are a challenge to put into the target language. However, after finding what does not work, you look for what does. Your native translators are your best asset because they know their language and culture. Perhaps a fellow team member may find or know the answer, or you may consult someone back home.
Challenges may arise if the grammar of the source language differs from the grammar of the target language. Many languages have two words for we. You must choose. One of the words includes the person being addressed; the other word does not. (This is third person plural inclusive and exclusive.) For example, the disciples woke Jesus in the storm and said, “… Master, carest thou not that we perish?” Does the word we include or exclude Jesus? Did they think they would perish but Jesus would survive? Or did they think Jesus would sink with them? Since neither English nor Greek have this grammatical feature, those texts cannot help you make a decision.

Another grammatical challenge is the pronoun their. When the four men let their paralyzed friend down through the roof, Jesus saw their faith. At least one Tibetan language has five words for their. One word is a general reference to six or more people, but the other words depend on whether there are two, three, four, or five people involved. So, did Jesus see the faith of four or five men?

Some languages, such as Melanesian Pidgin of Papua New Guinea, have only active, not passive voice. They cannot say, “John was hit by the ball” (passive), but rather “The ball hit John” (active). This language requires that passive voice phrases change to active voice. While we cannot change the grammar of the target language to match the grammar of the source text, our Bible translation must conform to the grammar requirements of the receptor language. This is not bad translation; it is reality.

Another language challenge is the use of verbs and verb phrases rather than abstract nouns such as faith, love, repentance, salvation, etc. In the story of Zacchaeus, Jesus said, “… This day is salvation come to this house…” This little phrase is full of challenges. For example, the Coatlán Zapotec of Oaxaca, Mexico, does not have the word salvation. They have the verb save, but how does a house get saved? House is used to represent the family. This phrase also presents a collocational clash. (Languages differ in what words naturally fit together.) How does salvation come? Abstract nouns and figurative language are often challenging, but translation must be done. Team members can brainstorm, and someone may determine an acceptable way. You can also consider how other translators have rendered the verse. However, you must be careful. Not all translators have the same convictions or methods of translation that you have.
Translators also face challenges in languages and cultures that do not contain words or concepts such as circumcision, baptism, fasting, or housetops. If people live in houses with thatched roofs and bamboo walls, shouting from the housetop may be totally ridiculous. No one would stand on the roof. We cannot say to announce it over the loudspeaker because doing so is an anachronism, introducing something into the Bible that did not exist in Bible times. Some may suggest a cultural substitute like announcing it in the town square or in the men’s house. But that is not what Jesus said; He said house. A footnote might be used to explain the type of house with a flat roof found in Israel or a picture of such a house with a caption below it. What do we do with words like snow, camel, and lamb where these are not known? The solution might be to borrow or transliterate the word from the country’s trade language. If there is misunderstanding with these words, the checking process will reveal it, and we can look for a better way.

These are just a few of many challenges that make translation interesting. While we must maintain a healthy fear of the awesome responsibility of translating, we must not let fear stop us from getting involved. We must not say, “Let the experts do it.” Look at the junk “Bibles” the “experts” have given us in English! Bible translation requires serious-minded, hard-working, Bible-believing, careful, diligent, godly men and women who will accept the challenge. Translation is not for everyone. However, we need many hundreds more missionaries who love God, love the lost, and love the Bible to complete the task!

Before we learned the importance of pronouncing Thai with the proper tones, we would get into a taxi and tell the driver where we wanted to go. The drivers always did a double take and looked at us strangely. We later learned that instead of saying that our destination was Muang Ake, we were saying “knock on your head.” —Vicki

Bro. Ed Waddell
hewj1261@gmail.com

In January 1990, during a Sunday morning service at First Baptist Church of Mayport in Mayport, Florida, God saved me, a twenty-eight-year-old Navy electrician, under the preaching of a guest preacher. At that time I was stationed at Mayport Naval Base in Jacksonville, Florida, serving aboard the USS Saratogo CV-60.

In 1987, aboard the submarine USS Mendell Rivers, my right hand and arm were injured in a machine accident. I served for seven more years, receiving an honorable discharge and a partial disability after twelve years of service. God’s timing and ways are ALWAYS perfect (Romans 8:28; Philippians 1:6; 2 Timothy 1:9). Doing my best to trust and obey according to Proverbs 3:5-6; 16:3; Philippians 3:13-14; & 2 Peter 1:10, I have served God in my local church in whatever ministry capacity He has given me.

This was never more important than in August 2021 when God answered my prayer for strength to end the grieving process after my wife died from cancer in March 2021. God used a missionary family who visited our church to turn my attention toward the mission field and show me that I should be personally involved in missions.

God pointed me directly to the Advanced Missionary Training that I am now completing here at Baptist Bible Translators Institute. I knew about BBTI from their radio program on the Fundamental Broadcasting Network and from seeing Rex Cobb’s articles in the devotional booklet, Baptist Bread. So, I moved from Charleston, South Carolina, to Bowie, Texas, to begin preparing for the ministry the Lord was leading me to. On September 21, 2022, at East Side Baptist Church in Bowie, I met a native Navajo missionary, Aaron Nelson. God showed me how I could also serve as a missionary to the Navajo Nation. I saw the great need for indigenous Bible-based churches that have an accurate, textually pure copy of God’s Word in their native language.

Please pray for me as I move forward in the direction God has given me and begin serving in this capacity (as well as in any others that are necessary).

From the Navy to the Navajo: God is good!

Winter 2022-23

Lilias Trotter 1853-1928

“Satan knows well the power of concentration.” Do we? Do we dare to focus on Christ with such genuine intensity that His glory is our only motive and consideration for every choice we make?

In October 1876, John Ruskin, a famous English painter and severe art critic, consented to evaluate a young woman’s artwork. Astonished by her exceptional portrayal of artistic elements and principles, Ruskin immediately offered to train the artist. As time progressed, he declared that she was a rare talent destined to become one of the century’s greatest English artists.

The young artist, Isabella Lilias Trotter, was born on July 14, 1853, to an affluent family in London. Her godly parents intentionally instilled spiritual truths in her life which blossomed following her salvation. Lilias’s love for art was matched only by her passion for ministry. When faced with a choice between the fortune and fame of an artistic career and a simple life of service, Lilias chose to relinquish her rights to her talent and follow Christ. In 1879, she journaled: “Are our hands off the very blossom of our lives? Are all things—even the treasures He sanctified—held loosely, ready to be parted with without a struggle when He asks for them? It is a loss to keep what God says to give.”

After she surrendered her life and talents to Christ, He opened His way before her. At a mission conference in 1887, Lilias clearly knew that God wanted her to go to Algeria, North Africa. The following year, she moved to Algeria where she ministered to Arabs until her death in 1928. Although she worked closely with North African Mission, the ministry never accepted her as a missionary because her heart was weak. However, Christ was Lilias’ focus; nothing could dissuade her obedience. For the next thirty-nine years, she faithfully ministered to Algerian women and children through Bible studies, prayer meetings, and literacy classes. Her artistic and literary talents enabled her to write and translate many tracts, parables, Christian literature, and Scripture portions into both classical and colloquial Arabic. During her later ministry, Lilias and her team pioneered work among the Arab Sufi mystics in the Southlands of Algeria. When her weak heart left her bedridden, she continued writing. The famous hymn, “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus,” was inspired by Lilias’ booklet Focussed, in which she wrote: “Dare to lay bare your whole life and being before Him, and ask Him to show you whether or not all is focused on Christ and His glory.”

Lives are legacies, yet only Christ-focused lives leave legacies of faithfulness. Focused lives fearlessly follow Christ without hesitation at the cost to oneself, family, friends, or ministries. “Christ—Christ—Christ—filling all the horizon. Everything in us: everything to us: everything through us. ‘To live is Christ.’—Amen.”

Is our focus changing our lives? Do we dare?

Quotations from A Passion for the Impossible by Miriam Huffman Rockness

Winter 2022-23

Cindy Stacy
Missionary to Zambia

Cindy Stacy is not another Mary Slessor. She does not trudge alone through the African jungles facing the danger of lions, cannibal tribes, and pythons. (She does need to avoid contact with black and green mambas and other venomous snakes). Much of what she does as a missionary in Zambia is what she did for many years in New Mexico.

On March 24, 1964, Cindy was born in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Eight years later, she was born again at Temple Baptist Church. After graduation from the Temple Baptist Christian School, she earned a bachelor’s degree from Eastern New Mexico University.

Cindy joyfully served the Lord in her highly active church, Gospel Light Baptist, in Rio Rancho, New Mexico. She taught in the Christian school for twenty-three years. Why did she not stay where she was comfortable and safe? She was drawn to Zambia because she saw a much greater need there. Of the 13,800,000 people in this Southern African country, half are under the age of fifteen. Cindy saw wide-open doors and opportunities. A church-planting missionary family needed her experience and expertise. Though most of Cindy’s peers are willing to serve the Lord in the United States, few of them want to go overseas. However, Cindy was willing to serve outside her comfort zone. Instead of asking, “Why should I go?” she asked, “Why should I stay?”

Mission work requires preparation. Once Cindy’s church commissioned her as their missionary, she began presenting her plans to other churches. Knowing full well what children need, she began asking God’s people for school supplies to take with her to Zambia. They responded generously to the need. Cindy also began saving for passage and setup expenses. A single missionary may require a smaller amount of monthly support, but plane tickets, visas, housing, furniture, and vehicles are expensive. Cindy worked diligently. Seeing the benefits of BBTI’s Advanced Missionary Training, she arrived for training in August 2014, graduated in May 2015, and left for Zambia in January 2017.

English is not the first language of Zambian young people, but they need to learn it. Cindy teaches grammar, reading, and ESL classes to the youth. She has Thursday and Friday evening Bible classes for neighbor children and conducts a successful Children’s Bible Hour on Saturdays. Cindy enjoys teaching her Sunday school class of seventy-eight children as well as discipling ladies.

Missionary work is not simply teaching people but training people how to teach other people. Through the Solid Rock Bible Institute, Cindy is training two young ladies to be future teachers. Though they are not allowed to have their own class in the church before they graduate, they have begun a neighborhood Bible class on their own. One lady asked Cindy to teach her four children to read. Instead of teaching the children, Cindy trained the mother to teach her own children. The team wants the young people to have Bibles, but they do not simply give them out. The children must earn their Bible through the Faithfulness Campaign which requires church attendance and Scripture memorization.

While church and school duties keep Cindy very busy, she still finds time for her cat, dog, and vegetable and flower gardens. Zambia, like many places, has its share of difficulties, and Cindy must share those difficulties with the people she loves. Often there is no daytime electricity, and water is very scarce. Prices have increased by seventy-five percent, and, of course Zambia was plagued by Covid-19. Nevertheless, Cindy is very content and does not want to be anywhere else! She extends this invitation: “If you’d like to come work in Zambia, you can teach the two-to-seven-year-old children. I will give you thirty children, chairs, a room, the curriculum, a helper, and all the hugs you’ll need for the rest of your life.”

Winter 2022-23

 

 

Al Jazeera – Flickr
Creative Commons

The Kingdom of Bahrain is an archipelago nation located in the Persian Gulf off the coast of Saudi Arabia. Most Bahraini live on the main island. The town people usually live in apartments or houses made of cement and lime brick. The villagers live in thatched huts. The arid climate allows some dairy and vegetable farming, but most of their food is imported.

Bahrain has diversified its petroleum and commerce-based economy to include manufacturing, tourism, and international banking. This prosperous nation has a rich Middle Eastern heritage. Its people enjoy a relatively high living standard as well as free education and medical care.

Over 763,000 Bahraini Arabs are living in deep spiritual darkness. Islam is the state religion, and most Bahraini are either Shi’ite or Sunni Muslims. The Sunni monarchy rules over the Shia majority. Resulting dissension between these two Islamic sects led to the removal of political and civil rights. Due to western influence, the Bahraini are less strict than mainland Arabs. However, Islam is their culture. While they are more open to many western ideas, Christian beliefs are deemed pagan.

Arabic is the official language of Bahrain, but the people primarily speak Bahrani Arabic. Linguists have developed a Bahrani Arabic alphabet, yet there is no Bible in this language. Will you pray for the Bahraini?

Winter 2022-23

With eight billion souls in our world, and three hundred eight-five thousand being born every day, the words of Jesus still ring true, “The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few.” We need thousands of new missionaries; and we need the present ones to stay the course! No one announces their intention to go to the mission field without a desire for a long, fruitful ministry. Yet, it seems that missionaries who spend decades on the field have become less common. Why? Recently, a missions-minded pastor asked me to share my thoughts on selecting missionaries to support who will stay the course. This article, which I pray will be a help to both missionaries and pastors, is the result.

While we encourage all to consider missionary service, presenting yourself to the churches as a missionary is like matrimony—it should not be entered into lightly. Some missionaries have asked churches to invest in them only to fail to reach the field or to depart prematurely. William D. Taylor with the World Evangelical Fellowship Missions Commission claims that 71% of early missionary departures are preventable. God’s people want to invest in new missionaries, but they deserve some measure of assurance that the missionary will stay the course and do what he promises.

Missionaries are expensive but well worth the cost if they accomplish their goals. We understand that sometimes it becomes impossible for a missionary to reach the field or remain there. He may face political unrest or visa problems. But if this happens, it may be God’s direction to a different field, not His leadership back home. Sickness is a common reason for leaving the field. Missionary friend, if this happened—we should say when this happens—consider getting medical help there or in a neighboring country. If you must return stateside for treatment, determine to return to your field as soon as possible. Give up your support and stay home only as a last resort.

Sometimes missionaries leave their field due to unresolved conflicts with other missionaries or nationals. If these painful incidents occur, seek counsel from your pastor and others. Separate yourself from that location, if necessary, but not from your mission field. (See Acts 15:36-41.) God put you there; don’t let a man send you home!

Failure to learn the language well and become comfortable in the culture is often an underlying factor in early departures. Inability to communicate is very frustrating. Determine to spend at least your first two years in nothing but language and culture learning. Our pre-field linguistic training will help you learn quickly and accurately and help you to recognize and deal with the language and culture shock you will inevitably face. Your ability to adapt is vital to success in communication. It is difficult to remain in an uncomfortable place when you struggle to communicate.

If you are a supporting pastor, we suggest you not simply rely on a questionnaire or brief phone conversation before adding a missionary for monthly support. A personal call to the missionary’s sending pastor might reveal some valuable information. Does the pastor have any reservations about sending him? Is the sending church completely behind him, and how much money are they investing in him? Is the pastor willing to visit his missionary couple on the field to ensure that they are adapting well and learning the language?

Next, ask questions about the missionaries’ family life and active ministry. Are they humble, hospitable, and ministry-minded? Have they served faithfully in the church? Have they taught Sunday School or Junior Church, cleaned toilets, worked in the bus ministry, the jail, or in the nursing home? How well does the pastor really know the man, his wife, and his children? Does he only see them on Sundays and Wednesdays? What is the home really like? Is the couple training their children? Is the wife completely dedicated to a life on the foreign field? Are they willing to make sacrifices for the sake of the ministry?

Discover the character of the missionary. Is the pastor quite sure his missionary is not viewing pornography? Is he (or his wife) addicted to his cell phone or social media? Can he stick with a task? Can he put down his electronic toys and get his hands dirty? Is he an extra-mile Christian or does he do only what is expected? How does the missionary react to adversity? Can he respond Biblically to interpersonal conflicts? Is he faithful and consistent in giving of his finances? Language learning and missionary work require that he endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.

Finally, discover all you can about the missionaries’ preparation. Do they know their Bible? Have they been to Bible college, or do they have a good explanation why it was not necessary? Do they plan to get specialized linguistic and cross-cultural training before going to the field? Do not accept the response, “We don’t have time.” They take time for financial preparation. Nine months of Advanced Missionary Training will prepare them to communicate clearly in a new language. Have they researched their country and know its history, heroes, culture, and government? What have they learned about the Bible they will be using? Do they care about its accuracy and purity? Do they know or care about the status of people groups in the country? Are they reached, unreached, or Bibleless? Is the missionary willing to find answers to these questions?

Before taking a missionary on, it is wise to have a face-to-face meeting. If you have concerns related to any of the topics above, share them. Be kind and gentle and do not expect perfection. Remember that God holds us all to the same standard. Give the missionary godly suggestions in the areas where he may be lacking and schedule a future interview; give him six or eight months to implement your suggestions. Be willing to qualify and slow to disqualify this precious missionary family! Above all, pray for discernment. God knows who will stay the course!

Winter 2022-23

To get acquainted with people in Siberia, you invite them to your home for tea. As outer clothing is considered dirty and hot to wear inside, a host greets visitors by saying, “Come in. Take off your clothes (meaning hat, coat, gloves, and boots). Have some tea.”

A Russian English-speaking teacher/translator was hired to receive American visitors and she hospitably invited them to her home for tea. However, something got lost in her translation from Russian to English when she told them, “Come in. Get undressed. Have some tea.”

Brother Johnny Leslie, missionary to Croatia, was preaching about John the Baptist having his head cut off. He should have said odrezati but instead said narezati. Both words mean “cut,” but the congregation roared with laughter because narezati is only used when talking about slicing something like salami!

 

Charles V. Turner in 2021

Charles V. Turner was born in Greenville, South Carolina, in 1934 and born again in 1951 at a summer camp ministry of Marcus Hook Baptist Church in Pennsylvania. It was at this church that he dedicated his life to the work of missions in 1952. The following year, he enrolled at Columbia Bible College and graduated in 1957.

Classmates of Charles were Wanda Sifford, Mary Lou Pruitt, and Joshua Crocket. Charles married Wanda and they served the Lord in Papua New Guinea as missionaries with New Tribes Mission. Joshua married Mary Lou, and they were home missionaries helping struggling Native American churches.

Charles was busy in 1957. He finished Bible College, took the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) course in Norman, Oklahoma, got married, and began training with New Tribes Mission (NTM). No sense wasting time when you know what God wants you to do! During summer vacation of 1959, while still students at New Tribes, the Turners returned to Norman to re-take the SIL training.

In 1960, after six years of formal training, the Turners were sent by Marcus Hook Baptist Church to Papua New Guinea where they served until 1980. First, Charles and Wanda learned the trade language, Tok Pisin. Then they learned the unwritten language of the Sinasina tribe. Applying the linguistic skills, they learned at SIL and NTM, they developed an alphabet, giving the language a written form. They produced literature and taught the people to read. In 1975, they completed the translation of the New Testament. After several years of use in the churches, Brother Turner and the church leaders revised and improved the Sinasina scriptures. For twenty years, Charles and Wanda spread the Good News, baptized converts, taught literacy, and began four or five churches and a Bible institute. In recent years, the work has flourished, and many more churches have been established in the Sinasina area. According to family members and medical experts, Wanda should never have gone to the mission field because of a heart condition. However, she did go and was a good missionary/linguist. In 1975, Wanda had open heart surgery, and then returned to the field.

In 1980, the Turners returned to the NTM training center where Charles taught Bible translation, linguistics, and language and culture learning. He began writing the book Biblical Bible Translating. In 1982, they transitioned to Baptist Bible Translators Institute (BBTI). They took the BBTI training which was a review that prepared Charles to teach the same courses at BBTI. In 1991, he became the director of BBTI and served in that position until 2005.

Wanda passed away in December 1994. Later, Charles married Mary Lou, whose husband, Joshua had died a few years earlier. Mary Lou took the BBTI training and served the Lord and the BBTI students. She went to be with the Lord in November 2020.

Charles desires to visit the Sinasina people again; pray that his health will allow it. He currently serves the Lord as a BBTI trustee, a deacon at Truthville Baptist Church in Truthville, New York, and a teacher in their Christian school. Servants of Christ may change locations and job descriptions, as Brother Turner has, but when he signed on, it was for a lifetime of service.

Fall 2022

 

Isaac McCoy 1784 -1846

Isaac McCoy was born in Fayette, Pennsylvania, in June 1784. He was the son of a Baptist preacher who, as incredible as it sounds, did not believe in evangelizing. Isaac and his father argued over this, but Isaac was not afraid to stand for the truth. He became a missionary to the Native Americans. Before moving west to the wilderness of Indiana and Illinois, Isaac pastored a church for seven or eight years. His first missionary assignment paid him $500 per year, and he worked with the Weas, Miamis, and Kickapoos in Indiana. He later worked with the Pottawatomie tribe in Michigan.

McCoy used education as a tool to evangelize children. In 1820, he moved to Fort Wayne and opened a school with ten English pupils, six French pupils, eight Indian pupils, and one African pupil. By the end of the year, he had thirty-two Indians living in his own home as members of his family! A year later, he reported that he had forty-two pupils. In 1822, he began a temperance society and made his first trip to Washington D.C. to plead for fair treatment for the Native Americans. Our government was shamefully famous for making and breaking treaties with the Indians They stole their land, relocated them, and viewed them as something less than human. However, Isaac McCoy did not see the Indians this way. He loved a people that others despised.

For many years, McCoy served under federal appointment as a commissioner, surveyor, or teacher among the Native Americans. On a trip to Washington [believed to have been in 1829] to report on his exploration, he visited the Mission Board in Boston. He found them making pleas for missionaries to Burma (Myanmar), Africa, and other countries, but not to the Native Americans. Not everyone shared McCoy’s burden to reach them. Some believed that the Indians would soon die out; therefore, they believed there was no need to evangelize them.

In 1828, McCoy preached the first Baptist sermon ever heard in Chicago. In 1832, he was present in the organization of the first Baptist church in the Oklahoma Territory. He was instrumental in the founding of Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Kansas City, Missouri, where he lived until 1842. At that time, McCoy moved to Louisville, Kentucky and established the Indian Mission Association. On a return trip from Jeffersonville, Indiana, he was exposed to severe weather which resulted in a serious illness that caused his death on June 21, 1846. His dying words were, “Tell the brethren to never let the Indian mission decline.” It was said of him, “The American Indian never had a better friend than Isaac McCoy.”

Fall 2022

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

The Foot of the Cross

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

The Pu-nyai and the Pu-noi

Understanding of a people’s culture is vital. If the missionary does not know the culture, he is likely to deliver a confused message. The following article by a BBTI graduate, whose identity we must conceal, demonstrates this fact. Understanding of a people’s culture is vital. If the missionary does not know the culture, he is likely to deliver a confused message.

In the process of language learning, we have heard several folktales and children’s stories and have learned much about the people’s cultural mindset and worldview. We have seen at least three common themes.

Firstly, people are collectivists, NOT individualists. In America, we have been rooted in humanism to the point that “I define me.” In other words, I get to decide what I think is right and wrong. In general, westerners want to stand out of the crowd, be their own person, and have their own opinions. It does not work that way here. A person’s goal in a collectivist society is to progress the community; all are equal, and everyone is happy. Nobody has more than anyone else, we are all one big family, and what is mine is yours. This could explain why communism, to a certain point, makes sense here culturally. It is when the people discover that the dictators are above everyone else, have more, and are bossing people around that things begin to change. Which brings us to the next point…

Authority (without reason) is almost always resisted and rebelled against. If others (the pu-nyai) are over you, they are expected to show respect and understanding to you and everyone else (the pu-noi) under them. This means that if you give a rule, you should also explain why that rule is being enforced. Giving a reason shows you care about others and are helping to further everyone so that all live in unity. Otherwise, you are just a jerk full of pride scolding the underlings.

Last of all, deception is considered heroic. A typical hero in a folktale is an underling (pu-noi) who deceives the dictator/jerk (pu-nyai) in order to shame him, make him “lose face” in the community, and bring down his pride. We have seen this pattern over and over in these stories. A clever trick played on someone, usually in a humorous way, shows not only how the trickster does not like the jerk, but that he thinks the jerk is something he should not be. It is a way to “get the upper hand” so to speak. Here is an example of a story involving these things:

“Please don’t put me in the bucket!” called a soft voice.
“Oi! The fish can talk!” the lady said with a startle.
“Please don’t put me in the bucket!” the little fish begged again.
“But if I don’t catch you, I will not have anything to eat!”
the lady replied.
“But I am so young and very small,” implored the fish. “You will not have enough to eat. Why don’t you put me back in the water and wait until I am fully grown? Then you can catch me again, and you will have more to eat for that meal.”
After some thought, the lady conceded. She gently placed the little fish back into the river.
The little fish, happy to be free again, swam and splashed as far away from the net as he could, determined to
never return to that spot in the river.

Here we observe the pu-nyai, the lady who will catch and eat the fish (which only benefits her and leaves no mercy for the fish). The pu-noi, the little fish, resists and outsmarts her, even lying to her that he will be there again for her to catch once he is grown up. His trickery saves the day, he swims free (a small victory for all fish everywhere), and the woman is assumed to go hungry that day.

How does this affect the missionary? Take, for instance, the story of Adam and Eve. At first, if you hear the story through our people’s ears, God could
be considered a bad pu-nyai, giving rules without reason; the hero of the story would be the serpent, Satan. In deceiving Eve (by mixing truth with lies), he really deceived God and foiled His plans. And now all the earth and humankind are as corrupt (thus on the same level) as Satan. Imagine trying to convey the Gospel when Satan is seen as the hero!

However, if we show that God is a good pu-nyai, giving reasons for his rules (“In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”), thus trying to look out for and protect the pu-noi under Him, we see that deceiving Him is the worst blasphemy ever! Now, the deceiver is harming the one that protects the community, making himself the pu-nyai who is getting something only for himself and hurting everyone else. It shifts the situation entirely.

Now consider Christ Jesus. He was and is THE Pu-Nyai: Creator God, holy, sovereign, all-powerful, eternal, worthy of all praise. He stooped down and became a humble Pu-Noi. He had no more than anyone else around Him; He roamed homeless, often only finding solace on the Mount of Olives. He helped make the lives and souls better for those around Him. He had compassion on His fellow men. He did not come as Pu-Nyai, even though He is worthy to make the rules. He came as one of us, so He could be accepted by us.

As missionaries, we MUST be learners before we can be teachers, or we will find ourselves having to correct grave errors in our teaching. We cannot just spread the Gospel without giving due attention to culture. The way we pre- sent things may or may not make sense to the hearers. We must be pu-noi, just humans among fellow humans, serving our Heavenly Father, the Pu-Nyai of pu-nyai, the holiest and worthiest of all.

Here Am I; Send My Sister

This title comes from an article by Paul Fleming. It makes us laugh but should make us cry. In practice, a lot of men are saying, “Send my sister.” Fleming goes on to write:

We men! We are the stronger sex; it has always been so! We send our gifts to mission fields, to which the women go. While up the steepest jungle paths, a woman bravely treads, We men, who are the stronger sex, do pray beside our beds. When women leave to go abroad, the heathen souls to reach, We men, who are the stronger sex, do stay at home to preach. While women, in some far-off shack, do brave the flies and heat, We men, who are the stronger sex, in cool and comfort eat. Fatigued and weary, needing rest, the women battle on. We men, who are the stronger sex, do write to cheer them on! O valiant men! Come let us sleep and rest our weary heads. We shall not be the stronger sex if we neglect our beds!

We do not deny the important role that women play in God’s work. Women from Galilee followed and ministered to Jesus and his disciples. Paul named several faithful women who served in the early churches. Over the centuries, thousands of women, both single and married, have left their homes to work in heathen lands. Some, no doubt, preached a little more than we think they should have, but probably because no man was there to proclaim the Gospel. Whether on the foreign field or at home in our churches, women are often the spiritual leaders because men have abdicated the position. Many times, women have a heart for God and a compassion for others that is lacking in men. This naturally attracts them to the mission field.

Women oftentimes have a desire to serve the Lord full-time just like men. At home, their full-time opportunities may be limited to church secretary or Christian school teacher, but on the foreign field, they can serve as missionaries. Missionary women understand what they should and should not do. They should work under the leadership of a male missionary or national pastor. They should teach ladies and children but not men. They may teach men to read and write or to speak English but may not teach Bible doctrine. They should not attempt to work in dangerous places where they risk being violated. Of course, single men have limitations on the foreign field as well. A well-prepared Aquila and Priscilla team is perfect.

Over the last twenty-one years at BBTI, the single female students have outnumbered the single male students by two to one. Some single graduates get involved in short-term missionary work, but as a rule, if they remain unmarried, they will not be career missionaries, especially the single men. Unmarried ladies are much more likely to go to the field as full-time missionaries than single men.

The great need is for men, single or married, who will go to the foreign field and stay. Thank God for the ladies who have this desire, but where are the men? Why are they avoiding missionary service? Could it be that they are not being confronted and challenged? Spurgeon said, “Not all men should be missionaries, but all men should struggle with it.” Pastor, make the men struggle with it. When they say, “I’m not called,” pressure them to tell you how they came to that conclusion. How much did they pray about it and study God’s Word on the subject? How did God reveal to them that they are called to stay? Do not let them off the hook so easily. Most of our churches are not producing missionaries; we should find out why! We support missionaries, but are we producing them?

Military experts tell us that seventy-five percent of our military age men are unfit for service: 25% lack a high school education, 30% are too ignorant to pass the entrance exam, 10% are disqualified due to criminal convictions, 27% are obese, and 32% of the age group have other disqualifying health problems. And since we have an all-volunteer military, a man can simply not volunteer. The same is true in God’s army. God may impress a man that he should go to the mission field, but that man has a will and can refuse; men do it all the time!
Disqualifying factors for missionaries are different, but they are numerous: LifeWay Research reports that 66% of young people drop out of church after high school. Others are addicted to pornography, video games, social media, texting, pleasure, money, and tattoo ink. Most want to simply be comfortable and live the good life. For those who are even somewhat interested in missions, there are many pitfalls and detours that lead anywhere but to the mission field. We as a church must protect potential missionaries from the wiles of Satan. We must nurture and encourage them by keeping the mission challenge before them.

Nothing short of real revival is going to produce male missionaries. We must fall in love with our Lord Jesus Christ and get interested in what is on his heart. He said, “And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). He said to preach the Gospel to every creature; yet billions have never heard a clear Gospel message. He said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15). His commandment to go and teach all nations is ignored; there are still thousands of unreached nations (people groups). He said, “Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you” (John 15:14). We are unfriendly toward Jesus because we are not evangelizing the world as He commanded.

Yes, we need a real revival, one that would result in men saying, “Here am I, send me” instead of saying, “Here’s my sister, Lord, send her.”

We Sold the Farm

When a man decides to go to the mission field, his wife may have little to say about it. But for sure, his children have no voice or vote—they go. It is not a problem for young children; they simply go where mama and daddy go. Children seven or nine years old may be concerned that they cannot take all their toys, but it is probably not a disturbing event. However, for preteens or teens it is an altogether different story. They are facing a big struggle. Being teenagers is hard enough in a place where they know the language and culture perfectly. In a strange new place where they cannot speak the language and have no idea how to act, it can be traumatic and terrifying.

A family on deputation going to South America was in a distant state when their teenage son disappeared one evening. They did not know if he was kidnapped or if he ran away. The latter was the case. He decided he was not going to the mission field. The family did go to the field but stayed only a year or less. A family that graduated from BBTI many years ago planned to go to a first world European country. One of the sons told his parents that he would kill himself if they took him out of the country; they, of couirse, stayed home.

Consider these portions from a journal entry of an extraordinary fourteen-year-old girl facing a new life in a third world country on the other side of the world.

“Dad signed the last paper, and the farm is now in the hands of someone else. It will never more be my refuge, my shelter, my home. Home as I have known it will never be the same. Tears begin to stream down my face as I relive the many happy years I spent on the farm. Faces, places, and happenings start to flash through my mind. I remember spending wintry evenings with a fire crackling merrily in the wood stove and a kerosene lantern shining softly above me [their house had no electricity or running water], snuggled in the lap of an older sibling, listening to Dad or Mom read a book about the Anabaptists or about a missionary. I remember the happy hours gathered around the kitchen table playing games and just enjoying each other. I remember… I remember… I remember… I remember the many special memories that my family made on the farm. Fun, scary, hilarious, and sad memories race through my mind. I see the farm from stem to stern. I see where I spent fourteen years of my life. I begin to wonder, was it worth giving them up? I see my dog that I gave up, my special treasures, my life. Was it worth giving up? Was it worth leaving behind friends, family, and the only home I have ever known? Was it worth leaving it all to go to a place I have never seen, to a people I have never met, to a language I have never heard, and to a culture I have never understood? Was it worth leaving close friends to become the stranger and the newcomer? It will be worth it all. These temporal things such as our farm, will someday be gone, but the eternal things that we have done for Christ will last forever. Pictures of natives in [we dare not name the country] begin to play on the screen of my mind. I envision the souls that will get saved, the Bible that will get translated, and the glory that God will get. Now it doesn’t seem so hard to give up everything. In my mind I begin to replace the hardships and sacrifices with eternal rewards in Heaven. So, to me, it is worth giving up my friends, my treasures, and all this world can offer to fulfill the Great Commission and help reconcile the world to God. As I dry my tears and close my journal, I ask myself this question: Was it really worth it to give up the farm? My answer is yes!”

Does this mean that a family with teenage children should opt out of foreign field service? Absolutely not. But there are things that would help prepare young people for the field. First, parents should raise children to love and serve God as the above quoted girl was. Then, the churches, especially the sending church, should recognize the teens as missionaries in their own right. Churches should encourage and reward them in every way possible. Missionary dads usually get the recognition and love offerings. Give some accolades and gifts to the missionary mom, children, and teens. Generously finance survey trips to the field so that older children can accompany their parents. This is a good way to help relieve teens’ fear of the unknown, and they will probably learn that the place is not all that bad. God may even give them a great love for the people and a desire to return.

Consider also that teens would benefit greatly from pre-field preparation in linguistics and in language and culture learning. It is a big mistake for any missionary to go without adequate preparation, and teens will encounter the same difficulties in language and culture adjustment as their parents. Over the years, several teens have taken some or all of the Advanced Missionary Training courses at BBTI along with their parents. (Their homeschooling may have been somewhat curtailed or even postponed. In other cases, however, the teens took BBTI classes in the morning and worked to complete their high school course in the afternoon.) Young people that do this go to the field with confidence and skills that help them learn and adapt more quickly. They look at the new culture and language as a challenge, a very achievable goal, instead of a dreaded ordeal. One ten-year-old boy took the phonetics course with his parents. Once on the field, he quickly learned a difficult tonal language that he is comfortable speaking twenty years later.

The worldwide adolescent population is over forty percent. In some countries it is much higher. Young missionaries have more potential to reach those young people than their parents. If young people arrive on the field with a positive attitude and learn the language, they can be a great asset to the Lord. Their few years on the field can be a happy and fruitful time, and they may even return as adults to continue their missionary work.

Christian Grave Diggers

“And he said unto another, Follow me. But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:59-60).

No one who teaches this passage believes that this man’s father was at the morgue or even on hospice. The father was probably old and would perhaps die within a few years. If the young man left home, he would lose his inheritance. He did not refuse to follow Jesus; he just said it would have to be later. He said, “Let me do what I want to do first, what I think is best for me.” Jesus was concerned about the multitudes scattered as lost sheep without the knowledge of the kingdom of God, and He wanted the young man to help reach them. But, it did not fit the young man’s plans and aspirations.

The young man’s response to Christ’s command is the typical one of most Christian young people today. They say that preaching the kingdom of God is a good thing—for someone else to do. Following Jesus would be fine—as long as He is going where they plan to go and will not interfere with what they plan to do. Many are saying, “Lord, I will follow you later, after I have lived out my dream. I have a certain career in mind, and it is not being a missionary.” That career then occupies the best years of their lives. And they become too old to go to the difficult places where those outside the kingdom live.

The young man thought his idea was better than that of Jesus. His financial advisor certainly thought it was a better and more profitable plan. None of his friends were following Jesus to the mission field; they were choosing their own careers. And of course, his mama and daddy certainly thought he should stay home because they looked forward to spending their last days playing with the grandchildren.

The lost sheep, ignorant of the kingdom of God, were the last thing on this young man’s mind. He did not know them. He felt no obligation to sacrifice his plans for them. Nobody he knew seemed to be concerned about them, so why should he be concerned? What right did Jesus have to tell him what to do with his life anyway?

Why do we think it is okay for a Christian young person to choose what he is going to do for the rest of his life? Why do we applaud him for planning and preparing for an honorable profession of his choosing? Have you ever heard a preacher denounce this as the sin of rebellion? If a Christian is not submissive and honestly seeking God’s will, what else is it but rebellion? Someone is going to say, “Maybe it is not God’s will for all the young people to go to the mission field.” That is true, but do you think for a moment that all these saved young people are honestly seeking God’s will? Are they presenting themselves as living sacrifices and making themselves available for missionary service? Are they letting God make the decision about their future? You and I both know that most of them are not.

A middle-aged man, whom we will call Frank, grew up on the mission field. He is bilingual and capable of preaching the Gospel in his second language in countries in Africa as well as in North, Central, and South America. He could also go somewhere else and learn a third language. He lives right, works hard, supports his family, pays his tithe, and teaches in his church. But several years ago, instead of going to preach the kingdom of God in the regions beyond, he chose to “bury the dead.” Frank began an excavating business and has spent his life doing what the spiritually dead could have done. If he can choose to operate a backhoe, why can he not choose to go to the mission field?

Someone needs to dig graves; dead bodies must be buried. But does the backhoe need to be operated by a Christian? What would make a saved person a better grave digger than an unsaved one? The lost man cannot go to the mission field to rescue the scattered, lost sheep, but the Christian can. Someone needs to sell life insurance, repair vehicles, build houses, unstop drains, milk cows, put out fires, and arrest bad guys. But, these jobs could be done by spiritually dead people.

So, what is the big deal if a young man decides what he will do with his life? The big deal is the big lake of fire where all those lost, scattered sheep will spend eternity separated from God. God wants them to live forever in His kingdom! While self-willed, rebellious, selfish, churchgoing, young people spend their lives doing what lost people could do, billions of lost souls wait for the Good News of the kingdom of God. In many places, the message that will most likely never arrive. If it were you bowing to an idol in Cambodia, or praying five times a day toward Mecca, or kneeling before a saint made of plaster with your hope in the pope, you might realize it is a big deal. If you were standing at the great white throne judgment without Christ, without hope, and about to hear the words of Jesus “depart from me” you would wish that someone would have gotten off his backhoe or laid down his shovel and brought you the Gospel.

Oh, dear Lord of harvest, help our people, especially the young ones, to stop making their own choices and let You choose. Help them to listen to the plea for help that is coming from distant places instead of the advice of the guidance counselor telling them about all the opportunities for lucrative careers that are theirs for the choosing. Help them to hear Your words, “Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God.”

The Missing Link

King Solomon said,“of making many books there is no end.” There are millions of books, both true and ficticious, covering every possible subject. Imagine how many things we read in a day besides books, newspapers, or magazines. We read instructions (sooner or later), road signs, billboards, medicine bottles, letters, signs for businesses, house numbers, labels on food or drink containers, T-shirts, tattoos, bumper stickers, the Yellow Pages, text messages, and so on. However, this is only possible if ours is a written language, and if we are literate. Many in our world do not have this skill that most of us take for granted. Where would we be in this world without the skill of literacy? Can you imagine a GI overseas asking his buddy to read him the love letter he just received from his gal back home? Illiteracy can be dangerous. When someone cannot read the sign that says “Wrong Way” and enters the freeway going the opposite direction of traffic flow, or when an illiterate mother gives her child the wrong medicine because she cannot read the label, lives are endangered. We owe a great debt to those who patiently taught us to read!

Literacy is like the ability to ride a bicycle. Once you have it, it stays with you for life. Monolingual people who speak an unwritten language, however, are always illiterate, and there are still well over three thousand unwritten languages in our world. These unwritten languages are without a single verse of the Bible. As Christians, we realize the importance of the written Word of God and Christian literature in the heart language of all people. To reach this goal on the foreign field, the missionary must learn the language, analyze the sounds, develop an alphabet, and then write or translate books. The Advanced Missionary Training program of Baptist Bible Translators Institute (BBTI) trains missionaries to do all of this.

The first step is to create an alphabet. Languages vary greatly, and an alphabet that serves one language may not work well for another. The linguistic skill to develop a well-suited alphabet for a particular language is called phonemics. A phonemic alphabet has one letter for each significant sound in that particular language, makes the ability to read and write much easier. This is one reason why Spanish is relatively easy to read. Our English alphabet, however, is not phonemic—our symbols often do not match our sounds and achieving literacy is a long process. Furthermore, our reading ability is often poor and our spelling skills atrocious.

Having only five vowel symbols to represent eleven vowel sounds makes English vowels especially difficult. Listen to eleven different vowel sounds as you pronounce these words: beat, bit, bait, bet, bat, Bob, but, boot, book, boat, and ball. If English had a phonemic alphabet, it would contain a separate symbol for each of these vowel sounds. It is several centuries too late to write English phonemically, but it is not too late for the thousands of unwritten languages. We need well-trained missionaries who will go, learn the language, develop a writing system, translate Scripture, and teach the people to read it.

Between the making of books and the reading of them is the missing link of literacy. A book, however true and helpful, is of no value to a man who cannot read it. Those mysterious marks on the pages may be as intimidating to him as Einstein’s theory of relativity is to us normal folk. Handing a Bible to a man in his heart language is of little or no use if he cannot read it, but he can be taught. Both children and adults can learn to read. However, they must first be motivated. I once offered a man a free booklet containing a Bible story that we had translated into his formerly unwritten language. I expected him to be excited about finally having a portion of God’s Word in his language, but he asked, “What do I need that for?” He had lived his entire life without a book. Neither his father, nor his grandfather, nor any of his ancestors had ever owned one. Why would he need a book? Obviously, he needed to be motivated. People simply do not read if they do not want to. A skilled literacy teacher works to create a desire to read by providing plenty of relevant and interesting reading material such as their folk tales or history. He wants to get the people “hooked” on reading.

Using the science of phonemics, a BBTI graduate can give an unwritten language an alphabet that precisely symbolizes the sounds the native hears. Then choosing a literacy method that matches the people’s way of thinking and doing, he can teach them to read. BBTI graduates have used the knowledge gained in phonemics and literacy classes in several parts of the world. Cherith developed an alphabet for the Kamea language of Papua New Guinea. She and Sarah have taught the Kamea people to read their language and the trade language, Pidgin. Michele did the same in Vanuatu with the formerly unwritten language of Akei. Dan not only taught literacy in Uganda, but also trained several native literacy teachers. Bruce worked with the government of his Latin American country to teach literacy in the public schools. Sarah trained literacy teachers in a closed Asian country.

Putting a previously unwritten language into print gives it a special identity and dignity. When a man reads the Bible in his own language, it becomes personal instead of foreign as he sees that neither he nor his language are inferior to God and realizes that the message of God’s love is for him. A people’s culture, history, and heritage are all tied up in their language, and unwritten languages are on the endangered list. If they become extinct, at least one generation is left in a linguistic “no man’s land” where the people lose their heart language but do not fully understand the trade language. Writing these languages and teaching people to read them helps to preserve cultures, but more importantly, it gives them God’s words —words that they can learn to read for themselves!

God Has Not Called Me

A young Christian, whom we will call Bill, was beginning to learn about the work of missions. He was intrigued by the missionaries that visited his church, and it concerned him that many in the world have little or no chance of hearing the Gospel and that most of the preachers were staying in the United States. A missionary on his way to Honduras had shown slides and preached in Bill’s church. As he left that day, Bill said the nice things that people say to missionaries. The missionary replied, “Thank you. Maybe you will come to Honduras and help us.” Not knowing how to respond to this challenge, Bill repeated something he had once heard, “God has not called me to be a missionary.”

The young missionary, wise beyond his years, did not let Bill get away with this glib answer. He opened his Bible to Matthew 9:38 and said, “Read this. This is a command; will you do it?” The verse says that we are to pray for laborers. Bill told the missionary that he would, and he did. Bill has now been a laborer in the harvest for half a century.

Many, like Bill, believe the five-syllable sentence, God has not called me, because they have heard repeatedly that a missionary must receive a special, supernatural call. No one has told them that they can volunteer. If a person has not had an overwhelming emotional experience, he may assume God has not called him. He concludes that he is free to choose his own career, unlike the called one who must do exactly what God has called him to do. Everyone needs to hear Romans 12:1-2 and be reminded that he is to present his body a living sacrifice. Only then will he know God’s perfect will. Why would God show His will to a Christian who is not dedicated to do it? After surrendering, he must seriously ask God what he should do and where he should go. He should consider foreign missions for at least two reasons: First, it is a command to go and preach Christ to every creature. Second, common sense tells us that people with the least opportunity deserve top priority. The Apostle Paul strove to go where Christ had not been named. Oswald J. Smith asked, “Why should anyone hear the Gospel twice until everyone has heard it once?” Christians who say, “Lord, anywhere but the mission field,” are rebels and disqualified from knowing God’s will!

Most would not think or say it, but with so many Christians exempting themselves from missionary service by saying God has not called me, we may be inadvertently accusing the Lord of failing to call enough missionaries. God loves every man and sent His Son to die for all. He commands all men everywhere to repent. God wants no one to go to Hell. He has no alternative plan other than faith in Christ. He has commanded us to go everywhere telling the Good News. Has He not called enough people to do it? God wants churches established at home and abroad, but thousands of places have none. He wants all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. He wants no one ignorant of His Word, yet more than half of the seven thousand one hundred languages in our world still have not one verse of Scripture. Jesus has commanded us to evangelize all people groups; there are over sixteen thousand! And we have done little or nothing in half of them. Is it possible that our all-powerful, all-wise God would do all this for man’s salvation but not call enough men to proclaim it? Someone is at fault, but it is not God!

There’s another group that claims God has not called me. It is their pretext and shield to deflect any challenge or question that might get near them. These words protect them from becoming a pastor, a youth director, an itinerant evangelist, and especially from the dreadful fate of a missionary. The one who has declared himself uncalled can go abroad if he wants to—if the job pays well—or he can stay home. He can work in the oil fields of Saudi Arabia or in an auto plant in Detroit, it is his call (pun intended). But he is not required to preach the Gospel in these places because, after all, he is not called. He can learn a few foreign phrases as a tourist but needs not labor eight hours a day learning a language. He can visit any place in the world, but he is not required to live anywhere he deems dirty or unpleasant. He can spend his entire life with his people and never experience the discomfort of living with those of a different culture. God has not called me guarantees him comfort socially, economically, and physically. He can make it sound so convincing that others believe he has struggled with the issue of fulltime service and concluded that it is not God’s will for him. The truth is that he has not given it a minute’s consideration. Also, the unspoken implication is: Drop it! Leave me alone. The matter is settled. I have no further word.

Saying these five magic words may free a man, at least in his own mind, from any obligation to be a spectacle in the world, to go where he might feel uncomfortable, or to do anything that he does not want to do. He may use these words to opt out of any full-time service for God. Oh, he can mow the church yard or pass out a gospel tract, but he is free from speaking from a pulpit and running the risk of embarrassment. He believes God has not called me automatically exempts him from any personal involvement in the Great Commission of Christ other than dropping a dollar in the offering plate or praying, “God bless our missionaries around the world. Amen.” He can ignore the command of God to give the Good News to the heathen; that only applies to the called. This rebellious brother needs to be reminded of a few biblical truths: First, “Ye are not your own; … ye are bought with a price.” Second, “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it.” Or as someone put it, “Losers finders, keepers weepers.” And finally, his empty words, God has not called me, are not going to help him when he looks at the nailed-pierced hands of His Saviour. He may be in the majority now claiming this, but at the Judgment Seat of Christ, he will appear alone and speechless.

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?”

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!

Playing it Safe

The story is told of the farmer who didn’t plant corn for fear of blight, he didn’t plant beans for fear of drought, and he failed to plant wheat for fear that a fire might burn his crop just before harvest. He told a friend, “No, this year I’m playing it safe!” A BBTI graduate in the world’s most populous country just wrote, “Pray for more laborers; we sure do need them.” Missionaries never say, “Don’t send any more missionaries; we have more than we need.” And the heathen, in their own way, are pleading, “Come over and help us!” Meanwhile, many, realizing the seriousness of missionary service, are playing it safe and staying home.

Millions, yea billions, if we could only hear them, are crying out, “Stop playing it safe and come over and help us!” The heathen seek happiness in intoxicating substances, illicit sex, material possessions, education, sports, and vain religion. They are left empty and disappointed. But we know the One who gives abundant life and eternal satisfaction! They live in bondage to evil spirits, always trying to manipulate or appease them to receive their blessings and avoid their curses. But we know the Spirit who can make them free. They bow to idols that have hands that cannot help, ears that cannot hear, and eyes that cannot see. But we know the all-powerful, all-knowing, omnipresent Creator whose ear is always attentive to our prayers. In vain the heathen look for help from shamans and priests who offer them forgiveness of sins if they will do enough good works, say enough prayers, do enough penances, and of course, give enough money. But we have God’s promise of free forgiveness without any of the above dead works. If they knew we have what they need, they would beg, “Stop playing it safe and come over and help us!”

Why are there thousands of cities and villages with no gospel-preaching church? Why do thousands of languages still have no Scriptures? And why are literally thousands dying every day having never heard the name of Jesus Christ, let alone a clear message of salvation? It is not for lack of a command to tell them. Jesus made it perfectly clear that He expects us, His church, to give the Good News to every soul on Earth. They will not all accept it, but they all have the God-given right to hear it. God desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth; He wants none to perish. The God of truth wants no one to live and die ignorant of the Gospel. Jesus who tasted death for all men wants all men to know it! Are we being too careful, playing it too safe, about who goes to tell them?

Ask one hundred young Christian men why they are planning to stay here and not planning to go to the mission field? Almost all of them will say that God has not called them to be a missionary. And so, we usually drop the subject and don’t challenge them further. But if we dare ask them how they know God has not called them, they can only say that they just don’t feel called. (So then, the eternal fate of the heathen depends on how we feel?) Ask them what this call would feel like, and they probably cannot tell you that either. Ask them for two New Testament verses that show them if they are called or not, and my bet is they will not find even one. Ask them if they have ever surrendered their lives to serve God on the mission field. Ask them if they have volunteered and asked God to let them go tell the heathen about Christ. The prevailing thought is that God will give an overwhelming emotional experience, a special supernatural revelation, to those He wants to serve on the mission field; otherwise, they should stay home. Unfortunately, this play-it-safe mentality often takes precedence over God’s command to go. And aren’t we inadvertently blaming God for not calling enough laborers to reach our world?

Some say that God hasn’t called them as a pretext; they wouldn’t go if He did. Others, however, have heard misleading rhetoric that has convinced them to play it safe and stay home: “Don’t go unless you are one hundred percent sure that God is calling.” (But they are given no scriptural instruction on how to be sure.) “Don’t confuse a burden with a call.” (No scriptural explanation is given to explain the difference, and the heathen won’t care if the message comes from someone who is called or burdened.) “If you can do anything else, God hasn’t called you.” (And our young people can find a hundred things they’d rather do than preach to the heathen.) “Wait until God calls you.” (While we wait in comfort, the heathen wait in despair!) “We have too many mama-called daddy-sent people.” (Oh no, I wouldn’t want to be accused of that! Better stay home and play it safe.)

My friend, withholding the Gospel from the lost is a much bigger sin than going to the mission field without a special call! We hear over and over about the call to go. When is the last time you heard preached the command to go? The call is subjective and ambiguous; the command is absolutely clear. I tell young men this: “In light of Christ’s command, you better go or have a good reason to stay!”

How many potential missionaries have stayed home because they have always heard and believed these warnings to play it safe concerning the mission field? Wouldn’t it be much better to risk sending three or four people to the mission field that really should have stayed home than have three or four thousand stay home that could have and should have gone? And lest you fear that unqualified missionaries will go, wasting our precious mission funds, remember that God has provided a safeguard. He has given the church the responsibility to determine who should go or stay.

As one brother said, “If you are not called, why not go and stand in until a called missionary gets there?” The heathen man who gets saved and goes to Heaven probably won’t care who it was that brought him the Gospel. For the sake of the heathen and the glory of God, let’s run some risks. Let’s ignore the religious rhetoric. Let’s hear the heathen’s desperate plea, “Stop playing it safe; come over and help us!”