Streams of Prayer for 20 January 2025
The Streams of Prayer for 20 January 2025, is a circular from Wycliffe Global Alliance. Wycliffe Caribbean makes this available.
January 19, 2025 – January 25, 2025
Community and Friendship
Our current theme for Streams of Prayer is Community and Friendship. “Community is the basis for the existence of the Alliance. …We affirm each other for who we are and not for what we contribute or for the quantity of the contribution. Our primary goal is to glorify God together.” (From The Wycliffe Global Alliance in Community.)
“Collaboration can be ‘doing together’ or ‘being together’ and also both,” says Dr Paul Kimbi, Alliance Consultant for Bible Translation Programmes. “Being precedes doing. It is necessary to spend time building friendship, building togetherness, on the basis of our values before we start doing things together. We should not ever be in a rush to start doing things together when we have not built trustworthy relationships. God calls us primarily to be a community of his people before he expects us to live out our call.”
Although each Alliance organisation has its own leadership, board and staff, all of us seek to work interdependently and we value the Alliance community for friendship, partnership, spiritual encouragement and other practical forms of mutual support.
Sean Mooney, board chair of Wycliffe South Africa, shares a joyful moment with Wong Fook Meng,
a board member of the Wycliffe Global Alliance, at the Global Gathering in Johannesburg, South Africa (2024). Photo: Daisy Kilel
A boon to mission success: Burkina Faso
Praise God that the Association Nationale pour la Traduction de la Bible et l’Alphabétisation (ANTBA) sees its Alliance membership as important to the success of its mission within linguistic communities by weaving a network of internal and external friendships. While working to be present at Alliance events, ANTBA also works to nurture relationships with technical and financial partners both locally and abroad. Locally, relationships are established with the leaders of linguistic communities, partner organisations and resource people. Thank God for this national and global network, which leads to better collaboration and better results for new Bible translation initiatives in Burkina Faso, including sign language translation.
Praise for connections made at Global Gathering: Israel, Global
Jerusalem Seminary staff remind us all to praise God for, and pray for, connections made at the Global Gathering. “All of us who attended the Global Gathering, we believe, deeply appreciated the personal connections, renewed relationships and new friendships we experienced during our time. Now that we are all back in our own contexts, countries and responsibilities, how do we continue to nurture those friendships (often over a large physical or time zone distance) for God’s glory?”
- Pray for all participants and participating organisations to find ways to nurture and continue new and renewed friendships across distances.
- Pray that God will continue to build a strong community within the Alliance and around the globe as we serve with many others in Bible translation movements.
Gospel Day and dedication of the Puka Yā: Cook Islands, Pacific
Praise the Lord for the launching of the Puka Yā (New Testament and Psalms) on the Pukapuka Gospel Day on 6 December. Celebrations spread across the “Pukapuka world”, from wale (home) to the scattered communities in the Cook Islands, Australia and New Zealand. Thank the Lord for enabling the Pukapuka translation team to bring the Scriptures to the Pukapuka people in their heart language. Pray that the Pukapuka people will engage with the Scriptures with great joy.
Partnership in Bible translation: Papua New Guinea, Japan, Korea
The Meramera and Uare language communities in Papua New Guinea received their New Testaments last year in April and September. Praise the Lord for the combined efforts of personnel from Wycliffe Japan and Global Bible Translators in Korea with these language communities to achieve this milestone. Thank the Lord for good relationships and partnership among all involved. Ask the Lord to bless these language communities as they engage with the Scriptures, and that God will bring about revival in their midst.
Community of exegetes and consultants: Paraguay
God has blessed a group of exegetes and consultants of LETRA Paraguay. Forty volunteers – among them homemakers, pastors, seminary professors, seminarians, experts in Greek and Hebrew, and missionaries – have formed a community dedicated to carrying out with excellence the task of exegesis (interpretation of Scripture), an invaluable contribution to the revision and approval of Bible translations. Thank God LETRA Paraguay has seen the fruits of this effort and now has three certified consultants and four more in training. These 40 exegetes support translation projects among linguistic communities in Paraguay, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela and Peru. Pray for these volunteers, that they may be strengthened and guided by God in friendship and at every stage of their work. May their exegetical interpretations faithfully reflect the original message of the Scriptures, assisting translation teams to adapt their translations in a natural way to their languages. Pray that the translated Word will transform lives, restore hearts and strengthen bonds of friendship while bringing glory to God.
Literacy partnership with church: Papua New Guinea
In September, several leaders of the Papua New Guinea Bible Translation Association (PNGBTA) attended the Highlands Foursquare pastors’ conference. The team made a presentation about Bible translation and language work and showcased literacy programmes and products for early childhood learning. Mara Iyama, PNGBTA’s literacy coordinator and area programme manager for the Highlands, had a follow-up meeting with the church’s education secretary on 25 October. The Foursquare Church of Papua New Guinea is now recognised as an official education agency. In the meeting, the secretary asked for PNGBTA to draft a memorandum of understanding between the two organisations to begin a partnership to roll out literacy programmes. Pray for this new relationship and ask the Lord to bless these endeavours in literacy through this church education agency.
Appreciation Day: Malaysia
Since 2023, Wycliffe Malaysia has set an Appreciation Day to thank partners, friends and supporters for their part in Bible translation ministry. This year’s Appreciation Day was observed on 21 September. Praise the Lord for a good turnout of supporters and friends and good weather for the gathering. Praise God also for fruitful relationships established and affirmed on this day. Pray for Wycliffe Malaysia staff as they seek to plan creative activities like this to build friendship and community with their partners.
Streams of Prayer is the prayer bulletin of the Wycliffe Global Alliance.
Copyright © 2024 Wycliffe Global Alliance, All rights reserved
Valrie McCarthy
Language Development Officer
Wycliffe Caribbean
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Kingston 5
JAMAICA, W. I.
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