"..It's like finding a whole new Jesus"

We've been talking a lot about the Big Picture this month---About how one translator, traveling for one lifetime, to live among a people group and to help bring them the Word of God in their language is really just a tiny part of the story. This story that God is writing, is an intricate one, where WE get to be a part of mobilizing many parts of the Body to use many varied giftings and talents to bring Jesus and God's Kingdom to manypeople. 

Before we close this 30-day blog series tomorrow, I wanted to share one more poignant story about the vastness of God's translation-tapestry story! Jenny's story below, and the story of the Yazai people, gives a good glimpse at the prayer, human resources, food resources, community commitment, and fierce "irrational" faith that are needed for Bible translations to be completed in the almost 1,900 languages that are still left without it. I pray that we will catch these qualities from those that have gone before us, and that God would be glorified by our hungry, exuberant responses, as He invites us into this work.

In the 1930s, Jenny and her husband were planting a church among the Yazai* people of Southeast Asia. Understanding the need for Scripture in the mother tongue, they devised an alphabet and translated a catechism and the Gospel of Mark. But just three years into their ministry, her husband died of typhus, and Jenny was driven away by political unrest, never to return. Her prayers, however, did not cease. 

Jenny was 37 years old when she left the Yazai village. She was 93 years old and still praying for the Yazai and other language groups every morning from breakfast to lunch, when an SIL translator named Mark visited her. By then the church she faithfully watered with her prayers had grown to 10,000 believers...but they still did not have the Word in their mother tongue. Mark had the joy of telling her that he was working towards starting a translation project. He was studying the language with three Yazai speakers he’d met far from their homeland, and praying for an opportunity to meet church members interested in launching a translation project. 

The next year, 1997, Mark met two brothers who were Yazai church leaders. They told him they’d been praying for four years for someone to come help the Yazai do a Bible translation. “Four years?” said Mark. “I’ve been studying the language for four years and praying for a translation team related to the church!” The Yazai joyfully formed a translation committee and Mark became the translation advisor who checked the material! 

Individuals and whole communities threw themselves enthusiastically into the project. The lead translator was so committed that when he married, he and his bride spent their honeymoon at a training event! The future chairman of the translation committee, a paralyzed man, read in the Gospels that Jesus healed paralytics, so in faith he stood up and walked...and then went to work leading the committee! Villages formed their own support committees. Though poor, villagers agreed to drop a handful of rice into a bag every day. As the bags filled up, they sewed them shut and sent them to the translation team. 

The translation committee prepared books, songbooks, audio materials, and the "JESUS Film", so that everyone, readers or not, could have access to the Word. The church held literacy workshops, eventually training 100 people to serve as volunteer teachers. Each time a Scripture portion was completed, the church published it, and people carried copies around in their shoulder bags, snatching moments to read them in the fields. 

Even non-Christians became interested. Fifteen animists attended one literacy workshop; during the week every one of them found Christ and was baptized. Entire villages of non-Christians asked for someone to come read the Scripture portions to them so they could understand who this God was. With breathtaking speed the church grew from 10,000 to between 30,000 and 40,000 believers—a quarter of the entire population. 

In 2009 the New Testament was printed and, in spite of opposition, imported and dedicated. One well educated woman, having read the national language Bible for many years, said, “Reading the Scriptures in Yazai is like finding a whole new Jesus. The national language went to my head; the Yazai goes into my heart.” 

Now the Yazai have their eyes set on the Old Testament. “The New Testament is like a shirt, but we need pants!” said one man. “The Old Testament is those pants. Please help us get a complete outfit so we can be fully dressed!” The main translator is now studying theology so he can translate the Yazai Old Testament and serve as consultant for other translations. 

Jenny passed away in 2003 just a few days short of her 100th birthday, her part in the Yazai story complete. I know that by faith she celebrated the completion of the New Testament and the rapid expansion of the Yazai church, but I wish she could have heard what one old man said: “Now the light of God has come to the Yazai people. Now the Yazai people will grow and be blessed.” 

Language by language, the light of God is coming to people He loves all over the world. Sooner rather than later, the last one will be blessed. Thank you for the role you play! 

*Name changed to protect work in a sensitive area 

From ConnectUS, August 2010, Bob Creson

The ripple effect of Bible translation for families

The ripple effect of Bible translation in a community that has not had it before is remarkable. I remember sitting with a group of women in a mountain village of Ghana and hearing them discuss the effects their literacy class was having on their lives.

One woman spoke about how they were now creating a business co-op through micro-loans that were helping them all to utilize small-plot farms to provide for their families. Another spoke about how she suddenly felt empowered in the market place, that she could sign her signature mark now, knowing what she was signing for, and that no one took advantage of her anymore. A third mother spoke of all the knowledge she was newly attaining about the world around her, and that she had never had access to the health pamphlets given by the city and aid workers before! She cried as she gestured and explained examples of how to wash her baby, and that covering their food could make a difference in keeping things sanitary… simple but powerful things that had never been opened to them before. 

They spoke from the heart, blatantly choked up and moved by the impact of these practical lessons. These mega life-changes all followed the introduction of a Bible translation project into their community, and the establishment of literacy courses alongside it, so that once the Word became fully available in their variety's heart language, they would be able to read it.

My experience of these stories is not isolated, and today's PassionBite video beautifully reiterates some of the socioeconomic ripple effects that have shown communities Jesus' love for them through practical means.

Empowering Families for Lasting Change from Wycliffe USA on Vimeo.

The Boogi Waqa

Today's PassionBite contains a story from Kenya (as told by Bob Creson), involving a wily and misbehaving cow, a dream bearing a vision from Heaven, and the fulfilment of God's promise to the Borana people to provide His Word to them in their language once again… 

The hot desert day was over and a small group of Borana people—nomadic cattle herders in Kenya—sat down under the stars to share news and stories. As SIL workers Jim and Dorothea Lander joined them, an elder began to speak.

“Long, long ago,” he said, “the Borana people had a Book of God. We called it our Boogi Waqa and everyone had a copy. We read it often to learn how to please God. But as the years passed, our books began to wear out until eventually only one remained—the prized possession of an old, old grandfather.

“Those were years of drought, and our people relentlessly battled for survival. Day after day the old man and his family took their cattle out on long searches for grass and water. One day they left behind a cow too weak to keep up with them. Nosing around for food while no one watched, she came upon the last Boogi Waqa…and devoured it! When the old man came home that night, he found only a few pieces of leather binding scattered on the ground. Great sadness filled the camp.

“That night the old man slept fitfully and dreamt that an angel appeared to him. The angel promised that after many years God would send their book back to them. ‘Watch for a strange man from a faraway country,’ said the angel. ‘When he comes, treat him well, for he will bring back your Boogi Waqa.’

“Many years later, the first missionaries came into Borana land. Some of you remember them. They tried to learn our language, and one of them actually wrote a book he said came from God, but we could not read it.” The elder paused, and then with a long sigh, he concluded: “Now, my children, we still wait for the Boogi Waqa.”

Jim and Dorothea were still learning the Borana language, but they understood enough to marvel at the story. A few weeks later, they entertained some Borana men in their home. After dinner and several cups of sweet, creamy tea, a man named Galgalo picked up the Lander children’s English Picture Bible. Galgalo could read it because he’d served in the Kenyan Air Force. He read the story of the Tower of Babel in English, and then told the Borana men what it said in their own language.

Together they looked at the pictures in the Bible and exclaimed, “Look, these men dress just like we do, with flowing clothes and turbans! They pack their camels like we do! And this desert looks just like ours!”

Galgalo turned to Jim and asked, “Is this a Borana book? Is it…could it be…the Boogi Waqa?”

“Yes,” said Jim. “This is the Boogi Waqa.”

Silently the men stared at Jim and Dorothea. Slowly they turned their gaze back to the book. Long into the night they explored the book, examining the pictures and listening to Galgalo read. Eventually they came to a picture of the Israelites sacrificing a lamb, as God had instructed them to do in the Old Testament.

The men told Jim, “Our fathers taught us that the Boogi Waqa told how to sacrifice a lamb, so that God would forgive our sins. And sure enough here it is in this Boogi Waqa! We still do our animal sacrifices, but some of the missionaries say we should stop. Why is that?”

His heart pounding, Jim took the Bible and turned to the tenth chapter of Hebrews. With Galgalo’s help, he explained that God sent his Son, Jesus, to be the perfect sacrifice for sin. They no longer needed to sacrifice lambs each year because now they could find forgiveness of sin and eternal life by putting their trust in Jesus, who died for their sins once for all!

Health concerns later sent the Landers back home, but a Borana man, David Diida, drew on their linguistic research to spearhead a revision of the Bible and a very successful literacy program. Many groups of believers can now read their own Book of God all across Northern Kenya.

Dorothea says, “I believe God placed the Boogi Waqa story in Borana history and preserved it in their oral culture so that many years after the original book disappeared, men would seek after God and find in Him eternal life by reading their new Boogi Waqa.”

God left His footprint in the desert sands of Northern Kenya, and He’s left it in many other cultures around the world. Missionaries often think they are “taking God to the people” they are called to serve. But the truth is, He has already been there, preparing the way.

Humira Shots, Haircuts, and Wedding Dresses, Oh My!

So, once again it’s been a long time since I’ve written! This year continues to be one wherein very little is “normal”, and in some ways not writing about it but just experiencing it has been the best way to process it. However, God always seems to bring me back to a place where I must recall that putting words to difficult things takes the power out of them… We name something, shed light on it, and invite Community into it, and suddenly the fear-swirl that comes with it must diminish. When I’m silent with something for too long, there is a temptation to see it as bigger than me, and what’s worse, that creeps into the feeling that it’s bigger than God, and the lie that we’re alone. I end up folding, thinking that speaking about things equates to whining, but that’s just a trick to make us feel judged, petty, small, and guilty, when Christ’s real perspective is one that caters to little children crawling up in His lap with little-children-worries.

The funny part is that these emotions seem to come out with the “wrong” triggers! Sickness itself was so bad. This last flare-up was so strong, so altogether crushing, that maybe there just wasn’t time to feel things as they happened, and now, months after the worst of it, the tiny things are the button-pushers.

This past week I had to cut my hair off. The rounds of powerful medicines we had to use for this flare-up made it rapidly fall out, and by the time this month came around it was clear that it wasn’t salvageable and that I was going to be a short-haired bride afterall. Not what I’d always dreamed of, but also NOT a huge deal; it’s definitely just hair! But somehow the no-choice-in-the-matterness of it all shook me up more than I expected, and on the happiest of girly days—when I got to go pick up my wedding dress and do the first fitting—I started to weep. Maybe these tangible things exist to put form to something we wouldn’t be able to process another way. Lost tresses and the way they change my face force me to move forward, to take a deep breath and chose bravery in the small stuff, leaving loss behind and pursuing confidence again after feeling tossed around by feisty circumstances.  

And I have been given the BEST support team for this stuff… two brothers and a sister that came along for the chop, and didn’t make me feel silly in any way, a mom that wiped my tears at the bridal salon, a pappy that nuzzled the words “you’re beautiful” into my cheek, and a fiancé that has only gushed delight, excitement, support, and anticipation at a lifetime of seeing each other grow and change.

A few days later, we needed to administer the second “loading dose” of the new “biologic” medication (given in my arm this time, instead of the initial 4 in my belly – see the pic!). This one is replacing the Remicade that was causing the hairloss, exhaustion, and brain-fog. We’re really hopeful that this is the one we can stick with for many years to come, and are praying that as it gets in my system, I will become able to wean off the steroids again and remain on only 1-2 medicines! It’s awesome to be able to give myself the shots (it’ll be 1 shot every 2 weeks now), and to no longer have to plan around intravenous infusions every 8 weeks! This medicine still suppresses my immune system, which potentially still limits where Johnny and I will be able to serve with Wycliffe in the future, but that “limit” no longer feels scary, and I stand firmly on the knowledge that no medicine will wrangle any limitation on God’s will.

So change pummels forward, but good things are afoot. Smiling today at the oddity of this summer, and thankful for all the ways this body is calming down. 

What I'm learning outside of class...

Okay. So here’s some straight-talk — the vulnerable, confessional kind that I’ll feel itchy about when I hit “post” :)…

I’ve been here for almost a month already! How very good these weeks have been, so full of joy, new ideas to consider, digest, and operate from, but whelming in task-volume, weighty in function, and wearying in sheer speed.

The first two weeks of classes found me ecstatic with learning but drowning in spite of my efforts to juggle everything… I’d underestimated the combination of these two dense courses, an on-campus job every evening, and my work with Wycliffe to be in touch with and update partners and generally prepare for my future work on the field in all the non-academic ways... My mind had been repeatedly boxing with the time-limitations I’d come crashing into, and the four hours of sleep a night were spiraling quickly into frazzlement (surely, this is a word!)!

By the end of the first week, God had my undivided attention, as I pushed to seek Him on “how to do all of this—how to prepare well, with devotion and gusto, and still be sane?!”  How odd that I wasn’t prepared for the answer, still…..

               —This missionary thing… my goodness, it takes so much getting used to, so much rewriting of our ingrained American culture and instincts. As I sought God’s wisdom in my frustration, He began to reiterate the shift He’s been executing in my life – absolute plate tectonics – voluntary No Man’s Land…  His whispered reply was:

“I brought you here to study, to learn from community and to prepare academically. You added work, dearone, you wanted to plan for every grocery and display financial wisdom in advance, but you are no longer living that life. This new life of yours involves trusting you will be fed, praying when you have a need, and learning to ask; not striving on the side in something I haven’t appointed for you to focus on right now… It is time, Little One.”

This correction is difficult.

It moves me from something I know to be good (working to provide for ourselves) to something unknown, invisible, something that feels dangling to us “responsible folk”… And I’ve been stepping into living on the support of the Church and the community, family, and friends that are permitting and enabling me to be one of their ambassadors of Christ, but with training wheels until now. I hadn’t even realized that I hadn’t fully let go; that I was clutching a little at my part-time work that made this “a little less scary”.

And then, Messiah turns up the heat of preparation, mercifully allows me to come to the place of abandon with my stubborn heart on its own, and in my shaky exertion, once again shows me where I’ve been holding on to things that are good, but are just not for now.

And the exceptional part is this——immediately after bringing me to this realization, and after I wrote to my supervisors to discuss stepping down from this job (though no one else was told of my need or struggle!), I received, in incremental notifications, the announcement that two of my current financial partners were increasing their support, and that there were two new one-time gifts coming in from others this month… This support equaled the amount of income needed for the rest of June that I would be walking away from by leaving the job!…  His goodness—ahh!!—how silly that we worry at all! But I am learning…

SO, if you think of it, keep praying for this journey for me, and I for you, that we might be so wrapped up in Him that what’s for now can be nimbly redirected at a moment as He keeps us engulfed in His voice, His presence, and His perfectly unhurried unfoldings, as we wait to see how He will provide each next time…

.

Redeeming what could have been "Stranded Friday"

[A Friday morning song I'd love for you to hear (referred to later in this post!)]


I never have trouble understanding that “no man is an island”.

This feels like in-grown knowledge that I’m always certain of, and more often than not, it’s harder for me to handle being in situations that make me feel like one. I don't dislike solitude, and longingly crave it sometimes, but this week has been one of those funny convergences of lots of solitude that just sort of happened by default…  Krissy and Chris have been on vacation, so this big house has been devoid of anyone but me and the Great Companion Scout. I have been working a lot this week too, because everyone in the office is at a conference, and whenever this has happened anytime in the last 3 years, I’ve been the Fort-Holder-Downer for the team…that’s just what we do, and it works wonderfully. 

BUT—It also means that the office has been down to one or two people, and much quieter than usual. THIS much quiet (waking up to it, driving to work in it, rolling in it from 9-5, and returning home to it for a quiet evening) for days and days in a row has historically made me squirrelly, itchy for people and stories, voices and interaction. It's just how God wired me. 

BUT—This week I've found Him beautifully pushing on those wires, and making enough quiet room for me to have space to notice His provision. In the midst of this plan for the Silent Bustle Week, my car broke down. I was running to go meet a dear woman for a we-haven't-done-this-in-TOO-LONG coffee-chat, and it was going to be my reprieve from the first few days of being on my own. "Err-errr-ERrrrrrr" went my little Sentra, and nothing I could do would coax it out of stubborn stuckness. 

BUT—I keep being reminded that His timing is good, even for brokenness.
The breakdown happening this week meant there was a vehicle to borrow, and work has gone on just as it needed to. Such a blessing! I was able to get to the needed, nourishing conversation, wherein we out-night-owled the coffee shop, and I've been able to have the time and solitude in the evenings that I've needed to re-kindle fervent prayer — Prayer about provision and "first world needs" like car repairs, about habits that I want to strengthen in my life that I have time to notice when it gets hushed and still, about awesome decisions that are coming up concerning Papua New Guinea, and the name of a region that I've been asked to pray about working in once I'm initially settled in... 

It is only in solitude that things like this get to roll around my mind and tongue the way they should... In this solitude, my heart readjusts its need to process out loud with someone, and finds itself reminded that Christ knows my voice and wants to hear these things first. He knows the name of this region in PNG and knows every person there. He knows what's wrong with my car and how He will sort out every worry of mine, so much so that He would prefer I let the air out of those worries before I decide it's holy to fill them up and let them fly upward like wind-hoisted balloons...

So this morning was about a joy-filled, weightless, extra-early drive to work in a borrowed car, where my heart found thanks and felicity dribbling out of it (to the tune of the song above!), with the comfortable knowledge that it is well, and that we ought to be singing while we wait to see the surprising, jubilant provision of the Lord. Happy Friday, dearest loved ones. May you feel Him so warmly in your rush or silence today too.

Repairing the ruin in the year of favor

I finally know “what this year is to be called”…
A beautiful friend of mine has been whispering for months, “ask God what this year is about for you… He will give you a word to focus it in, a name to call it. He wants to narrow in and teach you, show you something specific.”

Already, just the 2^nd month in, and this has been an incredible year of blessing, of vision being sharpened and light spilling all over it. I feel God undergirding it—undergirding me—with Isaiah 61, which my ESV titles “The Year of the Lord’s Favor”… and so it is.

I want to come in the next few days and fill you in on a whole bunch of monumental boulder-movings that have occurred in the last few weeks for me, but in case you read this blog and you aren’t at my church where this was already circulated, I wanted to post this initial update and then go from there:


Notes from a Glad Ledge

I can almost feel my toes curling tight over the edge of the precipice; a jumpy anticipation poised in my spirit’s heels, it’s tummy full of butterflies, and elation burst-fisting its way out of the fortress of waiting I’ve lived in for years… 

I wish I could show you the million little moments that have led to this cliff, but this is the story of some of them, so that you will understand the beauty behind it when you see me hurtle off its height—

Ten years ago I “accidentally” took a Linguistics class.
God had begun nipping and tugging at small fibers of my heart, telling me I wasn’t for this place and that he was fashioning my compassion and preparing it to pour out into other cultures all the days of the rest of my life. As I went through college I felt the conflict of “wisdom” to choose studies that would lead to a job, and a job that would be a livelihood, but as I kept trying to choose ways to do this, God would wreck my heart with images of orphans, cultures I’d learn of that were flanked by oppression, and blatant demonstrations of the fact that He’d wired me to find no joy in things but to hunger to reach into people’s stories and do life with them.

At the same time that He slowly revealed this burning call to missions, I stumbled into this most-odd class that had its students playing scrabble with the International Phonetic Alphabet and learning concepts about how languages all over the world work. Almost every student with me found it to be the most boring, absurd class they’d ever taken, but I was lit up and intrigued! Over the course of the next year, I began looking into ways to combine these passions, which eventually led me to Bible Translation… As I started to research how God could use something like linguistics on the mission field, I found out that there are still about 340 million people that have no portion of the Bible accessible to them in their mother tongue—that’s more than 2,000 possible languages left.

I found this utterly overwhelming.

I have since witnessed deep caverns of darkness in people’s lives, footholds, sorrows, staggering lack where God’s heart longs to fill in and heal—but to imagine these millions of people with no Living Word, with no access to the Words, Spirit, and Breath that swoop in to redeem all brokenness—this felt like too much. I knew that whatever manner of loneliness I have ever felt in this life, I have always had a book of shelter—Words that save me, have loved me, have torn me out of sorrow and into a Kingdom that seeks to rescue. But so many don’t have it. This knowledge licked at all the tugged fibers like whipping flames, and I felt God’s purpose in me solidify: you are to fight for Me this way.

So I set to it—I took a trip to Ghana in ’04 with Wycliffe Bible Translators, and spent a summer exploring how one approaches the idea of translating God’s Word and how many different roles there are in that process. I met the most incredible missionaries, witnessed moonlight literacy meetings in the mountain village of Gekrong, and watched God expand my heart and shatter my worldview. In the weeks that I spent observing the work and seeking God’s voice on these new hopes, Christ spoke such confirmation and assurance into my being that I came home fiercely excited. I thought that I would just quickly work off my undergrad school loans and then launch into the 1-2 years of Linguistic training I would need to be ready to head to the mission field—

Eight fascinating years have plodded past instead, though.
I look back on that time and the care God put into planting certainty into my heart and can’t help but laugh at how much He knew I’d need that! I tumbled into working several jobs, took certification classes and became a teacher, walked with my family through some heartbreaking crises, and wrestled through a long, sharp season of sickness. Journal after journal from the last few years were slowly filled with passionate out-cries, scribbled reminders of what God told me ‘on the mountain top’, and jotted down prophecies and prayers that I received from the Body and the people in my homegroups.

Each year I would ask and pray “is this the one?”, and always He would whisper that the Kingdom is here, and the Kingdom is coming—now/not yet, my love—You are already on the mission field, and every bit of now is the training. I, Myself, am cultivating in you what you will need for this task.

 As the years wore on, and especially inside the one of sickness, people began to suggest other goals, saying that I would need to stay where doctor’s were easily accessible, and that surely I would be happier accepting that circumstances were different now and that maybe I’d misunderstood God’s will. Medical bills were added onto the stack, and although the determined fire for what God had written on me wouldn’t wane, I shoved up my sleeves, understanding that it would be years more than the eight that have already passed before I would work the last of the debt down now.
Carefully, painstakingly, God ushered dependence into me, humility that has bent wide His vision for the impossible to be completed. Slowly I submitted my expectations and timeline and begged that God teach me to be where He has me well, and to trust that He would make it bullhorn-clear when it was time to move forward.

This past year, in August, the “Deeper into Community” series broke my heart again, and I found God stirring my waiting up with the “Your Calling Takes Us Deeper” sermon. In September, I sat in the sanctuary afterwards and shivered as I felt God whisper “it’s coming”, and then grabbed at my journal so I would keep that moment, writing it down as the physical goose-bumps dissolved back into normal skin.  In October God asked me to give up the sickened sorrow that I was carrying from my hope deferred, and November poked at my held-breath when we tumbled into speaking of Rescue each week and mingled our post-it notes together on the curved sanctuary wall—all our dreams stated beside one another, interconnected.

By the end of the year, I sent a long email to the Wycliffe recruiter that I’ve spoken with for years. I updated her on the debt again and explained that I was in another one of those weeks where my soul tingled and God was keeping me up at night with dreams—She sent a note back with a prayer and signed off with “LORD MOVE THE BLOCKADE”. Three days later I got a phone call.

One of my dearest friends was on the other end of the line saying, “Monica, are you sitting? We have something to tell you.”

And this brings me back to that cliff that I mentioned—

Through the obedience and sheer generosity of other believers, God is moving the blockade. With a single swipe—out of my hands, more than I could ask for, more than I can swallow without fits of joyful laughter—God has suddenly led a couple to completely wipe out the last of my school debt!
In quick gusts of the last month, so many miracle-nudges have been set in motion, and now it looks like I may be moving this summer to one of the three training-program locations to get equipped for this mission.

So I dance on this brink with you, beside you, sweetly terrified, our whole souls thrumming to the shift God’s calling our Body of believers to—church planting, adoption, foster care, feeding the poor—His fingers, His ears, His arms brought to His waiting people, and also His mouth in their language to feed their hearts. And as we all hurtle off these peaks, I hear Him comforting me… every one of these cliffs is in the vast Land called Married (Isaiah 62); none of you are hurtling alone, and whatever distance is coming, for a long or short time, you belong to one another—I am making you into each others’ netting.