Every Tongue June 2007

Hi to you all! We've been with Wycliffe here in the UK for 4 months now, here's some of what we've been up to...

Working with Wycliffe UK

We are both enjoying our jobs here with Wycliffe UK. Since our last newsletter Laura has taken over part-time as the PA to the Executive Director, which is a new challenge for her, but something that she is really enjoying doing. It is quite stretching for her in some ways as she's never really done much office work before, and hasn't had any Wycliffe training yet, but she's learning fast!

She is also nearing completion with the task of collecting and sending out Wycliffe members' annual reports. Hopefully she will have finished sending out most of them in the next couple of weeks.

Mark is really enjoying his job as the recruitment coordinator for Wycliffe UK. It's never boring with many varied tasks. A typical day could involve any of the following: updating the Wycliffe UK website, emailing enquirers, organising events, arranging assignments overseas for new members and trying to come up with ideas to encourage people to be involved in the work of Bible translation.

Wycliffe needs

Wycliffe's vision is that by 2025, together with partners worldwide, we aim to see a Bible translation programme begun in all the remaining languages that need one.

There are huge needs to be met before projects can be started in the 2,000 or so languages that still need them - both personnel and financial - and of course a huge amount of prayer, lifting up these language groups. Wycliffe currently has over 1,000 vacancies worldwide that can be filled by people with no prior experience with the organisation. The vast majority of these roles are in support work, with teachers, IT staff, finance workers and personnel staff all critical needs. More and more the responsibility for the work of Bible translation is being taken on by nationals and the local church, but even so the need for expatriate workers to give their expertise is greater than ever.

Wycliffe and Me

Thanks for your prayers for the "Wycliffe and Me" event in April. The event went really well, with 18 people attending, all of them interested in getting involved with Wycliffe in some way. One couple are already applying to go to Cameroon on a short term trip, and several others are considering serving with Wycliffe at some point in the future. Please pray for these 18 people, that they would each know the Lord's guidance as they pray about whether they should be involved with Wycliffe.

Outside of work...

Last month we moved to another house here on the Wycliffe Centre. This house is actually slightly larger than our previous one which is nice, and we're still paying the same rent. So thanks for your prayers for that - we're really blessed to be able to stay on the Centre and not have to move to somewhere more expensive nearby.

Church life

Another answer to prayer in the last few months is that we have really been able to get involved in our local church in the nearby village of Stokenchurch. We've been helping at a midweek club for 7-11s which has been good fun. It has only been boys coming so far, so we play a lot of running around games! The kids are good fun, but most are not from Christian families so we pray that they would see something of God's love through the time we spend with them each week.

We've also been blessed to be part of a Bible study group at church the past few weeks. It's a wonderful group with ages ranging from 20s to 80s and is one of the highlights of our week. We're starting to really feel at home at our new church, so thank you for your prayers about that!

Us looking smart at a wedding

Things to pray for

Praise God for providing us with another house here on the Wycliffe Centre. Also thank him for an increase in our support levels over the past few months. Please pray for the provision of our remaining financial needs.

Thank God that we have been able to settle in well and find ways to serve in our new church. Please pray for us, especially as we work with the 7-11s group.

Thank God for the jobs he has given us here and for how much we enjoy them. Pray for perseverance and wisdom as we do our jobs from day to day.

Pray for the huge number of personnel that are needed before every language has the Bible. "Ask the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest field" (Matt. 9:38)

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Mark and Laura Woodward, 09/07/2007