Mobilizing Latin Americans

Wycliffe trains and unleashes a passionate team of “champions” to stir up the Latin American Church for Bible translation.

Born in Guatemala and raised in the U.S., José de Dios is now Wycliffe International’s Americas Area director. In that position, José has his finger on the pulse of the rapidly growing Bible translation movement in Latin America, which Wycliffe helped spawn. Word Alive Editor Dwayne Janke asked de Dios about this mobilizing effort and its results.

How would you describe or rate the Latin American Church’s vision and interest for missions?
I would describe it as emerging. There are a number of churches that are interested in taking the gospel across their borders, but it is still a very small number. But it is growing. I would also say that it is very much a movement of the Church, rather than a movement of mission organizations which is more traditional in North America. Even in the circles that we move in, the mission leadership is pastors—local pastors, not denominational leaders.

The other way I would describe it, in terms of their vision, is for the unreached. There’s a lot of focus on the Muslim outreach, going to the 10/40 Window, in Asia, and places like that.

Has this part of the world gone from being primarily mission field to a mission sender?
I would say yes, because you qualified it with “primarily.” That doesn’t mean that there are not a lot of things that need to be done in Latin America, but definitely the focus has shifted to sending missionaries into reaching Africa, etc.

Why are mobilization and recruitment for the Bible translation movement on the increase in Latin America?
I would like to think a part of it has been our efforts!—Wycliffe, and SIL, at a more local level, bringing awareness to the issue. Some people in Latin America have always been interested in Bible translation, but now we are looking at a larger number of people who are interconnected.

I would like to believe a part of it growing so much is that we have been working in collaboration. You are looking at organizations that are small in Central America, South America, Mexico—they become more effective when they share resources and they also share responsibility. To me that is another key.

But honestly, it is one of those things sometimes, you just know it’s God. It’s God’s timing. Because if I were to think about the number of people we have in Wycliffe or how much money that’s gone into it, that alone cannot explain it, because that is inadequate.

You have said Latin America will realize Wycliffe outcomes through non-Wycliffe, non-traditional structures. Can you explain what that means?
In plain language it would mean something like, we want to accomplish the objective of people having the Word in their own language and being able to use it, by whatever means necessary. If we have always done something one way or another—even if it has been effective—we have to ask if it will be effective now. Will it be effective in this context? And we find that our current model of working—setting up of official Wycliffe organizations—is not as effective in Latin America because it requires a lot of investment in infrastructure: buildings, vehicles, support personnel, and all those things that the Church in Latin America doesn’t want to invest in. We just realized that North America is North America and South America is South America.

How large is the Wycliffe/Bible translation mobilizing and recruitment team in Latin America?
We have trained, in partnership, throughout Latin America probably 200-300 mobilizers. We realized that the movement is a grass-roots movement, so training mobilizers to go and speak to the Church has to be done on a grass roots level. They are the ones speaking to the churches, not Wycliffe. They recruit a team of 10 volunteers from these organizations and we train them together. These are small organizations that have formed as a result of the challenge of Vision 2025 (a Wycliffe initiative that every language that needs a Bible translation will have one started by the year 2025).

When we started out, Wycliffe personnel went around to different countries, meeting with pastors, and attending missions conferences and all that stuff. God started raising people who were passionate, maybe not to go and be Bible translators but to champion the cause of Bible translation. And they are all between the ages of 25 to 35. They are all young professionals or college students. So in 2002, we got together. We expected to have 12 people, but we had 48 people. We gave them all the tools we had for mobilization: raw materials, and modules and videos, books and brochures. We trained with them for a week. They are now the leaders of this Bible translation movement. They went back to their countries and recruited others.

What are some of the challenges these mobilizers are facing in terms of the response they are getting within the churches?
One is that they don’t see Bible translation as mission. They see it as a technical work that Bible societies would do or someone who has a lot of academic knowledge. But just now we are starting to see pastors realize that without accessible Scriptures, it is very difficult to think about planting churches and leading people to the Lord.

Another big challenge they face is finances. You know finances are limited. Many churches in Latin America are poor. But there is money; people are sending money to missions. They just don’t see the role of a mobilizer as missions, so a lot of these guys, what’s happened—it’s a full time job. For a lot of them, their spouse works full time somewhere else. But almost all these guys have given up careers, jobs and things like that because they just know that God is calling them to be advocates for Bible translation. I admire them. Some of these guys are my heroes. They struggle a lot.

Sometimes they have to decide between buying clothes for their kids and using that money for bus fares to visit churches. I know of a family, a couple who, when they caught the vision for Bible translation, went out and sold their furniture so they could attend some of the training. They literally sold their living and dining room furniture, so they sat on boxes for a couple of years until they were able to raise the money to buy replacement furniture.

That’s a difficulty and a challenge that they face and they keep going anyway. But we in Wycliffe feel we need to be part of the solution by advocating for them in the local churches and finding donors in other parts of the world who can help. And we’ve done some of that.

We hear stories of people who sacrifice to do front-line work. These people are that passionate just about mobilizing [at home]?
Yes, they are passionate and they are committed. I have a friend from El Salvador who is a full-time pastor and from that position he is a voice for Bible translation throughout Central America. He says, “When I was a young man, I wanted to be a Bible translator, but the door just wasn’t open for me. Now I’m too old to do it. I want to make sure that dozens, hundreds of young people can do what I couldn’t do.” So they are that committed. And, not only that, they have that much clarity of vision for what they see as God’s calling to the Church in Latin America to bring His Word.

So in terms of numbers, how many people from Latin America are involved in Bible translation around the world?
It’s hard to say an exact number, because we find all the time that a lot of people who are praying for Bible translation, who are mobilizing, we don’t even know who they are, and they are just doing it. But I would say there are probably between 300 and 400 people involved in one capacity or another in the Bible translation movement. If you include people who are praying and giving, there might be more. I’m counting people who are mobilizing or volunteering in some of these local agencies.

How many Latin Americans have actually gone to do Bible translation work?
If you count ALEM, which is our Wycliffe organization in Brazil, and all the others who have been recruited in the last 10 years, I would say that there is a little bit over 100 in fields elsewhere and in the Latin America field. So there are Ecuadorians in Mexico, Salvadorians in Indonesia, things like that. So they are all over the place.

What kind of successes are they having?
The people who have been sent by these groups to the field, every single one of them, we get reports from the field that they are excellent. They are outstanding missionaries and they are integrated well into a multicultural team. So to me it’s success that every single one of them—and it hasn’t been without problems—has adapted well and has demonstrated that they are quite capable of integrating into our field teams.

What are some of the bigger contributors to the Bible translation movement at this point? You mentioned Brazil. Would they be far and away the largest?
Yes, but also Colombia, Argentina, Costa Rica, Mexico and El Salvador. At this point, the only country where we don’t really see a Bible translation movement yet is Venezuela.

What are the opportunities for mobilizing the Hispanic Diaspora in the U.S. and Canada?
If we are looking at potential, the potential is tremendous. There are nearly 40 million Hispanics in the U.S. alone. A large number of them are evangelical. The reality is a lot of those churches that are made up of immigrants are very much focused on survival and helping their people in issues that have more to do with the local reality. For them, thinking about missions hasn’t entered their consciousness yet, but there are a number of key Hispanic churches, especially denominational churches, that are starting to take their first steps to get involved in missions. Still, Bible translation is very much on the periphery. So our hope and our plan is to partner with Wycliffe U.S.A. and Wycliffe Canada too, first, just to know who these churches are and to start to establish relationships with this community.

What is your expectation and hope for the future in Latin America?
Our hope is that Latin America is the future of missions work. I don’t mean they’ll be the only ones out there, but that they will rise to become as important as North America and Europe are now. Our expectation and dream is to see the indigenous Church taking the legacy of the Bible in their own language and going abroad to help others have the same privilege. We want to see large and small churches financing Bible translation and partnering with churches in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and everywhere. Latin America is just getting started, and they have so much to give, so much to teach us. It’s a privilege to serve them, and to serve with them.

Related links:

Vision 2025