Wycliffe Canada's External Engagement Departments Retreat was held January 27-30 at Entheos (=in God) retreat center near Calgary. We are grateful for a great retreat and team meeting time of prayer, Word sharing, ministry sharing, and practical discussions on essential agendas to collaborate across departments. Here is a summary of the practical highlights of the retreat
1. Spirituality Retreat
The Tabernacle Prayer:
Wycliffe Canada Chaplain and Associate Director of Prayer, Valerie, led us in a time of prayer and sharing based on Scripture with a liturgy prayer patterned after the Tabernacle. It begins at the entrance to the Tabernacle, moves through the sea of brass and brazen altar into the Holy Place, and ends in the Holy of Holies, helping us to enter deeply into God's presence and grace. Each step is given a brief explanation and corresponding Scripture, and we share and pray together. (Some resources have simple prayers for each step if you search for them.) It's a reminder of the need to live a life that is purified and consecrated to a God who is present among us every day, loves to be with us, and loves to give us grace.
For the final day's devotional, Sister Ruth, a story writer for Bible translation missions, took Psalm 96 and shared it with us. It ended with the praise of David as he brought the ark of the law into the center of his city, and seemed to pair with the prayer of the tabernacle: David bringing God into the center of his dwelling place, calling all the nations to join him in getting all the heavens and the universe together to sing praises worthy of their Lord (Psalm 96:3), a reminder of the importance of the work of Bible translation, and how the life stories of local workers in the field bless us.
The second day's devotional was served as the Wycliffe Canada's weekly chapel, where we joined all the other staff members via Zoom. Led by Missionary Burt, we discussed fasting and prayer. We were reminded that in the biblical tradition, it is essential to recover the spirituality of true prayer, seeking to listen and obey God's will, not to get ahead of God in mission, but to follow the leading of His Holy Spirit (especially the example of the church in Antioch in Acts 13:1-4). Jessica, a bilingual Quebec native who grew up in faith with missionary/pastoral parents and works in development, also shared deeply about God's invisible hand and guidance at work in our midst, and we were able to bless one another.
In his sharing on the direction of the ministry, Rev. Jon Imbeau, President of Wycliffe Canada, shared about the need for the ministry to be led by the Holy Spirit and to develop and strengthen church partnerships, among other priorities. He emphasized the need to maintain the spiritual dynamism of the workers and the need for perseverance and abundant ministry and life.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
2. ministry meetings
The ministry meeting had two main focuses: first, to share ministries between departments to better understand each other and identify areas of cooperation.
- The Mobilization Department shared information about their recruiting efforts for Wycliffe Canada's Focus Projects and the mobilization and supply of manpower in response to requests from mission fields that require a lot of manpower. It provided a good time to introduce new concepts through interesting case analysis and games.
- The external communications department encouraged us to find a unified message across departments through the results of a survey that shared our challenges and concerns to help our stakeholders understand Wycliffe's ministries in Bible translation better and become our partners.
- The Intensive Support Bible Translation Project Management department shared especially well the importance and need for Field Partners Liaisons, who serve as liaisons between each local project. We pray that more workers will commit to this vital work of selecting meaningful projects, ensuring that the work of Bible translation is sustained in each project and that the work undergoing in the field is communicated to financial and prayer partners/churches.
- The Development Department (Fundraising) shared their gratitude for how God continues to send partners (donors) generously, as well as what it means to do relationship-centered fundraising well and how to listen to the God-given heart (interests) of donors and help them commit.
- As a small Wycliffe within Wycliffe Canada, the Diaspora Relations department shared how all of the ministries mentioned above are being carried out in Korean and Chinese dynamically, albeit on a smaller scale. It was the first time we had had the opportunity to listen and share like this. It was a blessing to have so many team members from other departments there to empathize, encourage, and pray with us, especially for rebuilding the Chinese Relations team.
The second focus of the meeting was to focus on several areas of synergy through cross-departmental cooperation and to develop action plans.
- Collecting and exploring the utilization of Bible translation mission stories,
- Creating an SOP manual for planning and executing vision trips to Bible translation sites,
- Creating a unified message and using contextualization when introducing Bible translation to churches/individuals,
- Reducing partner fatigue by consolidating visits to priority project areas,
We discussed and submitted specific action items and plans, the task force team's composition, and the deliverables timeline.
3. Diaspora Team Story
We were grateful that the sharing of the ministries of the different departments was able to motivate the other departments to understand and actively cooperate with us! Many of the other departments were surprised to learn about the work of the volunteers and prayer team, some of whom have been serving for more than a decade, and asked us how we do it. This made us even more grateful for the continued cooperation and glorified God for leading us to do so.
At the Diaspora Team meeting, I was grateful that we could share and discuss certain key issues in full via Zoom with two people who could not attend. Among the things discussed,
- urgent need for young mobilizers and
- urgent need to engage the younger generation,
- the need for more engagement with youth workers and increased collaboration with Missionary Randall in connecting with the second generation.
With your prayers and partnership, by God's grace, we are thankful to have come this far and would appreciate your prayers for specific actions and prayer items!
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