Natural Language Learning

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!