Search Results

Much of the remaining work of Bible translation is happening in countries where the gospel isn’t welcome. As believers, we can connect with people groups and their work through prayer. It’s a significant part of Bible translation! But how can we pray when we often don’t know specific details? How can we pray when we don’t know the real language name, or maybe even the country that the people live in? The important thing is that God knows exactly who we’re praying for, where they live and what’s happening in their community. Here are five different groups of people in difficult places you can pray for right now. Believers in underground churches Pray that these believers will know God as their comforter and source of hope. Pray that Scripture will reach them through online distribution and encourage them in their faith. Those who needed to leave their home country Pray they will come to know God and the assurance of his presence. Pray for opportunities to distribute Scripture to language speakers. Those persevering in Bible translation Pray that God will provide the team with unity, smooth progress and the right team members. Pray for each team member to grow in wisdom, creativity and skill. Pray that the team will gain better contact with speakers of the language in their home country. Pray for those who haven’t received the gospel yet. Pray they will have the opportunity to learn and respond to the Good News. Communities and Governments Pray for leaders to be prepared to welcome and receive translation work and, ultimately, the gospel. Praise God that he hears our prayers and will answer. This article first appeared in Frontlines , Winter 2019, © Wycliffe Bible Translators US. Reproduced with permission.

At a village church in the Kabwa language area in Tanzania, a large group of people have gathered to listen together to the Word of God. But no pastor is preaching; no one reads from a Bible. Instead, they’re using audio recordings of Scripture translated into their language — stored on tiny solar-powered MP3 players. “Many of them are church leaders from the area,” explained Michiel Louter, a translation adviser with the Mara Cluster Project in northern Tanzania. “They were involved in ‘listening workshops’ like this about a year ago. This one is a follow-up, so they have opportunity to tell us about their experience using the audio Scriptures.” The testimonies share common themes. The players and recordings helped some people better understand Scripture — “especially children and older adults,” Louter emphasized, “since they often don’t yet understand Swahili well.” Several people also described listening to the Kabwa language recordings at home with their families. The sound attracted neighbors — even those of other major religions — curious to know what the families were listening to. This led to discussion about how to reach those neighbors with the gospel. One participant gave advice, saying: “When we use these audio Scriptures, we should believe that it is the words of the Holy Spirit we hear. So, before you switch on the player — pray! And after you’ve listened to a chapter — pray! Then the Holy Spirit can do his work.” As the listening workshop continued, people formed smaller groups to listen to and discuss a chapter or story from the Bible. “One group listened to the whole book of Jonah,” said Louter. “Then they talked together about what God teaches us through that story.” One man summed up the main point of the book, which seemed most clear to them: “We shouldn’t say, ‘Those people are so difficult; they are so stubborn, we can’t tell them about the gospel.’ No, that is our task — to go and tell people. God will see to it that they change.” This article first appeared in Frontlines , Winter 2019, © Wycliffe Bible Translators US. Reproduced with permission.

by Deb Fox Spices. Photo: Marc Ewell, Wycliffe Global Alliance. As a Consultant in Training among the Rampi people of South Sulawesi, Indonesia, God has certainly taken Yenny on an adventure over the past 12 years. After completing Bible college in Jakarta, an opportunity opened up for Yenny to travel to South Sulawesi and join a translation team working in the remote Rampi Valley. She joined the Wycliffe Global Alliance organisation, Kartidaya, in 2006 as a Bible translation facilitator. Since then, Yenny and her team have been working and partnering with local churches to see the translation of the New Testament in the Rampi language come to fruition. In November 2017, that vision became a reality with the dedication of the Rampi New Testament. Bringing in the Rampi New Testaments at the dedication ceremony. Photo: Marc Ewell, Wycliffe Global Alliance. The dedication service was the responsibility of the local churches. Despite many challenges, they had faith that God would provide the food and resources they needed. In faith, they all put aside some rice each day for a month, which was later sold to pay for the dedication service. Seven villages took part and the entire service was conducted in the Rampi culture. When the New Testaments were presented, many people were in tears. Why was this such an emotional occasion? Yenny explains that for the Rampi people to have Scripture available in their own language, Jesus suddenly becomes more accessible to them. No longer is he a stranger from a foreign religion but a friend who loves them and knows them more intimately than their own family. Yenny witnessed first-hand the difference it makes having local believers involved in translation workshops as they hear and understand God’s Word in their own language and cultural context. But for many of these people, there is a huge personal cost involved. Quarterly translation cluster project workshops run for three weeks at a time and participants often need to leave their livelihoods and families behind in order to travel to the workshop location. “Most of these people need to manage their farms, rice fields, cacao or corn fields”, Yenny explains. “When they have to sit all day long with laptops and think of sentences, it is a difficult time for them. They also need to work harder before they leave to ensure that there will be enough money and firewood to last until they return so their families can survive.” For Yenny and her team, their journey to the isolated Rampi Valley involves a dangerous 12-hour motorbike ride across narrow, muddy paths and rugged terrain. Then they face a steep climb up the mountains and a significant trek on foot through forests and rivers. The villages are often difficult to get to and internet access is scarce. (Yenny went two years without being able to contact friends and family!) The work is difficult. There are long days and it can be challenging coordinating such a diverse team. But Yenny says the challenges are worth it: "This is God’s work. I see his hand in every situation. He is so good to me. He loves the Rampi people and he is the one who works in their hearts, enabling them to take part in this translation work. For me, working among the Rampi people is like bringing Jesus into the kitchen. When you visit someone’s house here, it is only the family and close friends who are allowed into the kitchen — everyone else stays in the living room. Jesus doesn’t want to be a guest that only sits in the living room; he wants to be part of the family. He wants to visit the Rampi people, sit in their kitchens and have deep conversations with them." Reproduced with permission from Wycliffe Australia.

by Deb Tan and Deb Fox The director of a Bible translation organisation in Indonesia considers the difference it could make to God’s mission if we truly believed that translation is the task of the Church. Marnix Riupassa, Director of Kartidaya [Wycliffe Global Alliance organisation in Indonesia], is reminiscing with Barry and Marg Borneman [Wycliffe Australia CEO and his wife] over a cuppa. It has been over five years now since a unique partnership with Wycliffe Australia was formed. He says, “Wycliffe Australia answered the one thing that was not answered by our own projects (at that time), and that maybe many [other] organisations do not understand. This thing, this project, was not about Bible translation but about how we build a strong relationship with the local church.” Out of Kartidaya’s unique vision and Wycliffe Australia’s willingness to support it, Kartidaya’s Partnership project was birthed. Its commitment was to serve the local church to help them understand God’s mission, so that it is the Church in Indonesia that reaches the end goal. Marnix notes, “We [used to] come to the Church and ask for money to help a translation project. But we didn’t help the Church to understand God’s mission to help them to lead the direction of Bible translation.” If translation is the task of the Church, then Marnix knew that they would need to partner with churches, denominational leaders, parachurch groups and organisations to gain momentum. Along with his team at Kartidaya, Marnix prayed and fasted that God would help create connections for more leaders to get on board with the vision. Marnix explains that the translation is the easy part — establishing community is where it gets difficult. “We’ve seen many spiritual battles happen in the field… not when we are starting to print the Bible, but when we start [building]…community. The enemy wants to create division. But we know that the best way to achieve God’s mission is by working together.” Working together to create local, missional churches points to a significant paradigm shift — putting the work in the hands of local people, without just relying on training, resourcing and funding by foreign organisations. It also helps to ensure a sustainable long-term witness to language groups, as future generations are trained by their own local leaders. Marnix shares, “The local church then becomes the umbrella, the host for the translation cluster. Kartidaya and Wycliffe come to serve and provide the resources to support them.” Reproduced with permission from Wycliffe Australia.

Professor Lamin Sanneh, D. Willis James Professor of Missions and World Christianity at Yale Divinity School, passed away unexpectedly from a stroke on 6 January 2019 at the age of 76. Born in a rural Muslim family in Gambia, Lamin Sanneh converted to Christianity as a teenager. He went on to become a renowned scholar in the field of World Christianity. He authored or edited more than 20 books, and wrote over 200 scholarly articles. In his book, Translating the Message: The Missionary Impact on Culture , Sanneh points out the uniqueness of Christianity in always translating the words of the founder (Jesus) into vernacular languages rather than the original Aramaic. In his opinion, Christianity was a preserver rather than a destroyer of indigenous languages and cultures. He attributed the successful spread of Christianity to missionaries who fitted into local cultures, delivering the Christian message in the vernacular languages, and encouraging the people to adapt their own customs to it. In an interview with Dr Graham Hill of the GlobalChurch Project about World Christianity, he said, “Probably no factor has been as decisive for the appropriation of Christianity anywhere it has succeeded than that of mother-tongue adoption, and in the modern period this has been demonstrated with abundant evidence.” In 2018, the Sanneh Institute at the University of Ghana was established as a multi-faith and multi-disciplinary research institute for the advanced study of religion and society. It will be formally inaugurated in 2020. Read more: A Condensed Version of a Conversation Between Professor Lamin Sanneh and Graham Hill On World Christianity, Christian-Muslim Relations, & Translating the Christian Message. A Justification for Translation: Why Every Christian Should Care About Gospel Resources in Languages Beyond Their Own / by Tyler Kenney. Translating the Message: The Missionary Impact on Culture / by Lamin Sanneh (2nd ed., 2009).

On 22 December 2018, members, staff, volunteers and friends of WBTS gathered to dedicate and celebrate our new office. Levene, who served in Wycliffe for the past 2 years, designed a beautiful poster to mark the occasion. The Bible verse on the poster, “it was a time of great and joyful celebration because they could hear and understand God’s words” (Nehemiah 8:12), describes the Israelites’ response when the Book of the Law was read and translated for them after their return from exile. This verse was chosen to remind us of our vision to provide every people group with God’s word in a language that speaks to their hearts. Although we plan to be here for only two years, we look forward to serving God faithfully from this new location. ... Saying Farewell to the Old After spending weeks packing, moving, discarding, selling and giving away things, all movable items had been cleared from the old office by the end of 2018. On 8 January 2019, the keys were handed over to Chinatown Plaza’s lawyers and the official date for the completion of sale is 15 January. Please pray for wisdom and guidance for those responsible for managing the proceeds from the sale as well as the Property Search Committee who will have to start looking for permanent office premises.

When women are taught to read and write, families and communities reap the benefits. In the villages of this South Asian country, few adult women are literate. One team has begun a multilingual education project for young children as well as adult literacy classes in both the local and national languages in several villages. Most of the adult participants are women. Here are the stories of two women whose lives have been transformed by literacy. C, 42, never had a chance to go to school as she had to help with the housework. By 19, she was married with a family of her own. She wanted to borrow some money from the village mothers’ group’s loan scheme to build a house but was unable to write her name on the required forms and so gave up her dream. When a literacy class was begun in her village, she made time to attend. Now, she can not only read and write, but also do simple calculations. She says, “My eyes have been opened! I have realised the importance of education and I will encourage my children to also study hard and not suffer like me.” Village house. Photo: Ari Vitikainen, Wycliffe Global Alliance K, 40, is now the chairman of the village mothers’ group of another village. She learned to read and write in the literacy classes and firmly believes in the importance of education. Despite a busy schedule, she makes it a point to be on time for classes and also encourages other women to attend. She monitors the classes, taking attendance, visiting those who are absent, and reporting to the field coordinator during his visits. Her aim is that every woman in the village should be able to at least write her name and guide her children, and in this way improve the lives of the whole community. Beyond these benefits, these literacy skills will equip the people to read the mother tongue Scriptures which are currently being translated, so that they can experience even greater life transformation through encountering the Word of God in their own language.

by Wycliffe Global Alliance As we celebrate the milestone of translated Scripture in more than 3350 languages, we celebrate that God is accomplishing His mission through His power and through partnership. More mission organisations, churches and Christian communities are becoming involved in the Bible translation movement. At least 1.5 billion people do not have the full Bible available in their first language. Over 700 million of these have the New Testament; others have portions or at least some level of translation or preparatory work begun. There are known active translation and/or linguistic development happening in 2658 languages across more than 170 countries. Because of improved accuracy in collecting information from around the world about Bible translation needs, and other factors, the number of estimated translation needs worldwide has increased. As of 1 October 2018, over 180 million people, using 1879 spoken languages and 284 sign languages, are likely to need some form of Bible translation to begin. Translation need is not as simple as determining which languages do or do not have Scripture. Most of the languages with only “some Scripture” are in need of more, and even full Bibles undergo revisions from time to time. Find out more in the FAQ sheet . Today approximately 100 organisations from more than 60 nations form the Wycliffe Global Alliance. By providing staff, funds, training, translation and support services, Alliance organisations are currently involved in at least 2139 of the 2658 languages known to have active work. Wycliffe Global Alliance organisations and personnel have been involved in the translation of Bibles and New Testaments in more than 1000 languages. At least one of the Bible’s 66 books has been published in an additional 700 languages. Many other languages have other initial portions published. Thanks to the work of ministries including Faith Comes By Hearing , Jesus Film , Bibles.org , YouVersion , Scripture Earth , and software such as Paratext and Scripture App Builder, Scripture is available online and in digital forms that can be shared phone to phone in over 1600 languages. Find.Bible maintains a growing public list of where to find Scripture across these and other sites. There are many additional partnerships and new initiatives contributing to the growth of Bible translation movements and the distribution and use of God’s Word. Working in community partnerships, Alliance personnel not only assist in Scripture-related goals but also help produce thousands of resources for literacy, education, health and other community-based objectives alongside Scripture. We report precise numbers on what we know but we frequently hear of new work and of translations previously uncounted, meaning these numbers continue to fluctuate. Additionally, we do not have a figure for the number of people who have prayed or given financially so that others might give their time and sometimes their lives to this work. More importantly, we cannot count how many lives have been positively affected as a result of Bible translation. We speak on behalf of millions of lives across the world when we say, "Thank you!" Statistics are rarely as simple as the numbers imply. Please read the FAQ sheet before quoting these figures. Wycliffe Global Alliance presentations of Scripture and Language Statistics are compiled from data provided through Progress.Bible by Wycliffe Organisations, SIL International, United Bible Societies and many other partners. Data is current as of 1 October 2018. Population data is based on available information about first language speakers in SIL’s Ethnologue. Further stories about people and projects are available at www.wycliffe.net and from your nearest Wycliffe organization .

by Anne It all happened very fast! I had approached Wycliffe Singapore to find out more about their ministries. After some discussion, it was suggested that I could attend Camp Wycliffe, an experiential camp in Thailand, then spend three months at a language centre in Thailand to learn some Thai and observe language work in a minority group. I didn’t know what else might be in store for me, but said “Yes!” anyway. In my time there, I was given opportunities to do so many things – helping with the moving of the centre, serving alongside a team from the US, completing a section of an anthropology write-up, helping with literacy materials and running errands. I also observed translation work and the audio recording of the Bible. Moving, cleaning and culture This was manual labour – loading and unloading, discarding, cleaning, arranging, and then more cleaning! We had to clean the furniture, and we had to clean the building’s interior a few times because it got dusty pretty quickly. It was interesting to observe different cultural viewpoints – what I had felt was unnecessary or inefficient, the Thai people saw as good teamwork. Yet through the inefficiency, the repetitive cleaning made me see how important it was to constantly be cleansing ourselves from within. If we allow ourselves to collect dust and accumulate dirt, it is so much more tiresome to clean. I found the cleaning really therapeutic after a while, and it reminded me that we need to allow God to constantly clean us, to reach into the deeper places where hidden dirt is, so that we can be a clean temple for God to reside in. Short-term missions I tagged along with a team from the US who had planned activities to train potential missionaries and observed them conduct debriefings to help team members make sense of their experiences. As I reflected on this, I realised that it was my very first mission trip, under a great leader and mentor, that had sown the seed in me to consider becoming a missionary. This is the value of sending out short-term mission teams, as long as the trips are properly executed. Language work One of the tasks I was given was to investigate the spiritual worldview of the K group. I interviewed the mother-tongue translators (MTTs) to try to understand more about animism in their culture. It was very comforting to me to see the hope, joy and peace reflected in the eyes of the believers, and how they had been liberated from their fears. At the same time, it was also heartbreaking to know that many of them are still trapped in fear. As I tried to make sense of the stories that the people had believed in for generations, I realised that logic is not the same for everyone. I also came to realise that animism is not just in the remote villages; we city-dwellers also place our hope in material things like good grades, a comfortable salary, or even good weather. It was a good reminder to me that our hope is in the Lord, who is the same today, yesterday and forever, even when things don’t go our way. I expected that producing literacy materials (flashcards) wouldn’t be too hard – after all, it was just finding pictures and copying vocabulary from their database, right? But it was difficult! The images easily available online were from the cultures of ‘angmoh’ (western) or majority people groups (eg. Chinese), and it was tough to find pictures that ethnic minorities could relate to. Fortunately, we did manage to find a database which had suitable images. This brought home to me how unseen and unknown minority groups are – they are regarded as nobodies. Yet God knows them, and through the work with Wycliffe, they know that they are valued. And when the MTTs saw the completed materials, their joyful expressions were priceless! Journeying on This internship was part of my personal journey with God. Every person’s journey will be different even if they go on a short-term mission trip to the same place. That’s the beauty of it – the outcome will not be the same, except that God will exceed your expectations. I went into the internship hoping to find some answers to help me figure out my next step in life, and while I am clearer that God has placed a love for minority peoples in my heart, God has done something even more intricate. He has shown me that He will be with me if I go; He has shown me that I don’t need to worry about my abilities; He has shown me what trusting in Him means. All I need to do is take the next step. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us. (Ephesians 3:2) Anne was inspired to study Linguistics after attending a course on missions. She decided on this short internship to see what language work in the field is really like. She continues to seek God’s guidance as to where He will lead her in the future.

by Tan Huey Ying, Salt&Light He has a degree in Physics from Oxford and a PhD in Applied Mathematics from Cambridge. She read law at Oxford and has a Masters in Library Science. According to the typical Singapore story, Dr David Tan and his wife Sharon were destined to be high flyers in the civil service or the glamorous corporate stratosphere. That did not happen. Instead the couple chose to serve for 17 years at Wycliffe Bible Translators Singapore. For 10 of those years, they were missionaries doing painstaking Bible translation work for a minority group in a nation where open evangelism was not permitted. Turns out the educational qualifications of Dr David Tan and his wife Sharon had little bearing on where God would take them. When David met Sharon Dr David Tan, now 54, grew up in a poor family as the youngest of seven siblings. As a result, he had ruled out dating girls from higher social backgrounds because he presumed they would have different values. But when he met Sharon at Christian fellowship in Oxford University, he realised that she shared similar views on stewardship and simple living. “She’s from the upper middle class. Her father was a professor and her mother, a principal,” said David. Unlike David, who was on an Air Force scholarship, Sharon’s parents could well afford to send her to Oxford sans scholarship. “I know a lot of girls can be quite high maintenance. But I must say, I’m fairly low maintenance … certainly in terms of monetary expenditure,” quipped Sharon over David’s burst of laughter. The strength of their shared perspective on life and stewardship fortified their relationship as they served actively together in Christian fellowship. Shortly after their graduation in 1986, the couple got married in Singapore at the tender age of 23. Coming home Back in Singapore, life was good. David was serving out his bond with the Singapore Air Force while Sharon worked at the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). Despite their stable jobs and comfortable incomes, the couple lived simply in an HDB flat with one second-hand car. “In those days, the 80s, cars were cheap what!” David exclaimed, “So it’s like, ‘Hey! We can own two cars!’” But they stuck to one. Sharon added: “We didn’t need another car. I took the bus to work every day.” Their values on stewardship were clear. “It’s not your right to spend the money that you earn, just because you have it.” “Think about it,” said David. “It is God who gave us the ability to work.” Missions calling Living simply in Singapore was not an issue for Sharon. But missions was a different story altogether. “It wasn’t something on my horizon,” she said. “I’ve always thought that missions was not for me, it’s for other people who are very gung-ho. I will just be a good Christian here in Singapore!” David, on the other hand, felt drawn towards missions ever since he attended his first Missions Sunday in his church. “It seemed like something God had put on my heart.” But he had a bond to complete and Sharon was reluctant. David was “okay” with his job in the Air Force, but he could not see himself doing this in the long-term; he preferred “something more meaningful”. He had encountered operations research which involved the utilisation of math algorithms to determine the optimal use of resources, and was interested in studying that subject. Sharon’s personal reservations did not stop her from supporting David in exploring mission work. With her encouragement, he joined his church’s missions committee and went on short-term trips. As he neared the end of his bond in 1995, David started planning the next step. Through his exposure to Applied Mathematics at work, David had developed a strong interest in it and wanted to pursue further studies. “The Lord blessed me with a good mind … I always had this dream of becoming a math professor or researcher, working on famous unsolved theorems,” he said. But there was a nagging concern: How did a PhD in Applied Mathematics fit with cross-cultural missions? Were they even compatible? Hoping for a clear sign from the Lord, David applied for several PhD programmes. He struggled to reconcile his love for math with his call to missions. But God’s answer came in the form of wise advice from an Anglican priest, an old friend of David’s. “Essentially his point was: If you are walking with the Lord, you don’t need to be so afraid that you are straying from His will. The main thing is, often when you want to please the Lord …” David paused. “Doing what’s on your heart? It’s okay.” A PhD would be especially useful if they were to go to a “creative access” nation, where the Gospel cannot be preached openly, he reasoned. “In my simplistic thinking, I wanted to do missions using an academic platform.” Despite the multiple offers he received, taking up a scholarship was out of the question. Sharon added: “Do the math: He was 31. Four years of study, eight years of bond. By the time you get to the field …” “… We felt that it was not wise to tie up those years of my life,” David finished her sentence. Eventually, David and Sharon settled on Cambridge University’s PhD in Applied Mathematics programme. In 1995, David completed his bond and Sharon quit her job at MAS and moved to Cambridge, with the assurance that “it was okay”. Two miracles The couple was still childless when they made the decision to move to Cambridge together for David’s PhD. The last four years had been a difficult and stressful time as they went through several rounds of fertility treatments and even a miscarriage. Being unable to conceive was particularly painful for Sharon who, until then, had not encountered major challenges to her faith. “My life had always been very smooth,” she said frankly. “You know, do well at school, get the courses you want. But I basically reached a point where I told God, ‘If it’s Your will, You can make it happen.’ And we left it at that.” They did not expect just how “okay” things would turn out, nor could they foresee what God had prepared for them. For this pair of self-confessed “planners”, God had a greater plan – one that involved blessing them with the desires of their hearts (Psalm 37:4) as they walked with Him. In Cambridge, David and Sharon planned their first mission trip together. When the couple went to get their vaccinations for the mission trip to Central Asia, Sharon had a nagging suspicion she was pregnant. The clinic nurse did the tests and it was confirmed: They were having a baby! This was God’s gracious answer to a desire that they had long set aside. … But what timing, just as they were leaving for a mission trip! So, instead of postponing the trip, the couple put an embargo on the news – knowing their families would object to their leaving – and went for the mission trip anyway. Having seen up-close how a long-term missionary family lived, Sharon’s main takeaway was: “Maybe I can handle it after all.” Four years later, in the summer of 1999, David graduated with a PhD in Applied Mathematics. The couple returned to Singapore with, not one, but two children! Heart language As David spent the next year in research, he soon realised that, as much as he loved math, he wasn’t “particularly keen” about a career in it as it would be “basically, a paper, pencil, yourself and four walls”! Not ideal for an extroverted individual like David. “On hindsight, there are certain things in life that sometimes you need to do, in order to put it behind you.” David felt ready to move on with no regrets. Ever the strategist, David had been on the lookout for a mission organisation whose work would fit both Sharon’s and his personalities. He knew Sharon’s heart for God, the strength of her devotion and the values she held. “But Sharon’s not the touchy-feely type,” David said with a laugh. Eventually, they settled on Wycliffe. “We were totally sold,” Sharon said. “Both of us grew up in church. We thought about what we would have become if we didn’t have Scripture that we could read and understand. “We applied to Wycliffe because we believe in the ministry.” David admitted: “I wasn’t sure I would cut it as a linguist. I’m a science guy! I’ve never been very strong in the humanities or at languages. It was kind of a gamble, but also a step of faith.” But after linguistics training, David discovered he was “actually a good language learner”. The “good mind” that David was blessed with had come with an affinity for language awareness and sensitivities – a valuable skill for a Bible translator pioneering work amongst an unreached people group (UPG). God had yet another surprise in store – one which transformed David’s cerebral belief in Wycliffe’s goals into a personal resonance. On a personal retreat several years ago, David had broken down when he listened to a Hokkien worship song, Khan Goa Eh Chiu (Hold my hand). Explaining the idea of a “heart language”, David said that it is usually the language that someone acquires from birth and resonates with his heart. “I only spoke Hokkien for the first six years of my life. I never went to kindergarten. I learnt English and Mandarin at Primary 1 and I considered them foreign languages. In many UPGs, people function in their home language until at least the age of 10.” David added quietly: “Hokkien had a special place in my heart. My own life was a reflection of what minorities go through.” The planners and the Planner Today, 17 years later, the couple continues to work faithfully at Wycliffe Singapore where David is the Executive Director and Sharon the Communications Executive. Framed on a wall of their home is the oft-quoted verse from Jeremiah: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11) David had planned on using his PhD as a door into cross-cultural missions. Sharon, on the other hand, had never even considered becoming a missionary – let alone plan on raising and home-schooling two daughters in a foreign land. But both Sharon and David have experienced the good plans of God, and through the service of their lives, countless others from UPGs can now know the God who gives them hope and a future. Dr David Tan is the Executive Director of Wycliffe Singapore. He and his wife, Sharon, served overseas for several years, and are now continuing to participate in the work of Wycliffe in the Singapore office. They have 2 daughters aged 21 and 19 years. This interview with David & Sharon Tan first appeared on the Salt&Light website on 28 Oct 2018. Reproduced with permission.