In Brazil, a vision takes hold

Participants in the 2022 LTMG course offered at Seminário Teológico Batista do Sul do Brasil (Southern Baptist Theological Seminary of Brazil) in Rio de Janeiro. Photo: Staff of STBSB

In Presbyterian seminaries and among a Deaf translation team, a course ignites a shared passion

At first, Marcos Agripino thought he might have received the invitation by mistake. A meeting in Thailand? To talk about Bible translation? And the church?

Marcos serves in Brazil as Director of APMT, Agência Presbiteriana de Missões Transculturais (Presbyterian Agency for Transcultural Mission). Still, he wondered what he or his denomination would have to offer professional Bible translators.

‘I’m not a Bible translator. I’m not a consultant. I am simply the director of a missionary organisation,’ he said. Yet, he felt God nudging him to attend.

The 2018 event was a Wycliffe Global Alliance consultation on the church. It brought together Alliance organisations and church leaders to reflect on their complementary roles in mission and Bible translation. The reflections on the Scriptural foundations for missiology and the role of the church in Bible translation proved transformative for Marcos. He was surprised to discover how much the church is responsible for taking leadership roles in missions—and specifically in Bible translation. He also realised that the church needs to be taught how to participate and engage in that mission.

For Marcos, that consultation was the beginning of a whole new way of thinking about missions. In the six-plus years since then, he and other leaders have shared across their country the vision for Bible translation and the church.

The week-long version of the Alliance course Language and Translation in the Mission of God (LTMG) has been offered in Brazil four times – for ALEM in Brasilia, at a Baptist seminary in Rio de Janeiro, for three organisations involved in Brazilian Sign Language (LIBRAS) translation, and taught by (and for) indigenous leaders. For church denominational leaders in Brazil, it was a new and fresh way of thinking about Bible translation and how it fits within God’s mission for the world. 

Marcos attended the LTMG course at ALEM in 2021 and an idea struck him. He soon would ask Bryan and Doug to help develop a one-day version for his denomination’s seminaries in Brazil. Marcos and others now help teach that version of the course at the 12 Presbyterian seminaries. 

‘I thought “how can I impact our denomination in Brazil?”’ he said. ‘Go to the epicentres of the denominational seminaries where leaders are trained. … And from there will come the future leaders of our denomination. And in these 12 seminaries, our approach is to awaken these future leaders to [the purpose and importance of] Bible translation.’ 

Today, Marcos challenges not only church leaders, but longtime leaders in Bible translation organisations, too.

‘The church is a visible structure of God’s mission on earth’, Marcos told the audience at the Alliance’s Global Gathering 2024 in South Africa. ‘And it has the task of announcing his glory in the languages of every human being.

‘The mission agencies that are active in Bible translation need to come home, come back to the church. If you want God’s mission to expand to all corners of the earth, take the church with you.’

An engaging lecture at the 2023 Brazilian Sign Language (LIBRAS) LTMG course in Brasilia. Photo: Luis Daniel Infante

A deeper vision brings unity

The LTMG course was offered for Deaf translation teams in LIBRAS, Brazilian Sign Language, in 2023. 

Not only was the course itself impactful, but workers from three separate LIBRAS Bible translation projects converged at that training. Suddenly all three teams were digging into Scripture together and becoming united through a common vision and a deeper understanding of God’s mission and the role language plays in that mission. 

Bob Van Zyl is a hearing translation consultant who serves Deaf teams throughout the Americas. He saw God do some amazing things during and after that course in 2023. 

‘I think the beauty of it was just going through Scripture’ Bob said, ‘starting with creation, and seeing the wonder and power of creation, and then seeing how God created language, … and seeing different facets of how God’s vision for reaching the whole world was through language, and also that it was through his creativity in each culture.’

‘It’s a presentation of how God’s vision and mission began’, he said, ‘and how it developed and how beautifully it included language and culture in a way that allows each of us in our different cultural contexts to praise him and to demonstrate his creativity as we study his Word, as we apply his Word, and also very much as we translate his Word. And I just think it helped the Deaf to understand better the mission that God has given them as Bible translators.’ 

The discussions in the small groups were so lively that they wanted more time. Deaf people do not generally have access to sign-language resources on Biblical theology or Bible study. In this workshop, they got a tour of the whole plan and panorama of Scripture. 

‘They could see – we all could see,’ Bob said, ‘something of what God was thinking when he started creating the world and how that would relate to languages and cultures and how they would glorify him. It’s a very beautiful thing.’

From the heart of God

The course also had a deep personal impact. 

‘I have heard for years, “mission of God, mission of God”,’ Bob said. ‘I was not prepared for how beautiful it was. And I had heard different presentations in different settings, but they just didn’t resonate with me.’

This time was different. 

‘This was so beautiful. It just flowed. And the people who presented it just lived it in their presentations in ways that really inspired people to think about it and to recognise—wow, it’s a real privilege what God gave us in language and culture, and that it makes many, many more ways that he can be praised. And that’s what is so beautiful.’

Even for Bob, who has worked in Bible translation for nearly 47 years, the course offered new inspiration to see his work from a different angle.

‘We look at the need, and we can say these people have a right to have access to the Word and it can change their lives’, he said. ‘There’s always been a way to talk about it. But we haven’t talked about it from God’s heart and God’s vision, in the same way that it was done in this course.’

‘It’s one of the best courses I’ve ever been in. And my dream is that someday we can teach it to all of the Deaf translation teams in the Americas.’ 

Story: Gwen Davies and Jim Killam, Wycliffe Global Alliance

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