Artist’s Vision: At His Table

“At a long wooden table in a small Peruvian restaurant, I glimpsed the kingdom of God.” That one experience shaped and inspired artist Monica Stauffer’s vision for the table.

A Place at the Table

A 7-day devotional

A wash basin. Communion elements. A fishing net. They're part of a centerpiece for a very special gathering. In this devotional, see how each unique piece of decor symbolizes a way you’re invited to participate in the kingdom of heaven here on earth.

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Meet the Dinner Party

As you find your place at the table, you will meet many interesting people. Here are a few whose lives have been changed by Scripture and are inviting others into God’s kingdom.

Selmira

from the Americas

Olavi and Marja

from Europe

Elvis

from Africa

Pastor Peter

from the Pacific

Misriani

from Asia

Selmira was just a young teen when she married. Most Napo girls marry even younger, but she asked to wait until after she finished primary school. In the course of Selmira’s marriage, she and her husband have buried 11 children and suffered four miscarriages. Once, when her 9-year-old boy died from a snakebite, she was so traumatized that she ran away.

GOD SPOKE TO SELMIRA

Selmira believes that before she ever gave her life to Christ, God spoke to her in dreams. She dreamed there was a large tree laid across a river as a bridge, and she was trying to cross it. She was wobbling dangerously when a man appeared wearing a bright white robe. He handed her a Bible, and when she nearly fell, he took her right hand and led her across the river to safety.

Shortly after that she had another dream in which she was climbing a tall ladder to heaven. When she reached heaven, it was completely silent and there were many houses, but they were all empty. A man appeared and asked her, “Why did you come here? You have to go take care of your children and serve God's Son."

After those dreams, Selmira started searching for a Bible she could understand.

She heard about a workshop on sharing Bible stories in oral cultures like hers. There she met a Wycliffe translator named Christa. Selmira invited Christa and her ministry partner, Maritsa, to her village to help her learn more Bible stories. The more she learned about Scripture, the less she drank and the more she felt love and compassion for the people around her.

Since Selmira joined the Napo Quechua translation project with Christa, Maritsa and the other translators, she’s connected with Christians who’ve become part of her new life.

As a translator, Selmira has excelled quickly, even though it’s hard work. “It’s wearing out my brain,” she said with a smile. Her peers look to her for guidance when studying Bible stories because they trust her judgment and understanding. She’s one of the only translators who have never missed a workshop in the past four years.

NEW LIFE IN GOD'S WORD

When Selmira’s not translating, she loves to cook and read to her grandkids. And she loves to sing about Jesus. Her favorite song is called “Jesus is Powerful.” It’s about how Jesus heals the sick and gives new life. “Only Jesus can do this,” she said.

When she learned the story of Abraham and how he desired children, she remembered God’s promise to provide descendants as numerous as the stars. She often thinks of the 11 children she buried. But today she has 11 grandchildren to teach about God’s promises.

“Abraham followed God’s calling,” she said. “People ask why I go to workshops and follow these sisters. I tell them it’s God’s calling, and I’m following.”

Editor’s Note: This is a condensed version of a longer story, “Meet Selmira.”

Born and raised in Finland, Olavi Vitikainen was studying math and physics in the 1960s when God turned his attention toward Bible translation. It started when Olavi first read stories about Wycliffe Bible Translators and about missionaries like Jim and Elisabeth Elliot. Olavi was struck by these people of faith.

After graduation Olavi pursued Bible school and linguistics courses. He chose an English-speaking Bible school in Switzerland, where he personally experienced the challenge of understanding God’s Word in another language. Then he moved to Britain for linguistics training. During his last summer there, he met Marja. “That was a big event in my life,” he said.

One evening they went for coffee together. “At that coffee table, I suddenly realized, ‘This is the woman I’ve been looking for,’” Olavi said. He proposed to her right then!

But Olavi wondered if Marja would be willing to move with him to South Asia to do Bible translation. “I didn’t even know exactly where [this place] was, but I had already promised God, ‘If you want to send me, go ahead,’” Marja said. “I was ready to go anywhere.”

LED TO SOUTH ASIA

Olavi had been collecting linguistic data from language groups in South Asia with a fellow linguist. When they made it to the most remote language group of their trek, Olavi knew that God was calling him to these people.

In December 1972, Marja finished her linguistics courses and joined Olavi. After they were married, they set out on their first trek through South Asia together. The trip took eight days one way. But when the couple reached the remote village Olavi had seen, Marja was struck by its beauty.

The village recommended one man, Jomi*, as Olavi and Marja’s language teacher. Despite having no formal education, Jomi had learned to read and write the trade language.

“We felt the Lord had chosen [Jomi] and provided us the right kind of help,” Olavi said.

CHALLENGES AND BLESSINGS

Though Olavi and Marja lived in a city and traveled to the village as often as they could, it became increasingly difficult to spend time there.

“We hadn’t done any translation yet. We’d felt at the time that this is the place the Lord wanted us to be, but nevertheless the obstacles were so formidable,” Olavi said. He hiked to a nearby hill to photograph the village. There he found a spot with a perfect view of several villages on the mountainside.

“The Lord said, ‘Raise your hands and bless these villages,’” Olavi recalled. That day God told him the translation would succeed and would be an example for others. Olavi couldn’t see how it would be possible, but he trusted God.

Jomi agreed to commute to the city to do translation with Olavi and Marja. While they were translating the book of Mark, Jomi began to understand more about God. One night, alone in his room, Jomi accepted Jesus as Lord.

“That’s the way it all started,” Olavi said. “Next time he returned to his village, he was willing to share that.” Soon there was a small nucleus of Christians in his people group, and the first church in that community was born.

* Name changed.

Elvis was once an atheist, an eager student of humanistic philosophy, and firmly set against Christian faith.

“When my wife would return home from prayer meetings, I would mock her, asking her a series of philosophical questions,” he remembered. “I aimed to persuade her that God didn’t exist and that her faith was useless.”

His barbs would often make her cry, but she was never dissuaded from praying for him.

Elvis completed his studies and training as a teacher, but his future academic plans were blocked by a lack of finances. This roadblock became a turning point in his life — an answer to his wife’s prayers.

Elvis decided to look for opportunities to use his skills to benefit the local community. He even approached the pastor of a local church and offered to start literacy classes for the large number of people in the church who could not read or write.

The pastor encouraged him to instead enroll in a translation training course under the direction of Christians with experience in translation. It was being offered to members of the community so that they could begin to translate the Bible into Gbeya — Elvis’ language — which is spoken by more than 200,000 people in the Bossangoa region of Central African Republic.

“I had no idea at the time that this was God’s plan for me,” Elvis said.

At first Elvis saw translation as just a challenging intellectual exercise. But as he sought the meaning of each passage of Scripture, and grappled with the best way to express it in Gbeya, he began to discover the God of the Bible.

“As I became immersed in the Word of God, I began to understand the incredible love and grace which he freely gives each one of us,” Elvis recalled. “I couldn’t even imagine why God would want a relationship with me. My deep intimacy with God is one of the most amazing things I take from this ministry.”

Soon Elvis went from being one of the translators on the Gbeya translation team to being the coordinator for translation and literacy projects in the whole Bossangoa region.

“Ever since I accepted Jesus as my Savior,” he said, “my entire life has been such an adventure in faith.”

It’s now been over a decade since Elvis first got involved in Bible translation, and today he’s the national director for ACATBA, an organization that promotes Bible translation, literacy and local language development in the Central African Republic.

Editor’s Note: This story was first published as “Transformed While Translating.”

Pastor Peter Marokiki has been working on a Bible translation in his own Arop language for more than 25 years. In that time he’s encountered difficulties, including a devastating natural disaster that took the lives of many friends and family.

Some people would have given up by now, but not Pastor Peter. He did just the opposite — offering to take on more work by expanding the translation project to include neighboring languages.

Pastor Peter first learned about the work of Bible translation in 1985 when he met Steve Whitacre who had come to Arop village to help start a translation project. Four years later, John Nystrom replaced Steve, and that’s when Pastor Peter and three other Arop men began working on the translation together.

They worked tirelessly for the next ten years, making progress toward a translation of the New Testament in Arop.

DISASTER

On the evening of July 17, 1998, a large offshore earthquake triggered a massive tsunami with waves over 30 feet tall. The waves smothered Pastor Peter’s coastal neighborhood, which sat on a narrow spit of land between the ocean and a large lagoon. More than 840 people from his village were killed and a total of more than 2,000 casualties were reported along the entire coastline, including people from nearby villages.

During the tsunami, one translation team member drowned. With so many casualties in the community, the future of the translation seemed uncertain.

AN IDEA

After the tsunami, Pastor Peter visited the medical care center where crowds of people were being treated for all sorts of wounds.

While he was there, Pastor Peter compared experiences with people from the other villages along the coast. Since they came from different language communities, they spoke in Tok Pisin — the trade language of Papua New Guinea — and this got Pastor Peter thinking.

Everyone there had the Bible in Tok Pisin, but few people understood it as well as their own language, especially if they hadn’t been able to go to school. Pastor Peter knew how much Arop needed its own Bible, but what about these other languages? Was there a way to somehow expand the project to include them too?

EXPANSION

The people moved inland, and they slowly began to rebuild their lives and homes. As things settled down, Pastor Peter and the other remaining translation team members examined the situation and considered the question: Would it be possible to share their resources with other communities around them so that all of them could have a Bible translation in their own language? Tackling several languages at once would slow down their progress on the Arop translation. Were they willing to make that sacrifice?

THE DECISION

The translators decided that delaying their own translation was worth it if it meant they could help their neighbors get the Bible years — maybe even generations — sooner than if they had to wait on additional help from outside the country.

As a result, a total of 11 language communities are part of the Aitape West Translation Project, each benefitting from the experience of translators like Pastor Peter. Together they look forward to the day when people from each of their communities will be able to understand all of God’s Word in their own language.

Editor’s Note: This is a condensed version of Pastor Peter’s story.

Misriani Balle was born into the Helong language community on a small island called Semau in eastern Indonesia. From the time she was very young, Mis had a passion for learning.

Although opportunities for education on Mis’ island were sparse, she was able to attend elementary school by walking several miles each day. Then, when she entered middle school, the walking distance nearly doubled, and the other children from her village dropped out. But Mis’ father offered to walk with her each day after that since she was afraid to go alone.

When she finished middle school, Mis’ parents were able to scrape together enough money to send her to high school on a larger island where she lived with her uncle’s family. There God provided even more unique opportunities for Mis.

At that time, the high school had just purchased its first computer. Out of 700 students, only Mis and one classmate were chosen to learn how to use it — a skill that would prove critical to God’s plans for Mis.

A SHOCKING QUESTION

Although a Bible translation wasn’t available in Helong when Mis was a child, the Indonesian Bible was an important part of her family. So when a Bible translator began work on a translation of the New Testament into Helong, Mis’ parents were thrilled.

As the work progressed, Helong speakers in various churches on Semau Island helped check the translation drafts to make sure they communicated clearly and accurately. When Mis’ parent’s church hosted one of these community checks, they asked Mis to come home and help. Although reluctant to take time off work, she agreed.

Mis’ role was to serve food to those working on the translation. But one day, they asked her opinion about a passage, and she responded with a good suggestion. Realizing that Mis had great potential, the translator later sat down with Mis and her parents and offered for Mis to get more schooling if she came to work on the project.

At first Mis responded with a firm no.

How could she step away from her career to go work with someone she had just met doing a job she knew almost nothing about? But to her surprise nearly everyone in her family and church told Mis she should take the opportunity. Not only would Mis get to pursue a college education, but she would be able to help them get the Scriptures in Helong.

Finally, when the translator’s last morning on the island arrived, he approached Mis once again and asked, “Why don’t you go and ask God what he says?”

THE BIG DECISION

Still skeptical, Mis went to her room to pray while everyone waited in the living room. As she prayed, questions and doubts swirled in her head but no clear answer came. Finally, Mis’ sister poked her head into the bedroom and asked, “What did God say?”

Mis replied, “God said … God didn’t say anything!” Stepping out of the bedroom, Mis heard herself saying yes to the Bible translator’s offer, despite her hesitation.

Mis had to give up the security of her career to follow God’s plan for her life. But now nothing is more important to her than having the Bible in the Helong language. And God has continued to abundantly provide for Mis throughout her journey.

Editor’s Note: This is a condensed version of a longer story, “Are You Open to Bigger Blessings?”

At a long wooden table in a small Peruvian restaurant, I glimpsed the kingdom of God.

In the summer of 2017, I was in Peru on my first missions trip. I didn’t know why I had agreed to come. I was not a great speaker, knew only a small amount of Spanish and my faith had just begun to transition into an actual relationship with my Savior. Yet I went into the trip with open hands and wide eyes, expecting the Lord to somehow use a 23-year old artist.

With nine Americans and 12 Peruvians at the table, our conversations over meals were mostly an ongoing game of charades, arms gesturing wildly with forks or food in hand.

Yet there seemed to always be an endless flow of conversation and laughter. Although there were only three translators present, we somehow managed to discuss sports, trade jokes and gush about the upcoming wedding of one of our Peruvian friends.

Each one of us had a place at that table and on that trip. At the table, our language barrier became obsolete. We were unified by our love for Jesus and his people. My inability to speak powerfully or pray eloquently didn’t prevent me from having a seat, and the woman next to me didn’t earn her seat because she was called to be a missionary.

We were each at the table simply because we were loved by the Father and wanted to share that love with the world.

AN OPEN INVITATION

In the same way, Jesus has welcomed us to sit at the table with him — to find our name cards and place settings, to take a seat and engage in conversation with those around us.

Everyone has a place at his table — regardless of accomplishments or failures, careers or talents, experiences or backgrounds. We may find ourselves bumping elbows with an ex-convict who only knew Jesus for a few months, or passing the salt to a theologian whose whole life was spent studying Scripture.

While all have been invited, many don’t know that yet. A host doesn’t feel joy when a guest fails to show up to his home; he asks why the other guests didn’t share the invitation or give the absent person a ride.

The Lord asks us to use our different skills and abilities to share his love — his glorious invitation — so that everyone can know him and take their seats at the table.

A month after I agreed to go to Peru, I accepted the position of a graphic designer in the Marketing department at Wycliffe Bible Translators’ Orlando headquarters. I had not felt called to missions in any capacity, but my Creator took the skills he had purposefully given me and showed me how to use them for his glory. I didn’t need to change my major or ignore the talents he gave me to have a seat at the table.

Instead, he led me to my place setting (it’s the one with the doodles on the napkin), and welcomed me into a conversation centered on love. At his table, there are thousands of languages being spoken and signed by people in communion with our Father. Plus there is unlimited freshly baked bread (John 6:35).

You’ve been invited to take your seat at the table and to welcome others to sit beside you. Maybe you’ve been called to travel to the other side of the world and proclaim God’s goodness to those who haven’t heard it yet. Or perhaps you’re waiting to see how the Lord is going to use your knack for technology to further his kingdom. Whoever you are, whatever your abilities may be, there is a place for you at his table.

Come sit with us!

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Learn More

Your Personal Invitation

You’re invited to learn more about Wycliffe and how you can join us at the table! Opportunities are available around the world and right here in the U.S.!

Tell Me More

Artist’s Vision: At His Table

A Place at the Table

Meet the Dinner Party

Selmira

Olavi and Marja

Elvis

Pastor Peter

Misriani

GOD SPOKE TO SELMIRA

NEW LIFE IN GOD'S WORD

LED TO SOUTH ASIA

CHALLENGES AND BLESSINGS

DISASTER

AN IDEA

EXPANSION

THE DECISION

A SHOCKING QUESTION

THE BIG DECISION

AN OPEN INVITATION

Welcome to the Table

Becoming Missions Minded

The Last Translator

6 Qualities of a Servant Leader

4 Reasons to Choose Wycliffe

Your Personal Invitation

Your Personal Invitation

Thanks! We’ll be in touch!