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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.

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.

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.

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 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.

The Wycliffe Singapore office is moving to a new location near Kallang MRT station. With effect from Monday, 19 November, our office will be operating normally at the new premises. Our office phone number and all email addresses remain unchanged. 163 Geylang Road #04-03 The Grandplus Singapore 389240 Note: The entrance of the building is on Lorong 3 Geylang which is a one-way street; cars have to enter from Geylang Road. MRT Kallang Station (EW line). About 5 mins walk from Exit A. Buses Geylang Rd: 2, 7, 11, 12, 13, 21, 26, 31, 32, 33, 51, 62, 63, 67, 80, 100, 197, 853C. Sims Ave: 2, 7, 11, 12, 13, 21, 26, 31, 32, 33, 51, 62, 63, 67, 80, 100, 197, 546, 853C. Parking There are HDB car parks on Lorong 3 Geylang: Blk 114A is a multi-storey car park, and there are a few surface lots at Blk 114.

© European Union 2018. Flickr Creative Commons. Local wisdom gained from years of observing natural phenomena is often passed down through storytelling and songs in indigenous languages. Could this traditional knowledge have helped the people of Sulawesi during the recent earthquake and tsunami? Stanley Widianto explores this in an article in Foreign Policy magazine. Full Article

Wycliffe’s World Day of Prayer is a global celebration of: Thanks­giv­ing — as we re­mem­ber who God is and how He has done the seem­ingly im­pos­si­ble…again and again. Joy — as we rec­og­nize how God con­tin­ues to open doors and hearts to ac­com­plish His mission. De­pen­dence — as we ac­knowl­edge that all that we have and are is be­cause of God. God is sov­er­eign and almighty, yet He has in­vited us to par­tic­i­pate with Him in his mis­sion. Prayer is an es­sen­tial facet of that par­tic­i­pa­tion and keeps us rooted in our re­la­tion­ship with Him. There is a long tra­di­tion of Wycliffe staff, col­leagues and lo­cal churches pray­ing to­gether on be­half of Bible trans­la­tion. Every day, around the world, peo­ple are pray­ing for the Bible trans­la­tion move­ments, for the im­pact of God’s Word on in­di­vid­u­als and com­mu­ni­ties, and for lan­guage com­mu­ni­ties who don’t yet have His Word. But one day a year, No­vem­ber 11, we make a spe­cial ef­fort to come to­gether in prayer, united in hearts and minds in all our di­verse con­texts and locations. Read more at Wycliffe Global Alliance's page here. Wycliffe Singapore will be celebrating World Day of Prayer on 22 November, 2018.

by Dr David Tan, Executive Director Dear Mission Partner, We give thanks to the Lord for working through Wycliffe Singapore in FY2018 (ended in September). In order to run our events and programs, and for our general administration, we have ministry and office overheads budgeted at $268,491 for FY2019. Some highlights of FY2018: Camp Wycliffe in Chiangmai; GoForth National Missions Conference; Bible Storytelling Workshop; One member left for the field; Two persons had short-term attachments; Disbursed $257,000 to 21 projects (41 languages) under our R200 program. Some plans for FY2019: Moving to a temporary office near Kallang MRT (Nov); Members’ Conference (March); Camp Wycliffe in Chiangmai (May); Romblomanon New Testament dedication in the Philippines (May); To disburse about $237,000 to 20 projects (40 languages) under our R200 program. Please prayerfully consider giving towards these operations expenses. Click here to make a gift. May God’s peace be with you.