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The Three-Fold Challenge

About Wycliffe and SIL

Early last century, a man named William Cameron Townsend was serving in Guatemala with the Cakchiquel Indians. As part of his work he provided scriptures for them—in Spanish. One day, a young Cakchiquel man asked him, "If your God is so great, why doesn't He speak in my language?"

Challenged by this observation, Townsend went on in 1934 to start "Camp Wycliffe", named after the first man to translate the Bible into the English language. The purpose of Camp Wycliffe was to train missionaries in linguistics, in order to help them learn languages like Cakchiquel and translate the Bible into those languages. By 1942, Townsend's work had grown into a pair of organizations, Wycliffe Bible Translators and the Summer Institute of Linguistics, known today as SIL International.

Contrary to what you may have heard, Wycliffe and SIL are not the same organization. Each has its own headquarters, its own board of directors, its own website… and its own purpose. The purpose of Wycliffe Bible Translators is to recruit people for mission work, to see to their finances, etc. and to provide for care of members. The purpose of SIL International is to provide linguistic training and send people to the field to do language research, orthographic development, literacy and translation of material of ethical and cultural value.

Since its inception, Wycliffe has grown to a total membership of over five thousand worldwide. In order to more easily handle the different requirements in each of the countries where Wycliffe operates, the original overall organization has been divided into a number of national Wycliffe organizations, such as Wycliffe USA (headquartered in Orlando, Florida), Wycliffe UK, Wycliffe Canada, and so forth. Being a U.S. citizen, I am a member of Wycliffe USA.

Similiarly, SIL has also grown, although its international expansion has been into countries where active translation work is underway, rather than into missionary sending countries like Wycliffe. Also unlike Wycliffe, SIL is still a single organization with its worldwide headquarters in Dallas, Texas.

A third entity, JAARS, Inc., also exists, in Waxhaw, North Carolina. Unlike Wycliffe or SIL, JAARS does not have branches or related entities in other countries. Rather, JAARS workers provide technical services, such as aviation, maintenance, computer technical support, audio-visual, etc. I went through an orientation course in the fall of '90 where I learned about a number of software tools used by linguists in SIL and other similar organizations. Since then, I have returned at intervals for technical conferences.

What do I do?

In the fall of 1990 I was invited to become a member of the Brazil Branch of SIL International. I arrived in the country for the first time in early 1992 and spent most of that year in Campinas, studying Portuguese, which is the national language (see About Brazil). I returned to the U.S. at the end of that year, then returned to Brazil in the beginning of 1994 and spent most of that year at our center in Porto Velho. After spending another eight months in the States from the end of 1994 through August of 1995, I returned to Porto Velho. I stayed there until April of 1997, when I moved to Cuiabá, where I worked for eleven years, until our center closed and we all moved to a new office in Anápolis, where I live today.

Life in Anápolis

As a member of SIL Brazil, I am part of the greater overall task of helping to provide literacy and Bible translation into the various languages of this great country. But what exactly is it that I do? Do I live out in a village? Have I learned an indigenous language? Do I eat grubs and tubers? How do I get to work?

It actually surprises some people who are unfamiliar with Brazil to learn that our translation headquarters is located in a fairly modern city, with all of the conveniences that most of us have come to expect in life. Plumbing, electricity, nearby grocery stores, paved roads… you know, modern civilization… So what is my part in all of this?

No, I do not live in an indigenous village. This is because I am not an actual translator. In most branches of SIL, the work is split roughly equally between the actual translators themselves, and the rest of us who support their work. Our support work includes such things as administration, accounting, audio-visual, computer technical work, aircraft piloting, government relations, and so forth. If it weren't for us, some translators would have to be pulled away from their job to do our work. Hence, the need for support personnel.

Billiard and Computers

My specific job is to run the computer department at our office in Anápolis. Since there are so few of us computeroids in the Brazil Branch (one, me!), I have ended up having to shoulder a lot of the related administrative work, as well as make trips to other locations to provide help there.

So, what does computer support work involve? The answer to that has varied over the years as needs have changed and equipment has evolved. When I first arrived, Windows 3.1 was still a novelty. Most people did bookkeeping by hand. Producing book-ready printouts was a major task. Every computer stood alone. Email was slow and very expensive (I can still recall one member who got charged over a hundred dollars for receiving a large, detailed baby picture from a friend in the States!). In those days I did a lot of layout and typesetting. As email came into its own I set up and maintained at first one, and later on four, cc:Mail post offices.

Today, email is fast and cheap (basically, you pay the cost of your Internet connection, and that's all). Computers are networked together; here in Anápolis I maintain a network of over twenty computers and nearly as many VoIP telephones using two Linux machines, an IPCop gateway/content filter and an ADSL modem. Since Windows 95 on up has made printer interfacing so much easier, I do very little layout and typesetting; most members can do their own with very little problem. And the cc:Mail post offices have been gone for many years; we long ago changed over to a central, Internet-standard email server in Waxhaw, NC.

We now have a web site. Please, feel free to visit SIL Brazil on line! A portion of my work involves formatting and uploading material to our site.

But probably the most important task directly related to our work is performing final checks on the indigenous scriptures themselves. No, I do not make sure that they have an accurate translation; we have linguistic consultants who do that. Rather, I run the final text through a series of checks. Are all the chapters and verses present? Is punctuation correctly used? Is the text marked accurately for formatting? Name consistency. Book title consistency (vernacular or Portuguese?). Cross references. All of these things and more must be done right if the final product is to accurately convey the meaning that God intended. And even this job is rapidly becoming easy and automated, as new language software is being developed by our technical staff in Dallas and at JAARS.

To date, I have helped with the completion of seven New Testaments. That means that I have had a part in seeing that seven indigenous groups now have the scriptures in the language that they know best.

Some jobs will probably remain the same forever, such as taking care of the computers themselves and helping individuals with their questions and problems. But of all the work that I do, helping to finalize translations is without a doubt the most rewarding. After all, it is why we are here.

For more details as to my life here, read Life in Anápolis.

Trip Reports

Anápolis is not the only SIL location in Brazil. Nor are our SIL folk the only people I support. From time to time I find it necessary to travel to other towns and centers to provide help. Therefore, beginning with my 2005 field term, I am including trip reports, similar to my camping trip reports in the Travel section. However, these areabout ministry opportunities in other places, rather than simple travel for pleasure.

Click on one of the following links to see a trip report.

Porto Velho – November 2005
Brasília – January 2006
Brasília-Dallas – March 2006
Anápolis – February 2008
Anápolis-Brasília – March 2008
Computer Technical Conference '08

Other Odds and Ends

So, does my life consist of computers and nothing else? By no means! I would be a rare SIL member indeed if I didn't have anything else to do except for my specialty. Indeed, many of our members no longer work in the original specialty for which they came to the field. Pilots become directors and translators. Translators become accountants. And so forth.

Yes, my main assigned work is still the computer department. But I do other things. For example, I maintain our internal PABX telephone system, especially since we have moved to VoIP in our new office. At the time of this writing, I also do various other odd jobs in our new office facilities. In the long run, I really don't know at this point what all I will end up doing. But as things settle into place, I will be sure to update this page! As I keep repeating, we do everything we do for the glory of God, and to advance the work of Bible translation in Brazil.

That's a quick overview of my work life here in Anápolis. If you are interested in finding out more, please don't hesitate to contact me and ask.

Getting the Job Done

Three-Fold Challenge

You may have finished reading everything above and be sitting there thinking, "Gee, that's really great! But how can you get it done? How do you live? What about opposition?" The answer is simple: Faith.

Wycliffe Bible Translators is what we call a faith mission. This means that we depend on God to provide for our needs, through the work and support of other believers in His family. The principal needs that we have on the field are for prayer and finances.

I cannot emphasize enough the need for prayer. "Except the Lord build the house, its builders labor in vain." (Psalm 127:1, New International Version) This is not an idle statement. We have a terrible enemy who will stop at nothing to destroy our work. His goal is to see everyone in Hell. And the only power on Earth that can oppose him is the power of the Holy Spirit of God. So please, please pray. Not just for me, but for the Lord's work everywhere.

Without finances, our work will come to a screeching halt. Resources are needed for people and equipment. God owns everything in the entire universe, but He has entrusted the goods of this world to His servants, and He expects us to use them wisely. In the long run, the only things on Earth that will survive into the next age are God's Word and people. So use what God has given you wisely.

I encourage you to prayerfully read the Three-Fold Challenge, and see if God is speaking to you.