About a month into our new life in
Lomalinda, I was only beginning to get acquainted with her people. I was
clueless about the deep, enduring blessings God would give me through my new
neighbors and colleagues.
In
the coming months and years, God would use them to help me take baby steps
toward walking by faith, not by sight. They would shape who I was to become and
change me forever.
I
would witness that these ordinary people trusted God—in very practical,
specific, real-life ways. They demonstrated faith in action while, among many
other things, they endured ongoing hostility from Marxist guerrillas.
Let
me tell you how that hostility began.
In 1948, the
assassination of a Colombian presidential candidate triggered an era known as La Violencia (The Violence), twelve years
of mass murders, mobs, rioting, destruction, fires, and political conflicts
between Liberals and Conservatives.
Participating
in that unrest was a young Cuban student, Fidel Castro, at the National
University of Bogotá. (Yes, Cuba’s leader, the Fidel Castro you’ve heard about for
decades.)
After
returning to Cuba, he and his brother, Raul, recognized La Violencia left
Colombia ripe for a revolution like Cuba’s and began preaching Marxist/Leninist
principles among Colombians.
Keen on violence and everything
anti-American, Castro circulated propaganda, brought Colombian guerrillas to
Cuba, trained them, offered aid and weapons, and sent them home to carry out
their revolution.
La Violencia
was also a time of hostility against evangélicos (Protestant
Christians) and Roman Catholics, especially pastors and priests, some of
whom were martyred for their faith. Churches were destroyed and burned. In
addition, for years Roman Catholics had prevented most Protestant mission
agencies from entering the country.
Given that, what
Cameron Townsend dreamed up in 1956, eight years into La Violencia, seems
absurd.
Founder of Wycliffe Bible Translators (which was to become the world’s foremost Bible translation
organization) and SIL International (a scientific as well as
faith-based organization) Cameron Townsend (Uncle Cam) came up with a wild idea—he
wanted to start Bible translation work in Colombia.
Bible translation
and more. Because the Bible tells us, many times, to care about people’s
all-around well-being, Uncle Cam cared, too. In other Latin American countries,
his mission agency had addressed spiritual, physical, and educational needs of
minority groups and he wanted to do the same in Colombia.
To many
people, that made no sense, given the hostility toward both Americans and Protestant
Christians at the time, but plucky Uncle Cam stepped up, proving the words of
what became known as Wycliffe’s theme song: “faith . . . laughs at
impossibilities and shouts ‘It shall be done!’” (Apparently, that was his version of Charles Wesley’s “Faith, Mighty Faith.”)
He pressed on,
just like in the past when he’d faced obstacles in other countries where he
wanted to begin new work.
For years, he
persisted, and he prayed, and as a result—surely this was God’s doing—in
Guatemala, Uncle Cam met Colombia’s new Director of Indigenous Affairs and told
him stories of the ways his colleagues helped native groups in other nations.
God answered many prayers when the official asked, “How can I get you people to
come to Colombia?”
Uncle Cam
answered, “If we can have a contract with the government that will allow us to
help the people physically, educationally, and
spiritually by translating the Bible, we will come.”
With a signed
contract in 1962, Bible translation began in Colombia (from Chapter 14, Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir).
How is it
possible that mere humans can
“laugh at impossibilities and cry ‘It shall be done!’”
—and then the
impossible happens?
How is it that
people pray
and God
answers the way they want him to—
the way they tell
him to?
When Jesus
said,
“You can ask
me for anything in my name,
and I will do
it,”
did he mean we
are the boss of him?
(See John
14:13-14.)
Let’s read the
whole passage. Jesus said, “And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that
the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name
and I will do it.”
The people at Got Questions urge this caution: “Some misapply this verse, thinking that saying
‘In Jesus’ name’ at the end of a prayer results in God always granting what we
asked for. This is . . . treating the words ‘in Jesus’ name’ as a magic
formula. This is absolutely unbiblical.”
They continue,
“Praying in Jesus’ name means . . . praying according to the will of God. ‘This
is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according
to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we
know that we have what we asked of him (1 John 5:14-15).
“. . . Praying
for things that are in agreement with God’s will is the essence of praying in
Jesus’ name” (from “What does it mean to pray in Jesus’ name?).
The desires of
our hearts and prayers need to be in accord with a very important phrase within
Jesus’ words: “that God the Father would be glorified” (John 14:13-14).
To glorify God
means
to recognize His
holiness and greatness,
it means to give
Him honor.
It means to acknowledge
His authority in our lives.
It means to
desire what He desires.
So, let’s get
back to Uncle Cam. For six years, he prayed, he persisted, he laughed at
impossibilities and shouted, “It shall be done!” and lo and behold, God opened wide
the doors for Wycliffe Bible Translators to begin work in Colombia.
The takeaway
for you and me is this:
Uncle Cam prayed
according to God’s will.
He prayed for
what would glorify God.
Uncle Cam’s
heart wanted what God’s heart wanted.
And God was
pleased to answer.
It was all so
good.
Ah, but carrying
out Bible translation in Colombia didn’t turn out to be a breeze.
Oh, no, it
wasn’t.
Come back next
week. I have so much more to tell you!
