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MISSIONS INFORMATION
NEWSMAKERS
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Rev. Walter Altmann Named New Moderator of the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches
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The Rev. Walter Altmann, a Lutheran theologian from Brazil, has been elected the new moderator of the central committee of the World Council of Churches, a WCC official said on February 24. Altmann is president of the Evangelical Church of the Lutheran Confession in Brazil (IECLB), a post he has held since the end of 2002. He was born in the southern Brazil city of Porto Alegre in 1944, and it was in that city on the last day of the WCC's February 14-23 assembly, the first held in Latin America, that he was elected to lead the world's biggest grouping of churches. (3/7/06)
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Wycliffe Bible Translators Forms Vision 2025
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Although translation work among Wycliffe Bible Translators has been progressing faster than ever (more than 2,200 languages have at least some of the Bible in their language), at least three thousand languages still need the good news translated into their heart language. And many are in difficult-to-reach areas or where there is warfare and civil unrest. At the current rate it would take until the year 2150 for translation work to be started in each language that needs it. For this reason, Wycliffe formed Vision 2025, a plan that calls for the start of Bible translation projects for every language community that needs one by the year 2025. Working hand to hand with SIL International, the project requires partnership with national churches, seminaries and Bible schools, mission agencies and other Bible agencies. While the translation needs span the globe, eighty percent of the remaining Bible translation needs are focused on three areas of the world: Central Africa with eight hundred languages; the region from northern India to southern China which includes another eight hundred languages; and the band of islands in Asia from Sumatra to Papua New Guinea with one thousand languages.
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HCJB World Radio in North Africa/Middle East
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After years of satellite and shortwave broadcasting into the North Africa/Middle East Region, HCJB World Radio recently had the opportunity to show God's love through its healthcare ministry, responding to the aftermath of the war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. An HCJB World Radio medical team of six women found serious medical and spiritual needs in Lebanon when there for two weeks to help alleviate the widespread suffering. In the short medical response trip, the team saw approximately five hundred people. HCJB World Radio responded to the need of a partner organization on the ground that asked for non-North America, female doctors. One of the Ecuadorian physicians said, “We believe this trip planted a seed to bring people hope. There was a language barrier, but through our behavior, our care, our medical attention, the people saw us and the hope we brought.” Another doctor added, “With each person we gave medical attention, we prayed for them. Nobody rejected that. They accepted us. They were very open with us, to the point where some of them said to us, ‘thank you for bringing the light’ in their own language.”
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International Bible Society Pioneers First Prose Literature in the Awadhi Language
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The International Bible Society pioneered the first prose literature ever written in the Awadhi language by completing the first Awadhi translation of the Bible. More than fifty native scholars in northern India worked for twelve years to accurately translate the language, style and theology of the complete Bible into a language spoken by more than twenty million people. More than 1,500 people gathered 17 December 2006 in Lucknow, India as Mayor Dinesh Sharma presented the first Awadhi translation of the Bible. “It is the translation by the people of Awadhi and for the people of Awadhi,” explained Michael Paul who coordinated the project. This IBS translation is the first Bible Awadhi speakers can read in their own language and the first piece of prose literature in the language, since for centuries the Awadhi language has been written only in poetic form. “Today, the Bible has become the text book for students of the Awadhi language in general,” Paul said.
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Latvian Children's Bible Hits the Market
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A locally-produced Latvian Children’s Bible has hit the market in a country where, until now, most Children’s Bibles have been translations from other languages. The Bible is the culmination of a project launched several years ago by the Latvian Bible Society. Having decided to publish a Children’s Bible featuring pictures painted by local children, the Bible Society launched a competition in autumn 2002 entitled "My Favourite Bible Story." Nearly 650 children from a wide range of religious and ethnic backgrounds submitted paintings illustrating many different Bible stories, along with written comments about why their chosen story appealed to them. Some fifty paintings were selected to appear in the resulting full-color Children’s Bible. Bible texts were adapted for children and are accompanied by prayers and by questions to prompt further reflection.
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200 Million Christians at Risk of Suffering Persecution
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According to a report carried by the Catholic News Agency (CNA), some 200 million Christians in sixty countries are at risk of suffering persecution. The report reveals that in the Sudan, for example, “thousands of Christians have been massacred and the fundamentalist government has done little to protect them.” In Iraq, “the situation is grave: Christians do not have their own militia to defend them, and Sunni and Shiite factions accuse them of collaborating with the American ‘crusaders’ and among the hundreds of victims of kidnappings this year there are a growing number of Christians.” The study also reveals that during the last year, at least seventy Christians were killed in Pakistan. In Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, Christians who belong to the Russian Orthodox Church are often looked down upon. The CNA story concluded by saying, “North Korea, China, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Uganda are other countries where Christians are persecuted. North Korea has sent some fifty thousand Christians to concentration camps, while in China some forty thousand have suffered the same fate. The report also notes the increasing difficulties facing Palestinian Christians due to the progressive radicalization of the Islamic masses in the Middle East.”
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S. Kent Parks Named International Director of Mission to Unreached Peoples
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Mission to Unreached Peoples (MUP), an interdenominational agency with mission personnel around the world, will establish another office in Dallas, Texas, under the direction of S. Kent Parks, a veteran of twenty years of Baptist mission service in Southeast Asia. Parks will become the international director of MUP, effective November 1, 2007. He will establish the Dallas office and work in cooperation with MUP’s US office in Seattle and Canadian office in Abbotsford, B.C. The 25-year-old MUP agency focuses on spiritual and physical ministries to unreached peoples around the world, and currently has three hundred personnel who raise their own support and serve a number of people groups in twenty-two countries. As MUP’s international director, Parks will focus on helping stimulate a global movement to raise up thousands of strategy teams to reach the almost two billion people who are from the least evangelized people groups.
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IFMA Changes Name to CrossGlobal Link
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The Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association of North America (IFMA) has changed its name to CrossGlobal Link. At the association’s annual business meeting held in September 2007, the constituency voted to change its name. “This is more than just a cosmetic change to the association,” said Dr. Marvin Newell, CrossGlobal Link executive director. “This is a change in function and direction for the association, intended to keep it in pace with the changing world of missions.” CrossGlobal Link will no longer be exclusively interdenominational as in the past; and it opens the door to churches and mission pastors joining as associate members. It also signals a stronger intent to be involved on the greater global mission scene. The identity slogan of CrossGlobal Link, “Connecting in Mission,” is descriptive of these relationships. IFMA was founded in 1917 with the coming together of seven “faith missions.” Today, there are eighty-six mission corporations in the US and Canada that together field over 15,500 North American missionaries around the globe.
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EFMA Changes Name to The Mission Exchange
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The Evangelical Fellowship of Mission Agencies (EFMA) is has changed its name to The Mission Exchange. “Our new identity is the outgrowth of prayerful thought and strategic reflection,” said Steve Moore, president and CEO of The Mission Exchange. “But the phrase ‘formerly EFMA’ does not suggest that we are turning our back on our heritage but that we are turning a new page, entering a new and exciting season.” EFMA was formed in 1946 out of the National Association of Evangelicals to foster greater collaboration between mission agencies. The Mission Exchange’s goal is to help mission organizations be more effective. To accomplish that goal, the ministry focuses on initiatives designed to add value to leaders and stimulate partnerships in the missions community. “Our motive for adapting the name is for greater relevance and increased effectiveness,” said Moore. “We believe The Mission Exchange is a name that captures the sense of dynamic, interactive relationships between churches and mission organizations and their leaders that is at the heart of our identity and vision. In The Mission Exchange, we are cultivating a community where leaders can exchange ideas, expand their capacity, broaden perspectives, share burdens and form partnerships, just to mention a few of the possibilities.”
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David G. Tucker Announces Retirement as CEO/President of TWR
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After eleven years as CEO and president of Trans World Radio, David G. Tucker will be retiring April 30, 2008. Tucker is only the third person to hold TWR’s top leadership post in the organization’s 53-year history. Thomas Lowell, who preceded Tucker as CEO and president, will assume interim CEO responsibilities. Day-to-day operational oversight will be provided by the ministry’s 10-member Global Leadership Team. Werner Kroemer, international director for Europe, the Commonwealth of Independent States and the Middle East, has been appointed team leader. “We owe a huge debt of gratitude to David for his eleven years of dedicated service to TWR,” noted Lowell. “As we look to the future, TWR will be seeking an individual who can continue to build on our organization’s strong foundation of ministry while crafting a path that will ensure sustained growth and impact around the world for many years to come.” During Tucker’s tenure, he established a new global vision for ministry, known as the Global Strategic Plan, and oversaw the growth of TWR in an additional twenty languages. TWR has programs in over two hundred languages and dialects in 2,800 outlets around the world. Every day, TWR’s broadcasts reach millions of people in over 160 countries.
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David Reeves Named President of JAARS
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David Reeves has been appointed the next president of JAARS, an organization which provides technical support and resources to speed Bible translation. Reeves, who will assume his new role in January 2009, originally served with JAARS before spending eighteen years in communications and aviation services in Indonesia. JAARS provides services to organizations such as Wycliffe Bible Translators and SIL International.
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Fredrick Boswell Named Executive Director of SIL International
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Fredrick A. Boswell assumed his role as executive director for SIL International in January 2008. Previously, he served SIL as vice-president for academic affairs, international translation coordinator and entity director for SIL Solomon Islands. Boswell worked as a field linguist and translation advisor to the Cheke Holo language group in the Solomon Islands on Central Santa Isabel Island. He has also lived and worked in Peru and Papua New Guinea. Boswell's appointment follows the tenure of Dr. John Watters, who completed his maximum term limit.
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Gospel Communications Launches Volunteer Matching Site
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Gospel Communications is launching an online volunteer matching site in partnership with TechMission to match Christians with volunteer opportunities in ministries serving under-resourced communities. Potential volunteers can search over 2,200 volunteer and short-term missions opportunities from over 1,300 organizations. The site is in partnership with TechMission's ChristianVolunteering.org, which is the first major website to match volunteers with Christian volunteer service opportunities. According to the Corporation for National and Community Service, the value of the donated time of faith-based volunteers in 2005 was US$51.8 billion dollars. ChristianVolunteering.org's partners serve over thirty-five million low-income individuals each year. In addition to matching volunteers to local volunteer opportunities, the site also has sections for short-term missions opportunities, virtual volunteering opportunities and volunteer opportunities for church small groups.
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GRN Team Records Gospel in Twenty-four Languages
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Three Global Recordings Network (GRN) recordists from Sierra Leone recently traveled to Ethiopia, where they recorded the gospel in twenty-four languages during a six-week period. Three Ethiopian believers assisted the team on “The Sheba Recording Project” by serving as readers, translators and a driver. In most of the areas the team visited, the people they encountered were animists. In some villages they were warmly received; in others, they were rejected and asked to leave.
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Third Annual Saddleback Global Summit on AIDS & The Church
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The third annual Saddleback Global Summit on AIDS & The Church was recently held with a challenge from Dr. Rick and Mrs. Kay Warren to the more than 1,700 attendees for the Church to lead with love in the global response to HIV/AIDS. Warren emphasized that his church did not do this conference for a cause, but rather for a person, Jesus Christ. "If you want to know how much Jesus loves people with AIDS, just look at the cross,” he said. “It all comes down to whether you accept the world's or Jesus' response to AIDS. The world's response is A.I.D.S.: Avoidance, Intolerance, Distance and Superstition. But Jesus' mandate to respond to people with AIDS is for us to replace each of those with H.O.P.E.: Help, Openness, Presence and Education." The two-and-a-half-day event featured more than ninety international speakers, including Sen. Hillary Clinton; Her Excellency Jeanette Kagame, First Lady of Rwanda; Her Excellency, Maureen Mwanawasa, First Lady of Zambia; Ambassador Mark Dybul, U.S. global AIDS coordinator; Dr. Peter Piot, UNAID executive director; Dr. Robert Redfield, Institute of Human Virology, University of Maryland at Baltimore; and Pastor John Ortberg from Menlo Park Presbyterian Church in California. The Summit remains the only HIV/AIDS conference worldwide to be built entirely on a practical "local church-based" strategy designed to mobilize millions of congregations around the world for the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS.
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Christian Persecution Showing No Sign of Improvement
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According to the German yearbook, Martyrs 2007, at least one in ten Christians around the world suffers persecution. In Iraq alone, three in four Iraqi Christians have left their country in fear of harassment, kidnapping or death. There are more than 200 million Christians worldwide who suffer persecution or discrimination; unfortunately, according to the report, there are no signs of improvement.
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Kirk Franklin Named CEO of Wycliffe International
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Kirk Franklin was recently appointed by the Board of Wycliffe International to become the new executive director (CEO) of Wycliffe Bible Translators International. He replaces Dr. John Watters. Franklin, a citizen of both Australia and the USA, has served with Wycliffe since 1980, most recently as executive director of Wycliffe Australia. He spent twenty-five years in Papua New Guinea (PNG), is fluent in the Tok Pisin language of PNG and has traveled to twenty-five countries, meeting with mission organizations and speaking at churches and mission events. “Bible translation is a key facet of the overarching mission of God,” Franklin stated. “We face tremendous challenges. More than two thousand of the world’s minority language groups still need access to scripture in a language and format they can readily understand. The raising of resources for Bible translation takes place in a rapidly changing social, cultural, economic, political and religious environment in each nation and globally.”
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Christians under Increasing Pressure in Uzbekistan
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Practicing their faith is becoming increasingly difficult and dangerous for Christians in Uzbekistan. The government, who fears the increasing influence of Islamic extremism throughout the country (eighty-eight percent of the country’s population of twenty-seven million people is Sunni Muslim), continues to implement even stricter laws against religious activities, both Muslim and Christian. Christian converts from Muslim backgrounds face particular pressure not only from the authorities but also suffer persecution from their own families and communities. Many new young Christians in rural areas have been beaten severely and told to recite the shahada, the Islamic creed, to renounce their Christian faith and return to Islam. Older converts are being isolated and ostracized in their communities.
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Paul Tokunaga Named VP of Strategic Ministries for InterVarsity USA
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Paul Tokunaga was recently appointed vice president and director for strategic ministries for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA. In his new role, effective July 1. 2008, Tokunaga will provide vision and leadership to expand the impact of current strategic ministries and initiate the creation of new strategic ministries. For the past fourteen years, Tokunaga has served as InterVarsity’s national Asian American ministries coordinator. In that position, he has overseen significant growth of both Asian American students and staff. In addition, he has created and implemented the Daniel Project, a leadership development program that identifies and nurtures promising staff of color. Tokunaga succeeds Barney Ford, who was appointed vice president and director of advancement in September 2007.
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The Netherlands Has Second-Largest Number of Christian Denominations and Religious Movements
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The reputation of the Netherlands as being a country with many Christian denominations has been boosted by the publication of a new reference book detailing church information. The authors have tallied a list of 648 churches, congregations, and meetings, making the Netherlands the country with the second-largest number of Christian denominations and religious movements in the world, after the United States.
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The Netherlands Has Second-Largest Number of Christian Denominations and Religious Movements
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The reputation of the Netherlands as being a country with many Christian denominations has been boosted by the publication of a new reference book detailing church information. The authors have tallied a list of 648 churches, congregations, and meetings, making the Netherlands the country with the second-largest number of Christian denominations and religious movements in the world, after the United States.
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Seven New Languages Available on Audio Bible Recordings
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The audio Bible ministry Faith Comes By Hearing recently announced the availability of seven audio New Testament recordings. The following languages are now available for ministry efforts: Afrikaans, Chuj San Mateo Ixtatan, Javanese Caribbean, Kirghiz, Kuranko, Otomi Mezquital, and Thai. Individuals can download these new recordings, as well as other MP3 Bibles, for free at: www.FaithComesByHearing.com. These new offerings, which represent more than 105 million people on four continents, bring the total number of audio scriptures available to 341 recordings in 287 languages. Faith Comes By Hearing’s goal is to record audio Bibles in two thousand languages by the year 2016, reaching ninety-seven percent of the world’s population.
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Mission Aviation Planes Grounded Due to Lack of Fuel
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Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF), which serves more than eight hundred Christian and non-profit agencies in remote areas (as well as thousands of isolated people in Africa, Asia, Eurasia, and Latin America), has been forced to ground missionary pilots due to a shortage of aviation fuel or “av gas.” Because of the shortage, some 150 airstrips are currently without service. In response to the crisis, MAF is embarking on an aggressive 10-year plan to acquire twenty of the new Kodiak 100 aircraft, manufactured by Quest Aircraft. Not only does the Kodiak use jet fuel, which is more readily available and cheaper, the plane is also larger, flies faster, and can still get in and out of small airstrips. The Kodiaks come at a discounted cost to the ministry. When available, av gas can cost up to $12 a gallon, whereas jet fuel is $3.50 a gallon. The new Kodiaks will allow MAF to reach more of the isolated peoples in remote places around the world.
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MILESTONES
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"Operation Access" Offers Information to Better Reach Unreached People Groups
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Mission Aviation Fellowship has announced the results of a study called “Operation Access” that will have a profound impact on the spread of the gospel in hard to access areas. MAF's Ghislaine Benny spearheaded the effort. It focuses on 364 sectors in sixty-four countries areas where people are unreached because of transportation, communication and other barriers. Benny says the results will help ministries around the world. The half-million dollar project is already being used by MAF. "The results are in the hands of all of our program managers, the MAF leadership and all of our operation folks -- they are using that information as a basis for prioritizing where MAF will open a program."
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At Least One Book of Bible Translated Into 2,426 Languages
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The number of languages into which at least one complete book of the Bible has been translated reached 2,426 at the end of 2006, according to the United Bible Societies’ 2006 "Scripture Language Report." The report records each scripture translation carried out by UBS or another translation agency which is received at the library of either the American Bible Society or the British and Foreign Bible Society. Along with three new Bibles, the 2006 "Scripture Language Report" lists thirty-one new New Testaments, of which five are the first recorded scripture publications in those languages. Additional portions were registered for thirty-four languages which do not yet have either an Old or New Testament and for twenty-one languages which have the New Testament but not the Old Testament. In twenty-six other languages in which translation and publication had already taken place, new or revised versions of portions, Testaments or Bibles are now available.
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Verse-by-Verse Teaching Translated into Hindi
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Pastor Chuck Smith’s (founder of Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, California, USA) verse-by-verse Bible teachings have been translated into Hindi through the efforts of K.P. Yohannan, founder of Gospel for Asia (GFA), and the GFA team. In a country where nearly 600 million people speak Hindi, GFA hopes to get 100,000 CD copies of Smith’s teachings into the hands of Indian pastors and missionaries. "One of the greatest crises we have is when revival breaks out and millions of people turn to Christ—but then, when there's not enough teaching of God's word, usually they end up in all kind of extreme cults," said Yohannan. "So we felt compelled to give to pastors something they can actually listen to and then be able to teach their congregations. This project is Pastor Chuck Smith teaching through the Bible; Genesis to Revelation; chapter by chapter; line by line.” For nearly five decades, Smith has been teaching thousands of people God’s word every week. The Calvary Chapel movement birthed the modern-day worship music and contemporary Christian music.
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Muslims to Outnumber Traditional Churchgoers by 2020
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Research shows that the number of Muslims worshipping at mosques in England and Wales will outstrip the numbers of Roman Catholics going to church in little more than a decade. The figures (based on government and academic sources and the latest edition of Christian Research's Religious Trends) show that if current trends continue, the number of Catholic worshippers at Sunday Mass will fall to 679,000 by 2020. By that time, statisticians predict, the number of Muslims praying in mosques on Fridays will have increased to 683,000. The Christian Research figures also suggest that, over the same period, the number of Muslims at mosques will overtake Church of England members at Sunday services. Church spokespersons point out, however, that a growing number of Anglicans worship at other times of the week.
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Largest Faith Celebration Ever in South America
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Over 800,000 people recently filled Buenos Aires' famed Ave. 9 de Julio for global evangelist Luis Palau's Si A La Vida festival, which lasted two days. It was the largest faith celebration ever seen in South America. The media coverage surpassed any experienced by the Palau ministry in over four decades of outreach. More than twenty-three thousand trained "Friends of the Festival" provided personal counseling to the thousands who responded to Palau's invitation to follow a life of faith in Christ. More than sixteen thousand decision cards were collected, with officials anticipating thousands more as festival follow-up continues.
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IN MEMORY
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Dr. Clyde Cook, Biola's Longest-serving President, Passes Away
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Dr. Clyde Cook, president of Biola University from 1982 to 2007 passed away April 11, 2008 from a massive heart attack. He was 72. Growing up in Hong Kong to missionary parents, Cook’s family was imprisoned in three different concentration camps during World War II. Cook and his wife served as missionaries with O.C. Ministries (then known as Overseas Crusades) in Cebu City, Philippines, from 1963-1967. Cook, who had received his undergraduate degree from Biola, was then appointed assistant professor of missions at the school and later director of intercultural studies and missions. Called to the presidency of O.C. Ministries in 1978, he guided the mission organization to an increased level of financial stability and multiplied foreign field effectiveness. The couple returned to Biola where Cook became the seventh president of the university. Cook was Biola's longest-serving president and one of the most beloved.
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CONFERENCES AND SPECIAL EVENTS
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Unreached Peoples Consultation
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Students, missionaries, tentmakers, development personnel, pastors, and cross-cultural trainers are invited to the 3-day Unreached Peoples Consulation May 12-16, 2008 at Regent University in Virginia Beach, Virginia. The theme, "End Time Harvest Tools and Partnering Strategies," will explore powerful strategies and related new tools being developed to evangelize and disciple the unreached/least-reached peoples of the world. Speakers include: Dr. Howard Foltz, president and founder of Accelerating International Mission Strategies (AIMS); Rev. John Musser, president and founder of Gospel Revival Ministries; and Rich Danzeisen, vice president of International Outreach and Programs for Operation Blessing. For more details and on-line registration, visit: www.upconsultation.com.
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Global Prayer for China during the Summer Olympics
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In a historic move, key organizations that work with the persecuted Church around the world launched a global campaign calling for prayer for China. In what is called “The Zurich Statement,” the Religious Liberty Partnership (RLP), with member organizations that include Open Doors International, Christian Solidarity Worldwide, Voice of the Martyrs (Canada), and the Religious Liberty Commission of World Evangelical Alliance, have called the worldwide Christian community to pray for China during the summer 2008 Olympics. “The call for prayer is rooted in the fact that the RLP felt it was time to acknowledge some progress in China’s attitude toward religious liberty and also the part Christians play at all levels of Chinese society,” stated Mervyn Thomas, CEO of Christian Solidarity Worldwide, UK, and chair of the RLP leadership team. “There is still a very long way to go and religious freedom is something very alien to many Christians in China.”
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RESOURCES
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First African Bible Commentary by African Scholars Now Available
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After nearly five years in the making, the first Bible commentary to be produced in Africa by African scholars has been published. The African Bible Commentary (ABC) is a two thousand-page commentary that includes a section-by-section interpretation of the Bible as well as over seventy topical articles by African men and women. Authors include theological scholars and evangelical church leaders from throughout sub-Saharan Africa. ABC resulted from a partnership between John Stott Ministries (JSM), the Association of Evangelicals of Africa, Serving in Mission from South Africa and seventy JSM-Langham scholars and other African writers.
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"Becoming a World Changing Church"
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"Becoming a World Changing Church" by David Mays speaks to Western church leaders on how to make your church a global church, one that is committed to both local and world evangelization. The book is divided into six parts and includes topics such as rediscovering the mission of the Church, the importance of keeping priorities and purpose at the forefront of missions and church leaders role in missions. Mays is Great Lakes Regional Director for Advancing Churches in Missions Commitment (ACMC). The book is published by ACMC.
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Two
Tasks
Charles
Malik
Malik passionately
argues that the
church must be
faithful to both its
evangelistic and
intellectual tasks.
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PRICE $2.50
regularly $4.95
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