Our Changing Role

Following Wycliffe’s founding in 1942, a wave of enthusiastic, educated and visionary young people took up the challenge to translate the Scriptures for language groups around the world. The first waves of Wycliffe missionaries came primarily from churches in the U.S., Canada and Europe; sent out by congregations that believed in the Church’s responsibility to spread the gospel and Wycliffe’s vision to provide language groups around the world with Scripture translations they could read—and understand.

Under the old paradigm, Wycliffe missionaries took the lead in translating Scripture, relying on local speakers of the language to help them learn the language, develop a writing system and check the translations for accuracy and clarity.

Today, Wycliffe Canada works with many agencies, missions and churches as partners on the field. Our national partners—many of whom are well educated and passionate about providing the Scriptures for their people—take an active role in leading and promoting the work of Bible translation. In various places around the world, national Bible translation organizations (NBTOs) have been established to recruit more workers and financial resources.

Increasingly, Wycliffe personnel now serve as consultants and trainers, helping equip indigenous peoples for the work of Bible translation. Many of our partners are from the Southern and Eastern Church. Because we want to encourage community transformation, we cooperate with those doing church planting and evangelism.

These committed partners need other partners from Canada—people like you. People who will pray for them, support them financially, or even receive training to assist them in their empowering, language-related work.

In Brazil, the indigenous organization ALEM is committed to translating the Scriptures for that country's indigenous groups.

Visit www.wycliffe.net for links and information about the work of Bible translation worldwide.