Recruitment Ministries is a department in Wycliffe Bible Translators, USA that works with people who are expressing an interest in in serving with Wycliffe. Each year this department meets about 7000 people in the USA who express such interest. A ministry staff is needed to work with these people to see if they are quailified to work with Wycliffe and to help process them into membership if they are.
Chuck began his work as Vice President of Recruitment Ministries for Wycliffe Bible Translators, USA on March 1, 2005. Chuck suprvises a staff of over 140 mission recruiters spread throughout the U.S.A. from Alaska to Maine and Minnesota to Texas. Barb works in Chuck's department and her role is to plan short term trips for young people.
The job as a mission recruiter is to inform, inspire and involve people in the task of Bible translation ministry. This involves talking to and visiting with interested individuals and church leaders and helping them discover the place God has for them in this work. It also means helping people see that our main task is to Glorify God and the task of the church is to "declare God's glory to the nations" Psalm 96:3.
Matthew 9: 37, 38 reminds us that we are to pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into the fields. Therefore, people pray and God sends. Recruiters then work with these people by building relationships and assisting people in their application with Wycliffe.
To accomplish our work, recruiters do a lot of traveling and representing Wycliffe at college and church mission conferences. Here is an example of a typical event we did in 2003 on a college campus: (this one is from Dordt College's - Iowa - annual "Hug-A-Linguist" days)
Recruiters also hold regional recruitment workshops such as Explore Wycliffe and Total It Ups for interested individuals to check out our work. Here are some programs Chuck's department oversees:
In addition to overseeing the recruitment work for Wycliffe in the Chicago area, which we had been doing for the past four and one half years (something we have done as husband and wife), Chuck now has responsiblity for dozens of regional recruitment programs working out of six regional offices. Now Chuck will be responsible for all the work going on in the USA:
As people respond to the challenge of Bible translation we help people and churches think through the steps of involvement. This often involves a lot of discipleship and lay counseling work in addition to career academic and technical training advising. We often have felt like college guidance counselors!
Recruitment often involves working with individuals over a two to three year period to not only help them prepare spiritually and physically, but also to act as an encourager to them as they go through the process of building a team of financial and prayer supporters. On average, it takes 18 months for a translator or support person to go from the application stage to the field stage. The applicant’s home church is a key player in all of this.
We have discovered that as the Lord directs us to people and churches that building relationships is extremely important. That of course takes time to develop, especially in terms of trust building.
That is why we are so thankful to those who are standing with us as partners in our work over these past 24 years we have served with Wycliffe
