We have sent our application in, require an interview and our transcripts to be completed. Next step, the testing. We will be required to take an mmpi2 (personality profile) and a bible knowledge test.
We're not very nervous about the testing, but it has challenged us, how much Bible knowledge do we really have? It'll be exciting to see if the test is truly about issues or about references or about tiny trivia.
Since we couldn't wait to see, we picked up a bible trivia game and have been asking each other these insane questions of the most minute detail. Some of them are so horrendously trivial it's funny. I suppose you buy trivia, expect trivial.
In my scripture reading I find that the names of people, are really hard to remember. I can remember the geography if I see a map, like I know where Susa was (king xerxes palace of esther (aka hadasseh) fame). But I can't remember the bit player's names.
In one sitting, I read about Amnon and Absalom, Sheba, Achish, Tamar, Hagar, Adonijah, Abimalech, and Abiathar. Ask me which one had their head thrown over a city wall, I won't remember. Ask me what Sheba did, and I might remember. All I know for sure is what David did, what Joshua did.
That is what fascinates me about the Bible. No matter how many times you read it, there is always something you forgot that stuns you. Something like "WOAH! .. oh yeah why did i forget that?" God's Word is so rich and full on so many levels that you can spend your life digging into it like an onion.
We were asked a question on the application, and here is a tidbit of my answer:
Write a statement explaining why you feel motivated to be involved in missions, and why you particularly desire to serve with Wycliffe Bible Translators.
Out of all the questions in this application this one is the best, because it’s the one I have had to struggle with the most. I was expecting the question “how do you know you are called to serve God?” I have my answer for that one. But missions, I believe everyone is called to missions, in the respect that we are to spread God’s Word to all people. When you ask most people what missions is to them, they think it means leaving their home and going to another country, but to me missions is everywhere I am. It is talking to my neighbors, it is volunteering to pass out turkeys in downtown San Jose, it is spreading the Gospel on the street corner, it is walking through October fest sharing the Gospel to people with time on their hands. When I say I’ve never felt called to missions what I truly mean is that I’ve never particularly felt the desire to go to another geographical place, solely for the sake of going. I believe we are all called to missions as believers, but we’re not all called to go to a new culture and geographical area. For that reason I don’t differentiate the call on my heart to go to Papua New Guinea from the call to go downtown and feed the homeless. I’m specifically being guided to do I.T. work in PNG. The second part of the question is where God has been working in my heart the most. Why Wycliffe? I watched the video of a Bible dedication ceremony on the island of TubeTube. This was a ceremony we were supposed to attend but a scheduling conflict made us miss it by one month. As I watched it, my heart was grabbed, and squeezed, and I felt a rush of eternal significance in what was happening. I had never taken the time to really value what it meant to have the Bible in your own language. I had taken for granted my own Bible. Tears streamed down my cheeks, which is a very rare occasion, and I saw a people praising God with all their might for this wonderful Bible they’d been working to finish. I saw the tears on the missionaries we support as they realized the fruition of their efforts. Wycliffe is the logical choice of organization because we respect your goals, your theology and your structure, and you are key to getting into Papua New Guinea. I wanted to answer this question honestly and say that there wasn’t so much a call to Wycliffe as there was simply making a logical choice. But I thought about this question for the past week, and I remembered that moment nearly a year ago when I saw the TubeTube people singing, and giving speeches, and I can’t forget that, ever. I can not fathom not serving God in this way now. I go into work today, and I feel like my efforts, all the stress and the politics and the difficulty I struggle to overcome, but for what? No eternal purpose. If I could work towards a goal, as precious as putting God’s Word into the hands of someone who has never read John 3:16 in their heart language, who had never read Psalm 84 in their heart language, who has never fully grasped the wonder of God speaking right to your heart through pages in your own words, the reality of combining our ministry with Wycliffe is starting to be overwhelming for me, as I am not sure I am deserving of such an honor. I see Wycliffe as being something huge, of eternal importance, that affect large people groups if not nations, and I see myself as a little helper in that process to fill a need somewhere. A need that God could put anyone in, but for some reason He chose me, and I’m willing to go, and I’m excited about the chance to spend my life doing something worthy.
