lege of having more of your graduates applying to our Board for service in South America.” A ll honors bestowed upon BIOLA missionaries are occasion for rejoicing in the Lord, yet tribute should be paid each and every unnoticed one, all who labor in the whitened harvest fields, no matter how obscure the task. A ll that God requires is conse cration and faithfulness and He has wondrous awards awaiting the un known office worker, k e e p i n g ac counts in a remote mission station; unsung nurses, binding up offensive wounds out of love for Christ; the lonely translator in a reeking jungle, working laboriously over words with which to construct a vehicle for trans mission of the Gospel; teachers, with inadequate equipment and personnel, patiently dealing with ignorance and obstinacy to train a native church; the courageous pioneer missionary on dangerous treks into areas where as yet the name of Jesus has not been planted in “ the savage breast” ; and everywhere in the background faith ful wives who “ stand by the stuff.” In this connection, Rev. Frank L. Jertberg, A.B.W.E., of Brazil writes: “ A very little-mentioned aspect of missionary life is the faithfulness of the missionary wives in teaching their children, running their houses in the face of innumerable problems, doing a million and one things that enable their husbands to do the actual work of missions. The exasperation of not being able to get out into active work, of dealing with ignorant servants, of trying to purchase food where it hardly exists, etc., are a few of the problems. I believe that missionary wives are neglected, because they do not do the spectacular things that men do, but without them the men could never get anything done!” To list the names of all BIOLANS who for the sake of Christ paid “ the last full measure of devotion” in lay ing down their lives on foreign fields is impossible. Eugene Crapuchettes of C. I. M. 0. M. F. is an example. While he and his wife were immobilized so far as China service was concerned, because of the war, he was chosen by the United States to go back to China in liaison work between the U.S. and China forces. This afforded an un usual opportunity for Christian wit ness in the Chinese army, and only the Lord knows how that has borne fruit during the Red occupation of that unhappy land. He was killed in a motor accident in China while on a special mission, but his brave wife continues to serve in the C. I. M. home for missionaries’ children in Wheaton, Illinois.
“ There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard” (Psa. 19:3). The application of the Psalmist’s words concerning the starry heavens to BIOLA missionaries may be for given when one notes the lands to which they have gone, for they form a veritable gazetteer: Africa, Alaska, Arabia, B o r n e o , B u rm a , Central America, Cuba, Formosa, F r a n c e , Germany, Hawaii, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Israel, Korea, Laos, Japan, Malaya, Mexico, Nepal, New Guinea, Pakistan, Philippines, Portugal, Puer to Rico, South America, Thailand, Tibet, Viet Nam, and many other places. The tribes and languages rep resented by these peoples are so over whelming that our graduates literally minister to “ every kindred, tongue and tribe” on earth. Don Fairley, serving under C & M.A., in the Gabon District of French Equatorial Africa, says with the mis sionary’s characteristic understate ment: “ Each tribe has its own lan guage, which in a comparatively small area, complicates the work.” C o m p l i c a t e s the work indeed! Thousands of tribes live in Africa,
Teaching handcraft at junior high girls' camp, TEAM missionary E. Ruth Smith, near Tokyo, Japan. savage,” states their bulletin, “little islands of heathenism and ignorance in a sea of civilization. It is to these particular tribes that go v e rnmen t officials have urged Wycliffe to go first. These are the tribes most subject to extinction (79 Brazilian Indian tribes have already disappeared from the face of the earth). Each delay in reaching them means a reduced num ber of speakers, fewer possible results and actually greater barriers to an effective witness.” It is a sobering thing to reflect that entire tribes of people are perishing without having had one messenger of the Gospel or one word from the Book of God. Christ commanded: “ to every crea ture” ! All missionary agencies thank God for raising up Wycliffe Translators for the specific task of reducing to writing languages into which to ren der the Word of God as well as that of translating into languages already written. This work is particularly a twentieth-century miracle, adapted to the period of the world’s most wide spread literacy. Cornelia Hibbard, who with her husband labors under Wycliffe in Peru, calls attention to a Middle English quotation from William Tyn- dale, the martyr translator, who in 1536 gave his life for putting into the tongue of the common people the Word of God and attempting to dis tribute it to them: “ I perceaved by experience,” wrote Tyndale, “ how that it was impossible to stablysh the laye people in any truth excepte the scripture were plnly layde before their eyes in their moth er tongue.” Now that the world has grown so small, and tribes which a half-cen tury ago were not even known to exist are being penetrated by the trader and the missionary, few mis sionaries can limit their ministry to one language. The records show that the majority of our graduates learn two to three languages and many labor with dozens of various dialects.
David Crane, formerly Chief Engineer at Radio Station W IVV, Vieques, Puerto Rico. South America, Viet Nam, Malaya, Indonesia, Thailand — in fact, in nearly every country on the face of the earth, dwelling in mountain fast nesses, jungles and interior regions where the dialects are all diverse. A missionary, taking a visitor for a tour of his field, swept his arm in a circle: “ Look to the south,” said he, “ over that hill is one tribe; on the east, is another; over that rise in the north is still another, and the tribe on the west has no knowledge of the lan guage of the other three, as they have not of his.” These settlements were within sight and walking distance of the speaker! For instance, Wycliffe Bible Trans lators state that Brazil alone contains 186 tribes. “Many of them are still
JANUARY, 1959
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