Our Wycliffe Roles, De-mystified

Every image you’ve ever seen from a mission organization was made by someone. This photo, by one of Dale’s teammates, was from a story on Bible translation work being carried out in Africa.

Every once in a while, we like to step back and take stock of what we’ve been communicating to you guys, and how we’ve been communicating it. After reviewing our blog posts for the last two years, we realized that we’ve done a less-than-stellar job of sharing the details of our specific roles within Wycliffe with you, and we figured it was time to de-mystify what God has allowed us to do within the organization.

Both Miranda and Dale have specific, assigned roles within Wycliffe—we’re even going to be on the same team! We’re joining a team called the Wycliffe News Network. Right now, our team consists of about 8-10 media professionals of varying backgrounds, located around the globe. The team itself is part of the Wycliffe Global Alliance, which consists of more than 100 organizations whose interests lie in making God’s Word accessible to every man, woman, and child on the planet.

Our team’s job is, effectively, to gather stories about all the really cool things that God is doing in and through Bible translation and heart-language scripture access around the world. We then make those stories available to all of our member and partner organizations, so that they can use them to communicate to their partners, churches, and advocates. (Click on any of these links to see examples of what our team has already done in the last few years.)

Another important aspect of the work of our team is to tell the story of those who God has called to translate His word. In this photo from one of our colleagues living in West Africa, a handful of gentlemen are working through the translation of a specific passage from the New Testament.

In his role with the team, Dale will be doing photojournalism on behalf of Wycliffe and our partner organizations around the world. Although we’ll be living in Germany, this role will require that he travel—both regionally and globally, as necessary—to make photographs, conduct interviews, and write stories about how God is at work around the world. When we are able to start our jobs, Dale will be the only full-time writer/photographer on the team (there is another writer/photographer, but she’s currently part-time only).

As our team continues to grow, we will need more and more administrative and logistical support. That’s where Miranda comes in. Many of you who know her personally already know that she excels in organizing, planning, and managing pretty much anything. And she’s going to be bringing that skill to our team, working with our team leader in those ways to ensure our team is able to do all God calls us to do.

We believe that God has custom-designed these roles for us—each one is a perfect-like-a-glove fit for the unique skillsets, passions and talents that God gave us. And our hearts long to do the work that God has set out before us.

When God’s people, whom He created in His image, have access to His word in a language they understand, lives are transformed, the Church grows, and the Gospel spreads. As photojournalists with Wycliffe, it is our responsibility to bear witness to these events so that others may know how God is moving through heart-language scripture access around the world.

But we can’t until we have commitments from financial partners for the full amount of our financial needs. We are praying every day that that would be the day when God brings in the final partners necessary for us to be cleared to buy our tickets.

Please take some time today to pray and ask God if He might be prompting you to partner with us in this task, so that we can take up the work He has for us.