CANORA - “The Bible means so much to me, I wanted to help raise money for the completion of its translation.”
That’s how Dawson “Speedy Pants” Tennant described his motivation for being one of the riders in the Ride 4 Scripture Completion Group that stopped in at Gateway Community Church in Canora for a tasty potluck supper on June 24, and then were put up for the night by church members.
Other cyclists with the group, and their nicknames, are: Shannon “Snow White” Froese, Allan “Hawkeye” Kreller, Raymond “Radar” Luong and Sam “The Marathon Man” Wuermli. Driving the support vehicle for the group is Gerrit Hupkes.
The other group members shared some of their reasons for getting involved.
Sam: “I turned 70 a couple years ago and I wanted to do something worthwhile, so how about ride across the country? We don’t have the capacity to do that right now, so we consider this a trial run.”
Shannon: “I’ve always enjoyed cycling and I like to challenge myself. God has invited me to be a part of this initiative.”
Allan: “It’s so good to be biking with a purpose.”
Raymond: “The Wycliffe Bible translation work, it’s all because churches in Canada believe. I wanted to meet people in these supportive churches. This has been a real highlight, listening to the sharing of people from these churches and telling them what Wycliffe does.”
Gerrit: “It’s good to try something different. I heard Sam talk about it online and I decided to get involved.”
This year, Wycliffe Canada community members have embarked on a long-distance bike ride from June 18 to June 29, starting in Red Deer with the goal of reaching Winnipeg, a distance of over 1,300 km, to support Bible Translation ministries.
As is typically the case on the prairies, the group reported a wide range of weather conditions just between Red Deer and Canora, everything from driving horizontal rain to pleasant days with a welcome tailwind.
“Motorists have been great to us, very respectful, especially here in Saskatchewan,” said Shannon.
The team is raising money to bring crucial Bible translation initiatives across the finish line.
According to information provided by Wycliffe, one in five people still don’t have access to the Bible in their own language. The Scripture Completion Fund puts Bibles into people’s hands for the first time. Financial support will bring hope to communities around the globe through translated Scripture.
The Scripture Completion Fund supports the final stages of Bible translation – formatting, printing and distribution– for communities around the world awaiting God’s Word in their language.
The Wycliffe vision is to create a world where translated Scriptures lead to transformed lives among people of all languages.
History
It all began in Guatemala.
In 1917, a young American named William Cameron Townsend arrived in the Central American country to distribute Spanish Bibles among the Cakchiquel people. But he quickly discovered that most of them did not speak or understand Spanish. Nor did they have a written form of their own language.
Townsend abandoned his attempts to sell Spanish Bibles and began living among the Cakchiquel. He learned their complex language, created an alphabet for it, analyzed the grammar, and translated the New Testament in the remarkably short span of 10 years.
Over time, Townsend came to the conclusion that every man, woman and child should have access to God's Word in their language.
He had no idea there are more than 7,300 languages in use around the globe.
But that knowledge wouldn’t have deterred Cameron Townsend. With other like-minded colleagues, he founded "Camp Wycliffe" in 1934 as a linguistics training school. He borrowed the name Wycliffe from the pre-Reformation hero, John Wycliffe, who first translated the Bible into English. That Bible first appeared over 600 years ago.
Organizations Born
By 1942, Camp Wycliffe had expanded to form two organizations, Wycliffe Bible Translators and the Summer Institute of Linguistics (now SIL Global). The subsequent need for support services later led to the founding of JAARS, Wycliffe's partner for technical services.
Today, SIL and Wycliffe partner with national Bible translation organizations, other like-minded agencies and church denominations worldwide to translate God’s Word, promote literacy and encourage the use of translated Scriptures.
While tremendous progress has been made since the founding more than 80 years ago, it's estimated that more than 29 million people, speaking 985 languages, still need Scripture in the languages that serve them best.
You can join this incredible mission and have an eternal impact, continued the information from Wycliffe.
Sam Wuermli said the goal for their Red Deer to Winnipeg trip is to raise $25,000 to support the completion of Bible translations. As of June 25 the total stood at $23,265.
For more information on Wycliffe Bible translation work, go to Wycliffe.ca.
Donations to the Ride 4 Scripture Completion can be made at
https://interland3.donorperfect.net/weblink/WebLink.aspx?name=E341555QE&id=403.
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