At Triennial Meetings, Bible Translators Challenged to Pray and Trust God for the Impossible Task of Translating the Bible into All the World’s Languages

The theme of the meetings was “Trusting God for the Impossible.” The impossible task is “Vision 2025” which states, “That by the year 2025 a Bible translation project will be in progress for every people group that needs it.” Although Wycliffe has helped in the translation of the New Testaments in 530 languages worldwide, Wycliffe officials estimate that there are close to 3,000 languages that do not have even one verse of Scripture.

The Wycliffe International Convention focused on effective partnerships in Bible translation and identifying effective and creative ways to involve the worldwide church in the task of Bible translation.

The SIL International Conference focused on creative strategies, which include developing a closer partnership with local speakers of the languages in which SIL works, and a “cluster” approach where a translator works on several related language translations instead of only one. The delegates affirmed the key goals of: translation, language development and scholarly language and cultural research.

In addition, delegates elected the presidents and representatives to the boards of the two organizations.

However, the highlight of the meetings was the repeated challenge to the delegates to pray and act in faith looking to God for the accomplishment of the Bible translation task.

In his closing remarks, Dr. John Watters, Executive Director of Wycliffe and SIL said, “As we met, one key message and echo frequently heard concerned the centrality of prayer. We were reminded. We were exhorted. All of us as participants had already been praying before coming. Many had been praying with us who did not come. And as we came and met, we continued to pray. Meanwhile, thousands of colleagues and supporters, both close at hand and around the world, prayed as we met.”

Devotional speaker Rev. Joseph Kok, who served five years as senior pastor of Kornhill Alliance Church in Hong Kong and is currently pastor of Zion Alliance Church in Markham, Ontario, Canada, asked delegates to develop the habit of engaging in intense, consistent prayer for their lives and ministries. He said that “For Jesus, prayer was a form of discipline. and that just as Jesus received his marshalling call in choosing his disciples through prayer, we need to seek His presence through constant communion with God.”

Referring to Martin Luther’s phrase; “I’m so busy that I need to pray more,” Rev. Kok asked delegates to put Christ at the center of their calling, and leave the rest to the Lord. “The Lord can do it without you anyway.”

Dr. John Piper, pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minn. and author of “Desiring God” and “Let the Nations Be Glad,” told the gathering that God is most glorified when we are satisfied in Him and that the only way that Jesus Christ can be exalted “is to live by the sacrificial love of God and help people discover the un-searchable gift and riches of Christ.”

He told delegates, “We must become the most radically loving people in the world. That way He’ll get the glory and we’ll get the joy.” He reminded delegates that as missionaries, their calling is fraught with all kinds of dangers and risks that ultimately bring glory to God and demonstrate the sovereignty of God. He asked his audience to be bold in proclaiming Jesus as Lord and learn to take risks for Jesus Christ, saying, “Take risks, and learn to fail.”

Special plenary speakers urged delegates to be faithful to their value of scholarly language research.

Dr. Robert D. Van Valin, chair of the Linguistics Department at the State University of New York at Buffalo spoke on the significance of SIL’s descriptions of languages to linguistic scholars. He said, “You are more uniquely situated to that than any other organization,” and that the quality descriptive linguistics that SIL produces can be “valid forever.”

Van Valin also exhorted the delegates, saying that the focus of linguistics for SIL should not be on linguistics for linguistics’ sake, but that they should think about what they contribute to the people who speak the languages being researched.

Wycliffe International is an association of member organizations bound together by the desire to see the Word of God translated into every language that needs it. Wycliffe organizations are found in nearly 40 countries. Their international administrative offices are located at the International Linguistics Center in Dallas, Texas. The Orlando, Florida, office of Wycliffe is the headquarters of Wycliffe, USA, a member of Wycliffe International. These organizations partner with churches and other mission agencies in their countries to present the Bible translation task to the Christian public in order to raise funds, promote prayer and recruit personnel. Many Wycliffe members are assigned (seconded) to SIL to carry out translation, linguistic research, literacy and related activities.

SIL International is a private, nonprofit, nongovernmental organization (NGO) that works with communities to develop and use their languages. It is in special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations and has a formal consultative relationship with UNESCO. The International Administrative offices are located at the International Linguistics Center in Dallas, Texas.

SIL's activities include training, language research, literacy and literature development. SIL’s academic work is in the fields of linguistics, sociolinguistics, cultural anthropology, literacy and translation.

Literacy programs emphasize adult literacy and mother tongue education in minority languages to empower community members to assume responsibility for the developing of their languages. Literature development programs include the writing of literacy materials, the development of local authorship and the translation of literature relevant to local communities. Usually this includes religious as well as health, agricultural and economic development literature.

In addition, SIL publishes books and papers from the research carried out by SIL personnel. SIL International is the publisher of the Ethnologue, a catalogue of the world’s languages. The 14th edition was released in 2000. Scripture and related materials are not published by SIL but by other organizations with which SIL partners.

SIL personnel come from over 50 countries. Typically, SIL does not employ staff directly, but instead relies on partner organizations that share its objectives, such as Wycliffe, to recruit personnel and help secure funding.

JAARS, officially a subsidiary of SIL International, provides equipment, training, funding and technical support services to the work of Bible translation. JAARS partners closely with both SIL and Wycliffe to provide practical assistance and technical expertise primarily in the areas of computer and information systems, telecommunication, purchasing and shipping, aviation and vernacular media.

Each of these three organizations is individually incorporated and has its own Board of Directors and President.