Translators from Wycliffe Bible Translators will discuss opportunities to get involved with the organization during a banquet at Highland Church of Christ on April 13.
Jason and Elizabeth Parks will be the featured guest speakers at the complimentary banquet. The Parks have served with Wycliffe since 2006 and act as sign language translators in countries like Jamaica, Peru and Chile. Wycliffe Associates South Central Area Director Noel Davis coordinates a series of 50 annual banquets around the region. Davis said the purpose of the banquets is largely to raise awareness of the organization.
“Our purpose is mainly informational, to get the word out about Wycliffe,” Davis said. “We also give people an opportunity to get involved either out in the field as volunteers or financially.”
Davis said Wycliffe was last in Abilene more than a year ago and tries to host banquets in the same cities every 18 months.
Former ACU professor Wendell Broom is helping coordinate the Abilene event.
“Our purpose in this event is to bring the Wycliffe purpose to the attention of churches in Abilene and to tell people how they can help,” Broom said. “We want people to understand what Wycliffe does and to have some exposure for our two young Wycliffe translators.”
Broom said no contributions would be taken at the dinner, but that staff would compile a mailing list of potential volunteers and donors.
Broom served as a professor in the Department of Bible, Missions and Ministry from 1970-1993. He graduated from ACU in 1945 and began a series of mission trips to the African nation of Nigeria in 1955. There, he worked to teach African preachers in English so they could translate the Bible into their own language.  Broom said he has returned to Nigeria at least a dozen times, and he wants people in Abilene to get involved in the translation process.
“Wycliffe exists so that by 2025, in every language, the Bible can be read in the heart language of the people,” Broom said. “This is an enormous job. They have to first build a dictionary and second, write out a study of the grammar. Then they start translating.”
He said more than 8,000 languages are spoken in the world, but many do not yet have a Bible translated into their native tongue.  Broom said the translation project can only be accomplished through volunteer hours and financial contributions.  Today, more than 350 million people in the world still have no translated Bible available to them, according to the Wycliffe Web site.
“Originally, the average time for a translation was 20 years,” Broom said. “But with the coming of computers, that time has been reduced, but the task is still there.”
Broom said the mission of Bible translation has been around for a while and was strengthened through the works of John Wycliffe in the 14th century.
“The only copies of the Bible were in Latin, Hebrew and Greek which meant that only people in the monastery could read them,” Broom said. “The common people could not read them, so all they knew was from Greek and Roman churches.”
Broom said American missionary William Cameron Townsend furthered the mission serving as a missionary in rural Mexico in the early 1900s.
“He went to Mexico as a missionary to the Mexican tribal people. They listened to his teaching, but he repeatedly ran into challenges,” Broom said. “They asked him why if God were so powerful he didn’t speak to them in their own language.  This cut Townsend to the bone.”
Broom said the mission to deliver the Scriptures to all people in their own language is as important today as ever.
“The word of the Lord needs to be translated for these people,” Broom said.
The banquet is complimentary, but reservations must be made by April 4. To make reservations, contact Broom at 677-0248.
