Ian Allen/Staff Photographer
New offices of Wycliffe Caribbean Building, located at 20 West Avenue, Kingston 10.On Saturday April 9, 2005, the work of Wycliffe Bible Translators Caribbean received a significant boost as this regional para-church organisation officially opened its new offices at 20 West Avenue, Kingston 10. Formerly the Wycliffe Caribbean head offices were located in Trinidad and Tobago.
The new building houses a library, training room, audio/visual studio, and offices for the staff of Wycliffe Caribbean and Wycliffe Jamaica.
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.
150 years in three weeks
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.
Wycliffe head in the Caribbean, John Roomes' role is to mobilise financial support for Wycliffe missionaries serving all over the world. He also seeks 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 Roomes, chief executive officer of Wycliffe Bible Translators Caribbean in an interview with The Gleaner shared the following perspectives on the new Wycliffe facility.
What is significant about
the new offices of Wycliffe Caribbean?
Roomes: It signifies the strategic direction in which the Caribbean organisation is going - particularly its location in the vicinity of the premier evangelical seminaries of the region the widely regarded Jamaica Theological Seminary and the Caribbean Graduate School of Theology (JTS/CGST). (Wycliffe Caribbean is located adjacent to these educational institutions.) It speaks to the fact that Jamaica will be a major player in the mobilisation of Caribbean believers for missions after all we have roughly half the English-speaking believers in the region and we are located next to the two largest language groups in the Caribbean (English and Spanish). It also speaks to the kind of responses that we have been receiving from persons with whom we have shared our vision. We are responding to a groundswell of interest among Jamaicans and other Caribbean nationals to become significantly involved in cross-cultural missions. It became abundantly clear that in order to effectively process the people, showing interest and to handle future responses, we needed adequate facilities to do so. It signifies the more-than-expected growth potential of our mobilisation work in the region.
How will the new offices
help the work of Wycliffe Caribbean?
Roomes: There is a distinct recruiting advantage that will result from the proximity to JTS and CGST. Already there is a high level of interest from students about the prospects of finding out more about the needs in other nations and how they can become involved in cross-cultural mission. In fact, for many it is the call of the Great Commission that brought them to the institutions in the first place. The building also gives us room to develop the organisation and to
provide quality services to our churches as we seek to facilitate them in raising up Caribbean
missionaries to go and help in
providing translated Scripture to the Bible-less people groups. The offices will be
providing a base for executive, financial and personnel management, a hub for digital communication media development, a source for the dissemination of mission-related information through a network of resources, including the Web, a reading/ research library, low cost book sales and the provision of a variety of videos, CDs, DVDs, brochures, etc., all in order to help our churches develop a mission-focused ministry and to usher hundreds of individuals into mission. This will also provide a base for the Wycliffe Jamaica team.
Give a little background about the persons from overseas who have been assisting and the nature of that assistance.
Roomes: We have had the volunteer
assistance of about nine persons so far from the USA through a sister organisation called Wycliffe Associates. They came with a
variety of skills (some unrelated to building refurbishing) and have put in long hours
getting the building ready. They were joined by a variety of skilled local individuals who provided certain specialised inputs. Funding for the project has come from overseas as well and this is based on a financial approach we are adopting. We seek help from our foreign partners for infrastructure and equipment in getting started but we are very clear in taking local ownership for the provision of financial resources for our
day-to-day operations. Our local people need to share in the blessings and this will happen when we give of our own resources for the payment of our bills -water, phone, light, stationery, etc.- and also for the financial support of our missionaries from the Caribbean. We need to experience the joy and privilege of financially supporting mission - we now have the opportunity to do so and we are counting on our local churches and believers to make the most of it.
Send feedback to mark.dawes@gleanerjm.com
