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More Valuable Than an Enamel Plate

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More Valuable Than an Enamel Plate

I will never forget that young mother’s prayer during evening Bible class!

My wife and I were in the last stages of the Bible translation program, where for twenty years, we had been called Tehtikwyj and Prejaka by the thousand-plus Canela villagers living in the wilds of Brazil. Two dozen Canela men and women surrounded me, sitting on logs. We had sung hymns set to Canela indigenous music patterns, and in a few minutes, would read and talk about a new translated draft of a chapter of the Bible.

Prayer Time
Now, it was time to pray. First, I heard prayers asking God to heal sick children, for a good crop, and for help to find a lost bush knife. Then a young mother prayed:

“Great Father in the Sky,” she began. “I want to thank You for sending our brother Prejaka, and our sister Tehtikwyj, to our village long ago when I was just a baby. They are our teachers. First, they taught us to read our own language. Then, they worked with us to turn Your Words into our language. Now we can read Your Letter to us. Now we are discovering that You love us very much. Now we are learning how we can live to please you. Please help them to finish Your Book soon.”

Prayer for Donors
Then came the unforgettable part that brought tears to my eyes.

“I also want to thank You for all Prejaka and Tehtikwyj’s friends far away in their own country. They know that our brother and sister don’t have a food garden here as we do. So, for all these years, every month, their friends have sent them money so they can buy food. They keep on sending them their money, not just because they are Prejaka and Tehtikwyj’s friends, but because they are their brothers and sisters. Yes, they are all part of Your family, Great Father, and they are our brothers and sisters too.

“Maybe one of them is a mother and she is in a market, and she has money in her basket. And then she sees a new enamel plate, and she wonders, Should I buy this for my family so we can each have our own plate?

But then, she decides not to buy anything, and instead, she sends the money to our brother and sister so they can live here and make the books of Your Word.

“And she sure chose right because Your Word is so much more valuable than an enamel plate, even if it comes with a shiny new spoon.

As a reward, give these faraway brothers and sisters lots of healthy children; make their gardens grow well, and keep them from getting sick. Amen.”

What’s Happening Today
This young mother’s children have for the past thirty years grown up with a Bible in their language and are teaching their own children. Meanwhile, Bible translation programs are going on in thousands of languages around the world right now. Translation teams have completed hundreds of programs in the last ten years. It is very likely that while you are reading this column:

Somewhere in the world, someone is reading or hearing the Word of God in their own language for the first time.
Somewhere, someone whom you will not meet until eternity could be asking God to bless you, the donors to Bible translation and cross-cultural missions, because, as that young Canela mother said, “You sure chose right!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Donors Beware

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The truck ground to a stop in the Brazilian Indian village. A government official climbed down from the cab and told the driver to pull back the tarp part way. Villagers crowded closer to see shovels, axes, hoes, bush knives, rakes, rotary manioc graters, and two-metre-wide shallow pans for roasting manioc.

tarp truck“The government knows you need these tools and equipment,” the official began his speech, pausing frequently so his words could be interpreted into the local language for those who didn’t understand Portuguese.

“We are going to many Indian villages and leaving tools and equipment in each village that needs them.”

“Yes, yes, we need all things in our village!” several voices shouted.

“Especially the roasting pans,” the chief added, “Our old one has holes in it.”

“Before I give you some of these tools, I need to know one thing,” the supervisor said. “Are there any missionaries living here?”

“Yes, there are,” the chief replied, pointing to two women in their thirties standing at the edge of the crowd. “Those two missionaries give us medicine when we are sick. They teach us to read and write in our own language. And they tell us stories about God.”

At that, the supervisor signaled to the driver to cover the load and retie the tarp. As the tools disappeared from their sight, the villagers shouted, “Hey, what about the tools? Aren’t we getting any?”

“You already have missionaries helping you,” the official shouted over the clamour. “You don’t need the government’s help. Just ask the missionaries for the tools you need.”

With that, he climbed into the cab and the truck drove off leaving the villagers bewildered. Their shock soon turned into action. The chief turned to the two women and accused them of being stingy, of not giving them the tools and equipment they needed.

The women were devastated. Their missionary support income was barely enough to cover their most basic personal physical needs and the medicines they gave away. They had absolutely no way of providing the villagers with thousands of dollars worth of tools and equipment and, in tears, told them so.

“Well, then, you need to leave,” the chief declared. “The truck has to come back through our village. Maybe they will have a few things left. If we tell the government official we have permanently sent you away, they may leave those things here.”

And that is what happened. It was rumoured that officials with their personal anti-Christian agenda often manipulated the indigenous people into expelling missionaries using the promise of essential agricultural tools as leverage.

I know that Christian relief organizations in North America frequently fund these village level humanitarian projects. When I heard that story during our time of working with the Canela people, I wondered, Do any of the donors know that their gifts are used to expel Christian missionaries from the villages where they minister?

I speak at dozens of events each year to raise funds for a variety of Bible translation projects like the Translation Acceleration Kits. After checking that the project is overseen by honest and reliable people, my wife and I usually help to fund it personally. How can I ask others to give to a project when I don’t give to it myself?

A Latin phrase Caveat emptor means “Let the buyer beware.” The term is often used in real estate transactions, advising the buyer to perform their due diligence before finalizing the purchase. In these days of fund raising scams and manipulation, I wonder what the Latin phrase is for “Let the donor beware?”