Travel and Access Possibilities: 1st Reason to Advance in Missions
February 5, 2010 – 9:30 amIt is too small a thing that You should be My Servant To raise up the tribes of Jacob, And to restore the preserved ones of Israel; I will also give You as a light to the Gentiles, That You should be My salvation to the ends of the earth. (Isaiah 49:6)
There has never been a time like the present for easy and rapid access to the world. Those of us who have known missionaries of the last generation and who have read stories of past missionaries’ experiences in travel are aware of what tremendous difficulties those missionaries faced to get to their destinations, and how many of them never even thought of a furlough.
William Carey left England to go to India, never to return to his homeland. Even when I was in college I knew of missionaries who were contemplating an ocean voyage of many weeks to get to their missionary destination.
In contrast, my own experience as a missionary, which started later in my life, has been remarkably different. I have been with Bibles International for fifteen years, serving as a translation consultant for translation projects throughout the world.
Before I began, I had visited two other countries in my life, Canada and the Bahamas. I did not even own a passport. In the last fifteen years the number of countries I have visited has gone from 2 to 34, and I have filled up two passports with extra pages and many visas and stamps.
Of those 34, I have been in 13 for the purpose of Bible translation, and the rest have mostly been visited in the course of getting to the Bible translation projects with which I have worked, in 29 different languages. The longest trip I take to get to any of our translation projects is three days, including travel by car or truck from the landing strip to my final destination.
When I started 15 years ago, e-mail was just beginning to be available; now it is nearly universal. Even the field we have had the most difficulty maintaining communication with, Chad in Africa, now has e-mail access. I have called my wife by cell phone and by satellite phone from many remote parts of the world.
We have e-mailed Bible translations and other materials related to that work from numerous places in the world, and I have even conducted a translation checking session by means of a satellite telephone with a missionary on the other side of the world. What a day we live in!
Though the amount of travel I do is not typical of many missionaries, the access possibilities are available to all who will use them for God’s glory and the salvation of souls. I am reminded of the words of the song “Macedonia” [also published under the title "The Vision of a Dying World] by Anne Ortlund:
Today, as understanding’s bounds
Are stretched on every hand,
O clothe Your Word in bright, new sounds,
And speed it o’er the land.
Lord Jesus Christ, empower us
To preach by every means!
Lord Jesus Christ, embolden us
In near and distant scenes.”
Glenn Kerr, guest author for the MM Blog, provides 10 reasons why local churches should advance in their effort to start indigenous church planting movements in regions that do not have a gospel witness.
Glenn J. Kerr is chief translation consultant for Bibles International, the Bible Society of Baptist Mid-Missions. He has worked as a consultant for 15 years, being involved with translation projects on five continents and about 28 languages.
He has a master’s degree in Hebrew and Semitic Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has done graduate studies in linguistics at Michigan State University, and is currently in doctoral studies through the University of South Africa.
He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in Bible translation and related linguistic subjects on an adjunct basis at three Bible colleges and universities in the US as well as his consulting work overseas.
