WAYUMI IS MADE FOR YOU

Ever since my time at EBI (Ethnos360 Bible Institute), I found myself with no further need to be convinced of the necessity of missions. I don’t want to talk about missions; I want to do missions. The unreached are dying without Christ, without hope, without one verse of Scripture in their language. Every day 150,000 people die. How many are unsaved? How many are unreached? How many could have been reached?   

The thought of going into a village, entering one of the thousands of language groups that don’t have God’s Word completed and sharing the gospel with them is a thought that makes my body shake with longing. Teaching through literacy, seeing them make progress reading and writing for the very first time and creating a dictionary in their language makes my heart leap with joy. The evangelism, the teaching through the Bible, the discipleship, the creation of a new church — that is enough to make any pain and any suffering completely worth it.   

Then there’s the translation of the Bible. How I long to get my hands on a translation work! I think back to the giant wall poster back at EBI with minuscule print of all the languages without a completed Bible. What on this earth could be more exhilarating than crossing off one more language from the thousands without completed Scripture? Christ will be named over all the earth: people from every tribe, tongue, people and nation (Revelation 7:9-10). But how does this happen? Can I plop myself in a village and do all this work myself? No, and that’s where Wayumi fits in.   

Wayumi is an incredible experience, not because it only appeals to people like me, but because it should also appeal to you, even those of you without obsessive church planting desires like mine. Whether you know a lot about cross-cultural church planting or very little, Wayumi answers the question, “How do I fit into this work?” You don’t need to be a linguistics expert to help with maintenance. You don’t need to translate the Bible to support missions with IT. You don’t have to be a pilot to be able to crunch numbers for church planters so that they can do the work of an evangelist. Wayumi shows how you can serve in missions with the gifts and abilities that God has given you. It gives you a cultural experience — in the middle of Pennsylvania — and shows you how you can play a role in missions, even if you don’t study biblical Hebrew every day and burst at the excitement of learning another language. You can serve the Lord as a missionary with the strengths God has given you, whether that’s with cooking for missionaries or using your skills in IT work.   

After I graduated EBI, I attended Wayumi, and my experience there proved to be extremely beneficial, from the sessions to the conversations with staff to the hands-on experience in an “unreached people group.” Wayumi was more than “talking about missions.” In addition to the helpful sessions and practical side of staying in a thought-provoking, camp-like setting, we also participated in a simulation of meeting an unreached people group. What an experience! We were taken somewhere we had not gone previously in the camping experience. The attention to detail was amazing. Then, we were suddenly sitting in a “remote” setting with someone who appeared to be able to speak only a language that wasn’t English! There was no way to communicate other than sitting, listening, trying to ask questions in another language and writing things down, hoping they were correct. The experience was unforgettable, and I honestly believe it can give you more than what a lot of average missions trips overseas can give you — an opportunity to simulate an actual people group setting with veteran missionaries.    

On top of that, the teaching was not something you could easily forget either. Bringing back good memories of my time at Bible school, the speaker didn’t just give opinions or lecture for seemingly no reason — he spoke with passion and enthusiasm about timeless, unchanging principles from God’s Word. He explained the importance of teaching the Bible chronologically, of the process that comes from starting in Genesis and working through the narrative of Scripture all the way to Revelation. He explained with great excitement how the gospel makes so much more sense to someone who understands who God is (the one, true God of the Bible, not spirits that live within rocks), understands who they are (breakers of God’s holy law, not good people who try their best), and who Christ is: the only hope, the One who died and rose again, allowing us to be with God.   

Then he told true, real-life stories and spoke captivatingly of the need. The unreached are still unreached, and they will remain so until someone reaches them. But what does that mean to reach them? What does it mean to be “part of the need”? The list he gave on the PowerPoint slide went on. You can be a mobilizer, a mechanic, a pilot, an electrician, an accountant, an IT manager, a literary consultant, … . At Wayumi, I learned that support roles are just as important as church planting positions and that anyone can serve in support roles — including you.   

Have you considered how God has uniquely gifted you with skills and experiences to use for His glory? You might not feel cut out to be a church planter — and without Christ, no one is! — but maybe God is leading you to serve as a missionary accountant, supply buyer or mechanic. Maybe God has made you a good encourager towards missions or blessed you with finances to aid the church planter as Barnabas aided Paul and the other apostles. And most certainly, every believer can pray! Will you follow where the Lord leads you today?  

— Sarah (MacDonald) Bruce   

Volunteer staff writer and EBI graduate (Class of 2020) from Jackson, Michigan, campus 

Find out more and consider your next steps with Wayumi:  

Spend one to seven days in central Pennsylvania exploring what the Bible says about reaching all peoples. Learn from veteran cross-cultural missionaries and participate in hands on simulations — all without leaving the USA.