EMQ » January–March 2023 » Volume 59 Issue 1
By Jo Johnson, Sineina Gela, Ann Kuy, Nancy Duncan, Zac Manyim with Gwendolyn Davies and Jim Killam
A hand-held rope linked us as prayer participants Papua New Guinea-style in a 2017 Bangkok meeting of the Wycliffe Global Alliance (wycliffe.net). In Papua New Guinea, people like to hold hands while praying, but that can get hot and sweaty. So instead, I (Sineina) brought out a long rope for everyone in the room to hold onto as we prayed together. Holding the rope is a visual symbol of unity and togetherness in prayer. The symbolism of standing together clasping a rope, that everybody in the room can latch onto, was very powerful.
The gathering was one of many held regularly by various teams in the Alliance. With over 100 Bible translation-focused organisations spread over six continents, the Alliance has served as a learning lab in cross-cultural ministry. As prayer leaders we have learned that when we stay within the confines of our own cultures in prayer, we are the poorer for it. Just as each newly translated Bible offers expressions of God’s Word through a new lens, so each culture provides unique reflections of God through distinctive approaches to prayer.
Every culture and language express that relationship with God in different ways. We will not likely run out of learning those nuances or gaining extra understanding. We love this about prayer! There’s just so much to learn. There’s always something new, something fresh.
Small Beginnings
Prayer is a world of small beginnings and big endings that we often don’t know about, or can’t anticipate, and prayer often threads itself through the Bible translation movement in unexpected ways.
We see and recognize God’s hands in the development of programs, completion of Scriptures, launching of new initiatives and many more accomplishments. All these things come from the Lord, yet if we look at them through the lens of prayer, we see that people who are inspired by the Lord pray for other people. In turn, the inspirations are prayed for, and God brings together and guides those who make things happen. Prayer is often the invisible thread that runs through these things.
As my husband David and I (Sineina) reflect on our more than 40 years in leadership with Papua New Guinea Bible Translation Association (facebook.com/pngbta.media), we recognize a number of breakthroughs that have happened in our context over the years as a result of prayer.
For example, when we began in the 1980s, very few Papua New Guinean women participated in Bible translation. Those that did, mostly served in support roles. Now we see a number of women involved in translating as translators or consultants. This is a breakthrough, and those breakthroughs like that don’t happen without prayer.
As we’ve prayed for the Lord to send more workers, sometimes we pray with a preconceived result. We may think this is how my prayer is going to be answered, but maybe that’s not the way the Lord answers. In the Pacific region this prayer has been answered by more organizations across the Pacific region engaging and partnering in Bible translation.
This has challenges, but God is doing something that requires greater collaboration, a lot of deep trust, sharing resources, and each partner finding their niche, each of us doing our part to see that language communities are reached. We are reminded that this is God’s game. It’s about him, so he will work out the details of everybody working together.
Collaborating with God
At times, prayer leadership arises from people who see themselves as the least likely candidates. Let me take myself (Zac) as an example. I have not always been at the forefront of prayer. I have almost always been in the ranks, or completely in the background, and more often in secret. But from this posture I have witnessed many results by which the Lord has encouraged me to collaborate with him.
My first role in Bible translation was as a community mobilizer – helping coordinate efforts for the launch of a Bible translation programme among the community which spoke Tunen. From the start, it was clear that prayer would be key. Multiple challenges, from spiritual opposition to denominational differences, got in the way of establishing the work. I relied on the prayers of friends, family, and churches in the Tunen language community and beyond when opposition felt strong. Need and prayer lubricate our dependence on God.
Later, the Lord miraculously softened hearts. An inter-church translation committee was formed and leaders from various denominations came together to collaborate on behalf of the project. In 2021, the Tunen New Testament was dedicated.
In part, thanks to a director who places a high priority on prayer, Cameroon Association of Bible Translation and Literacy (CABTAL, cabtal.org) has a prayer strategy that is embedded in daily organisational life. They have daily, weekly, monthly, and bi-annual prayer activities and some activities that include church participation. At first it was not easy to get all staff on board with setting aside so much time out of their busy work schedules for prayer. But now all value these regular staff times of prayer, because they have seen how God answers prayer in each other’s lives, and in the translation projects and ministries they are involved in.
In one Bible translation project in Northwest Cameroon, three translators died, leaving the team without hope that the project could continue. The local church and CABTAL prayed. The deaths stopped, courage returned, new translators were trained, and the translation continued. Now, the New Testament is complete!
To pray is to collaborate with God. He is always looking for collaborators in this ministry as in others.
More Than Intercession
I (Jo) served in various roles throughout 25 years in Bible translation, but increasingly took on more responsibilities related to prayer. This journey started in 1997 when someone prayed over my husband, Stewart, and me saying, “God is giving you a new mantle.” The person also prophesied that I would become “a woman of prayer.” With two small children, I put it on the back burner. From that point, looking back, I can see that I was gathering people to pray.
In 2015, while serving as prayer coordinator for Wycliffe UK (wycliffe.org.uk), I attended an international conference in Calgary, Canada, on prayer in the global Bible translation movement. That meeting had a big impact on me. It took me from thinking that prayer in mission was just about intercession, to understanding that prayer is much more about relationship: relationship with each other, and relationship with God. And so there is as much power in silence as there is in intercession. There is as much significance in praise and worship as there is in spiritual warfare.
My own (Sineina’s) prayer journey unfolded over time as my husband and I experienced personal answers to prayer. I, too, encountered people praying over me and mentioning a prayer mantle. I think that is why, even though I have served in finance and Scripture engagement, I continue to be in prayer ministry.
As both a Papua New Guinean and Melanesian, prayer is just part of my life all the time. That’s the orientation I come from. It’s part of my culture, and it’s natural to pray for this to happen or that to happen. We are always praying. We even pray when our garden needs to grow.
Prayer became a very important part of my life as I began work with the Bible translation ministry. In the last couple of years, the whole idea of stopping and reflecting has been very real for me. To be intentional about stopping amid everything that’s happening, to have time for reflection, listening, discerning.
Creating Spaces for Prayer
Different traditions in spiritual practice can also widen our prayer eyes and strengthen our prayer muscles. I (Jo) have met two or three people who have done the Ignatian disciplines and spiritual practices. The richness that I saw in their relationship with God, opened my eyes to see that there were so many different aspects to prayer. When we try to funnel it down into something we can understand, we discover it’s a mystery. And that mystery is an opportunity for creativity.
If we say that prayer is about relationship, and God is a creative God, prayer must be a part of that creativity. Prayer can be painting, or poems, or song. It doesn’t have to be limited to standing in a church prayer meeting speaking or thinking words of intercession.
Having the bandwidth for creativity, however, can be a challenge for mission workers with heavy loads of responsibility. Sometimes the person in charge of prayer has four or five other responsibilities, and prayer has been added on. That leaves very little time or energy to be creative about prayer. When prayer is given such a low priority, it’s not that the desire isn’t there, but the space for that to happen isn’t there.
I (Jo) see that in my own leadership. This year I have been stretched very thin. When this happens, it feels like I need to reinvent space for creativity and space for God to speak so that I can then express that creativity in whatever way in prayer advocacy work.
While walking one day, I prayed about content for leading a session at an upcoming meeting for her prayer team. God gave me a word – thrive – and a symbol – a tree. Both tie into the verses from Jeremiah 17:7–8 and John 10:10 that he had previously gave me. He also brought to mind a song to use that talked of being created to thrive. I was able to build the session around the word, the picture, and the song. This creative approach to prayer gives different people different avenues to hear from God.
Listening to God Together
One of the ways our Alliance prayer team has learned to create spaces for prayer is by finding ways to intentionally listen to God together. In 2021, our team participated in an online retreat.[i] Across time zones, each of us spent time each day praying alone. Then we met together on Zoom for one hour each day to share what God was saying to each of us.
Our passage for the week was Jeremiah 17:5–9, which spoke to us of how those who are deeply rooted in God live fruitful lives regardless of circumstances. God spoke very clearly to us and by the end of the retreat, we sensed that our goal for the year as a team was to be strengthened by God in order to strengthen others.
One participant wrote: “It was a delight to experience God’s heart being expressed through each one in the team. He spoke to us individually and then confirmed that word through each one during the time of sharing.”[ii]
Another virtual time of listening to God individually but together happened in 2022 when the prayer team discerned a theme for the year: trusting with joy. That became the theme for the Alliance’s Wycliffe World Day of Prayer[iii] but turned out to be much broader.
Both times impacted the direction of resources we were creating but also where we put our energies. Our discerned themes became the measure for what to say yes or not to, the overarching guide for what things we did for Streams of Prayer [iv] (a weekly Alliance prayer bulletin), and World Day of Prayer (an annual day of prayer for Alliance organizations). This rippled over into the Alliance’s annual online Global Connect meeting and our interactions with Alliance organisations.
There is safety in trying to discern what God is saying to a group rather than just individuals. Through listening to each other, a new vision begins to form. It’s been quite remarkable how God has layered things up to make a whole picture.
It is a bit like a jigsaw puzzle. He’s given us each a separate revelation. However, they overlap so much that you come away convinced that it had to be God because you would never come up with those overlapping layers from human effort alone. You come away confident that you’ve heard from God and that he has set a direction. Whereas when you’re on your own, sometimes it’s an act of faith to work out what you think he’s saying to you.
Power in Unity
In the Bible translation movement, people have seen that corporate prayer often results in greater demonstrations of God’s power. When God’s people pray together as his Church, something greater happens than the sum of individual prayers.
I (Jo) do not understand why, but God seems to respond in greater power to groups of Christians praying in unity than a single Christian praying on their own. That is a mystery to me. I don’t have the theology of that sorted out, but what I do know is that I have seen that to be the case.
Recently God impressed on me while praying for my church that everybody at every service has something to bring. Everyone has to bring their worship, their prayer, and an open heart to hear from God. And it’s like each one offering an apple to the teacher. And I said okay, but why does the teacher need all those apples? If it’s one apple, you eat it on your way home from school and think ‘there was a child or a parent of a child who really appreciates me.’
Does God need all our apples? What’s he going to do with all our apples? God said to me that he was going to make pie! One apple is really good, and he treasures that interaction. But when we all bring our prayer, our worship, our contribution to the throne of God, he can do something even more special.
A single teacher making pie can then share those apples with many people. That can have a greater reach, can impact a community. The Wycliffe World Day of Prayer each November is one example of “making pie out of apples.” On that day, people all around the world agree to pray for Bible translation ministry and language communities. It might not be the same time zone, and for some it might be a different day, but we all collectively bring our prayers as offerings to God together.
For some the World Day of Prayer has become an opportunity for deepening community. Through a Partnering in Prayer initiative, we matched up Alliance organisations in pairs to pray together for Bible translation needs and for each other during the day of prayer. Some organisations have continued the exchange of mutual prayer throughout the year.
As a result, close relationships have been established because of prayer. No matter how small the organisation is, or if there are only a few people, they pray for each other’s organisations.
Richard Halder[3] , director of Connections Bangladesh (connectionsbd.org), commented on his organisation’s prayer interaction with Wycliffe South Africa (wycliffe.org.za): “It was a very encouraging time for us. …We now send each other updates and news and we love praying for one another.”[v]
Other movements of prayer for Bible translation have been created online. The Seed Company (seedcompany.org) established Pray for ZERO (prayforzero.com) in 2017 to focus on the remaining languages needing translation to begin. It has a growing international community of 62,000 participants and 120 ministry partners.
Pray for ZERO Asia, supporting illumiNations (illuminations.bible) Asia, has a biannual online event, to pray for translation efforts in 11 Asian countries. Unceasing Prayer (unceasingprayer.bible) was formed in 2022 as the official prayer room for the Pray for ZERO community with 40 hours per week of prayer focused on Bible translation. The vision is for 168 hours of weekly prayer by Pentecost 2023.
Solomon Lujan[4] , prayer director for Seed Company, helps organize these online forums. He says the goal is “to get as many people praying for Bible translation as often and as deeply as possible. We are asking the Lord to increase the tens of thousands praying to millions.”[vi]
One of the greatest areas of impact of these online prayer movements is that they have exposed people who were already pray-ers to needs they hadn’t previously understood. It has brought together people who love to pray with a refreshed understanding of what to pray for.
God’s Good Pleasure
It takes the whole church worldwide to pray effectively for Bible translation or any other global concern. It is not that God can’t reveal his will and his purposes just to one person. But in the same way as there will be people from every tongue, tribe and nation worshipping at the throne of God for eternity, it is his good pleasure to have that diversity in prayer. And when we don’t embrace it, there are things that we don’t learn.
We believe that the body of Christ is meant to function as a global entirety. It’s not just about each small expression of the church. Within the Bible translation movement, if we are willing to learn from the whole movement, from every age group, from the churches supporting each of the different Alliance organisations, then we’re going to be richer for that.
Jo Johnson (prayer@wycliffe.net) is the consultant for prayer advocacy for the Wycliffe Global Alliance. She has worked in the Bible translation movement for over 25 years, based initially in East Africa but now lives in the UK. She leads the Wycliffe Global Alliance prayer team for the Wycliffe Global Alliance and is part of the Alliance leadership team. She is married to Stewart, and they have three adult children.
Sineina Gela (prayer@wycliffe.net) is the prayer advocacy coordinator for the Wycliffe Global Alliance Pacific Area. She and her husband, David, have served in the Bible translation movement for over 40 years. Most of these years have been serving with the Papua New Guinea Bible Translation Association (BTA). They live in Papua New Guinea and have one adult son.
Ann Kuy (prayer@wycliffe.net) has been the prayer advocacy coordinator the Wycliffe Global Alliance Asia Area since 2016. Ann and her husband, Oliver, have served with Wycliffe since 2005 beginning in communications. Before serving with Wycliffe, Ann worked for Campus Crusade for Christ, and her and Oliver planted a church. They have three adult daughters – Isabel, Nia, and Louise – and they live in Manila, Philippines.
Nancy Duncan (prayer@wycliffe.net) was a communication and prayer consultant for the Wycliffe Global Alliance before her recent retirement. She served in the Bible translation movement for over 40 years previously serving as a government relations liaison in the Philippines, the director for prayer at Wycliffe Bible Translators USA, as well as several other roles communication, administration, prayer, and training. She lives in California.
Zac Manyim (prayer@wycliffe.net) isthe prayer advocacy coordinator for the Wycliffe Global Alliance Africa Area. He also serves with Cameroon Bible Translation and Literacy (CABTAL) as the director of church and Scripture engagement and a Scripture engagement consultant. Zac joined CABTAL in 2003 as a community mobilizer for Bible translation. He is married to Madeleine, and they have many children and grandchildren. They live in Yaoundé, Cameroon.
Gwendolyn Davies (prayer@wycliffe.net) currently serves as editor and writer for the communications and prayer teams of the Wycliffe Global Alliance. She has served in the Bible translation movement through administrative support and communications roles in Latin America and the US. She also served with the global sign language translation movement. Before joining Wycliffe Bible Translators USA in 1999, she taught ESL and worked in libraries, publishing, and various academic offices. She lives in the US.
Jim Killam (jim_killam@wycliffe.net) is the managing editor for the Wycliffe Global Alliance.
NOTES
[i] Read more about this virtual prayer retreat here: “Finding God in Quietness,” Wycliffe Global Alliance, https://www.wycliffe.net/resources/prayer/wycliffe-world-day-of-prayer-11th-november/meditations/finding-god-in-quietness/.
[ii] “Finding God in Quietness,” Wycliffe Global Alliance, accessed October 20, 2022,
[iii] “Wycliffe World Day of Prayer – 11th November 2022,” Wycliffe Global Alliance, https://www.wycliffe.net/resources/prayer/wycliffe-world-day-of-prayer-11th-november-2022/.
[iv] “Streams of Prayer,” Wycliffe Global Alliance, https://www.wycliffe.net/resources/prayer/streams-of-prayer/.
[v] “Partnering in Prayer Testimonies,” Wycliffe Global Alliance, accessed October 20, 2022,
[vi] Solomon Lujan, email message to authors, October 20, 2022.
EMQ, Volume 59, Issue 1. Copyright © 2023 by Missio Nexus. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced or copied in any form without written permission from Missio Nexus. Email: EMQ@MissioNexus.org.
