By Mark Dawes, Staff Reporter
From left, John Roomes with wife, Denise; and children, Davin and Devonie. - Contributed
JOHN ROOMES seemed such an unlikely person to be in fulltime Christian ministry. He was poised to scale to the very top of the corporate ladder. Then he heard the call of God on his life. He has answered that call by serving as co-director of Wycliffe Bible Translators Caribbean.
John was always heavily involved in the life of his church. Hailing from Manchester, he received his early Christian instruction at Emmanuel Missionary Church. He attended Manchester High School where he was among the leaders of the Inter-Schools Christian Fellowship. His Christian zeal continued to grow when he got to the College of Arts Science and Technology (CAST) now the University of Technology, where he became president of the school's chapter of University and Colleges Christian Fellowship (UCCF). While in high school, CAST and to this day, he involves himself in the work of Jamaica Youth for Christ.
He was graduated from CAST with Diploma in Business Administration and not long after he went back and did a Bachelor of Business Administration degree.
He acquired the reputation as
problem-solver and was employed
as chief accountant at: the Jamaica Stock Exchange; Caribbean Trust
and Merchant Bank; then he became Chief Financial Officer at Security Brokers Ltd.
In 1996 he was made redundant and he then worked as financial controller at the Social Development Commission, and then he became manager of Finance and Information Technology at the Jamaica Teachers Association Coop Credit Union.
By the year 2000, John who had by this time become part of the local Wycliffe national committee sensed a clear call from God and he decided to enter Christian ministry as director for Wycliffe Jamaica. The year 2000 found him pursuing a Master in Business Administration through the local offices of Florida International University. He was graduated in 2002.
John, 47, takes the full reins of Wycliffe Caribbean in March. At present he is co-director with Jack Popjes, a former director of Wycliffe Canada who came to the Caribbean in 2001. Mr. Popjes, a former Bible translator to one of Brazil's indigenous ethnic groups, has since 2002 been mentoring John for the post.
Wycliffe Bible Translators is named after John Wycliffe, who in 1380 was the first person to translate the Bible into English. At present, by Wycliffe's estimates, 95 per cent of the world now have access to the Christian Scriptures in whole or in substantial parts. That leaves five per cent of the world or 300 million people who do not have a verse in their own tongue. The world, says Wycliffe Bible Translators International, has about 6,700 languages of which 700 are in decline. The Bible to date has been translated into 3,000 of those languages. The challenge for Christians is to get the Scriptures in the remaining 3,000 languages in order to reach that five per cent that don't already have a translation of the Bible.
For the last 60 years, the Bible has been translated into a new language at a rate of every three weeks. This means that it would take about 150 years to get the Bible translated for the people who don't already have it. In 1999, several Bible translators got together and resolved 150 years was too long a wait before everyone could have a copy of the Bible in their own language. From this Vision 2025 was born. Under this arrangement, Bible translators came up with a plan to step up Bible translation work so that everyone might have access to the Bible translated in their own indigenous tongue by 2025. This means that translation needs to be started in a new language at the rate of one every three days for the next 23 years.
As Wycliffe head in the Caribbean, John's role is to mobilise financial support for Wycliffe missionaries serving all over the world. He will also have to promote and expose the Caribbean's young people to the prospects of a career on the mission-field - especially as Bible translators. He does so at a time when the nations with the fewest missionaries (this includes Islamic countries) are becoming increasingly hostile to the Christian gospel. Persecution is at an all time high and missionaries have not been exempted. John knows that some of the people he will send from the Caribbean to distant lands will not end their tour of duty alive.
To help Wycliffe Bible Translators fulfil its goals under Vision 2025 John is seeking by 2012 to help the organisation find at least 250 persons with a variety of skills. "There are some 268 different types of non-linguistics job positions that need to be filled. In the short-term I will be faced with streamlining our activities in the region - administratively, financially, communication wise and in people management.
ROOME TO GROW
At present he does his Wycliffe work from home. He will be seeking additional facilities to cope with what he anticipates will be" a flood of persons" applying to become members. Jamaica, he expects, will supply at least 150 of the 250 persons targeted. This means that we have to get our offices set up over the next few months. He plans to establish a Wycliffe Centre in Jamaica to recruit and train missionaries and also provide information and resources to assist the church in sending and supporting missionaries.
"I will also be establishing additional Wycliffe Committees around the Caribbean including the Spanish and French-speaking countries. We are already establishing links with Cuba, Dominican Republic and Haiti. Dutch-speaking Curacao already has a Wycliffe Committee and we hope to have recruits coming from that island soon.
"Generally we will not get very far without a strong partnership with the churches and so we will be establishing partnership agreements with every denomination in the region and do everything in our power and with the Lord's help to sensitise every pastor, leader and member with the mandate to take God's Word to every nation. We are already establishing special arrangements to get as much help as possible from our more experienced member organisations in Canada, USA, UK and Australia," Mr. Roomes said.
Young people are his prime target for ministry. Young people he maintains are more interested in missionary work than is often apparent. The main trouble, he acknowledges, are materialistic elders and church leaders who tend not to encourage young people to serve as missionaries because it is not a high income job.
"We must let our youths know that being a missionary is a worthy career choice and is in fact the top job- We need to teach and reinforce in the minds of our youth the big picture of what God is doing across the globe and how they can be a part of it. I have found that young people do find this fascinating and the more we talk about this to them the more we will find them responding. The trouble is how many of us want to see our young people heading off to the mission field in some 'God-forsaken' corner of the world. They don't mind going but many of us parents are not enamoured with the idea. The largest mission agency in the world is Youth-With-A-Mission and what they have been finding over the years is the more adventurous and dangerous the mission the more young people have signed up. I am counting on young people who are now in high school to form the bulk of our missionaries on the field within the next 10 years. God knows what He is doing when He calls for the young to do His will while they are still young.
To be continued next week.
