Testimonies  

Mark's testimony

I joined Wycliffe for several reasons.  While serving in the Air Force, I felt the Lord calling me into a ministry that was more directly related to the spread of God's kingdom.  I could have served the Lord as a Christian Air Force officer, but I did not feel comfortable in that role.  Thinking that my calling was pastoral ministry, I headed for Fuller Theological Seminary to get my Master of Divinity (MDiv) degree.  However, after four months of classes and doing a lot of observing - comparing myself to the other aspiring pastors - I realized that this wasn't my calling either.

By God's grace, I ran into a member of Wycliffe who was working on his Masters in translation.  I told him about my background as an administrator in the Air Force, and he encouraged me to apply to Wycliffe as a manager.  (At the time, there were roughly 200 open positions worldwide for people with management experience.)  So, I filled out the paperwork and was accepted as an applicant.  I then attended Quest, Wycliffe's seeker orientation program, in Idyllwild, California, and was accepted into the organization based upon a positive evaluation.

Why management?  My mechanical engineering degree from Cornell got me into the Air Force, but my work was primarily in administering a rocket launch program.  I was in charge of supervising the work upon the engine and hydraulic systems of the Atlas rockets that were used to launch various types of satellites into polar orbit from Vandenberg AFB, CA.  The work was a blast (pardon the terrible pun!), but it was mostly playing on computers and seeing to the maintenance needs of the rocket launch towers.  I did very little engineering, but I loved the management angle.  It was this experience that directed me into a manager's role in a missionary society.

Why Wycliffe?  I attended Urbana '84, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship's triennial missions conference, shortly after graduating from college.  In scoping out the mission agency booths, I stumbled upon the one for Wycliffe.  I was thoroughly intimidated by the displays - I considered Wycliffe to be way beyond my reach - but I went ahead and signed up for their periodical, In Other Words, which I started receiving after returning to California.  An article in the September '87 issue focused on their need for managers to run the field offices so that the translation teams could stay focused on their work out in the villages.  I tucked this article in the back of my head, and it was there when I had my crisis of vocation at Fuller and ran into the guy studying translation.  It all fell neatly into place.  (God does things like that, now and then :-) 

Another reason I joined Wycliffe is that I believed in their philosophy: the best way to disciple people and grow the church is to get the word of God in its entirety into a person's heart language.  (For reasons of speeding up the task, Wycliffe has traditionally restricted translation to the New Testament and portions of the Old such as Genesis and Psalms.  This approach has changed dramatically in recent years and is now more flexible depending upon many factors.)  In the Great Commission, Jesus told his disciples to "make disciples of all nations... teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you."  How can you teach "everything" without the entirety of God's word made available?  And what better language is there to learn in than your own heart language, your mother tongue?  What Wycliffe has been doing since William Cameron Townsend founded the organization makes a lot of sense to me, and it has been a tremendous privilege to count myself as part of this team.  I am convinced that I am doing what God wants me to be doing.  It doesn't get better than that!