MICHEALS’ MEMOIRS December 2016 Update
Dear Friends and Family, The fiscal year for Wycliffe is over and this means we add up the results of our recruitment work with Wycliffe USA. We praise the Lord that He has blessed our work! Chuck worked with 21 people who joined Wycliffe as new missionaries this fiscal year! One couple joined as Bible translators for a language group in Brazil. The rest joined as support workers (Administrative Assistant x 3, Center Services Administrator x 4, Bible Translation Project Managers x 5, Management Trainer, Pharmacist, Teachers x 3 and Guest House Managers x 2). Barb’s Volunteer and Internship application work also bore fruit as more than a dozen people have been sent out to serve. Most have been sent out for several months, but several volunteers are serving for a year or more!
A Look Back One of the couples that we had come in contact with in 2001 were actually two single people attending Moody Bible Institute when we met them. Ben and Renee where both interested in our work and attended in 2002 a one day Bible translation course called Trans Scan at our Chicago office that we hosted. By 2003 they had graduated, gotten married and applied to Wycliffe as Bible translators! They headed off to the Wycliffe Canadian Institute of Linguistics, now called CanIL (www.canil.ca), to get linguistic and Bible translation training. Now they are serving in Nigeria and helping complete Bible translation projects there. You can see a short video Wycliffe produced about them here: www.wycliffe.org/worththesacrifice
Wycliffe Bible Translators - Ben and Renee Kuwitzky
A Look Forward There have been some challenges facing us in our work. First, there has been a change in the way that Barb is working with Interns and Volunteers. The new application process has meant a lot more work for Barb and others. Please pray that the new process will work smoothly for her and with all applicants. Secondly, many of you know we have been informed by Wycliffe that we need to raise the amount of monthly support we get by $1,450 per month. This was caused by new government guidelines and a review by Wycliffe regarding support levels needed for its missionaries. To date, we have had around $225 new monthly support pledged or around 15.5% of our additional amount needed. We are praying that the remaining $1,225 per month of new support will come in by new people and churches giving and individuals and churches already giving who increase their giving levels. As we depend solely on the gifts of God’s people, reaching this goal is an important step in us continuing our recruiting work with Wycliffe. Please pray with us that this amount will be pledged by December 31, 2016!
A Special Blessing On November 14, 2016 our son Isaac and his wife Suzanne, who serve with Wycliffe as teachers for missionary children at Black Forest Academy in Germany, celebrated the arrival of