Cameroon (MNN) — The Fulani herdsmen are known to frequent Nigeria. However, their nomadic lifestyle recently brought them to Cameroon. On Sunday, a Bible translator was killed in his home during an attack by the Fulani herdsmen. The attack took place in Wum, a village located in the Northwest of the country.

The attackers used a machete to dismember Angus Abraham Fung. The Christian Post reports Fung’s wife, Eveline, had her arm cut off. However, she and another person who was staying in their home did manage to escape. Per the report, Eveline is currently receiving a blood transfusion.

However, the “why” for the attack is still fuzzy. It is likely related to the escalating conflict in Cameroon related to the Anglophone crisis.

Background on Cameroon’s Violence

Cameroon is split into two major areas known as Anglophone regions and Francophone regions. The conflict between these regions stems from colonial times with regards to the British-controlled areas of Cameroon and the French-controlled areas of Cameroon. (Read more on this history here.)

On the right is Angus Fung, who was killed during a Fulani attack. (Photo courtesy of Alex Nicholls via Efi Tembon’s Facebook page.)

Fast forward to the present day, when separatists in the Anglophone region are fighting for independence. It is in this region where Wum is located. While it may not seem like it, this does appear to have played a role in the recent attack which claimed Fung’s life.

“One of the big issues there is that the government, with a more international pressure getting [put on the] Cameron government, they have been trying to provoke a religious war to just create chaos. Create division between the local people,” says Efi Tembon of Oasis Network for Community Transformation.

Tembon believes the Christian community is an easy target for these attacks. There are also suspicions that individuals within the Cameroon government are utilizing the Fulani herdsmen for attacks on locals, particularly those fighting for independence or associated with the movement. Tembon says there is still the possibility this recent attack was related to food sources. Learn more about the conflict in Cameroon here and here.

Prays Needed Following Fulani Attack

But, regardless of the definite “why” behind this attack, the Christian community in Cameroon is hurting. It needs prayers.

Angus Fung’s widow at a local hospital. (Photo courtesy of Efi Tembon via Facebook)

For now, pray for Fung’s wife, for her spiritual, physical, and emotional healing. Pray for peace in Cameroon, too.

“Pray that God will help intervene to resolve the conflict…many people…are suffering…The government had burned more than 200 villages. This [has] been going on for three years now. Many, many villages have been burned and this is not getting into the Western media,” Tembon says.

“Also, pray for the people who are suffering that more than 700,000 people have been displaced. Many of these people are in the forest, some have crossed over to Nigeria…Pray that God will help all these people.”

Header image/map courtesy of Operation World.

In countries where open evangelism of the Gospel is illegal or dangerous, anti-Christian sentiments make scripture inaccessible for most believers. That’s why these countries are known as “creative-access nations”; the Body of Christ has to be creative in the way they reach local believers.

Bruce Smith of Wycliffe Associates is familiar with the kind of creative solutions these locations require.

In countries like these, “Proselytism would certainly be opposed and regulated, so the local people have their own ways of living out their faith, being a testimony, and sharing their faith in ways that are acceptable within their circles, even though they might be frowned upon or opposed by the government structures.”

Collaboration Project in Asia

But Smith is also familiar with how much easier it is to find creative solutions when local believers collaborate with outside groups. Such is the case in one Asian country* where Christians are a minority religious group who face government-structured persecution.

“10 groups basically are in the neighborhood and they’ve heard and seen the advancement of Bible translation in their surrounding neighboring language group, and so they’ve approached us out of this arena,” Smith says.

“This is not a place where we sort of stuck a pin in a map and said, ‘We’re going to go in there no matter what the issues are,’ this is the place where they’re coming out to us and saying, ‘If it’s able to go forward with our neighbors that can certainly go forward with us.’”

Wycliffe Associates’ MAST program allows faster translation through accelerated and effective training (Photo courtesy of Wycliffe Associates)

Their current partners in this country are members of a house church network complete with church leadership and structure. There are even elders in the network.

“They’re not only connected locally and regionally but internationally as well,” Smith says. “They didn’t become Christians in a vacuum, so they have a history of connection to evangelical Christians and mission work from other parts of the world.”

How to Creatively Access Creative-Access Countries

So what does it look like to find solutions to intense persecution and regulation? One of the biggest obstacles believers have to overcome is the intense scrutiny placed on them.

“These are people who are not necessarily prominent in the business community or things like that, they’re pretty humble people, but because they are Christians they are being monitored, Smith says. “The way that we’re able to work with these people is they’re able to travel legally, so they’re able to travel to surrounding countries.”

Translators leave their country, receive training from Wycliffe Associates groups, and return home without stirring up any fuss.

“They go back without being exposed by contact with foreigners without us creating a lot of visibility in their arena, or in fact, no visibility, because we don’t go into their arena,” Smith says. “They’re able to go back to their communities and, through their family networks and through their church networks, build the team that’s necessary to move the Bible translation forward.”

For these Christians, Wycliffe Associates represents an opportunity for access to the Gospel. For many, it will be the first time they can read scripture in their own languages.

Representative photo of underground believers (Photo courtesy of Wycliffe Associates)

“They’ve just come to the conclusion that this is the time in history and this… is the most positive opportunity for them to have scripture in their language,” Smith says. “They haven’t haven’t had that opportunity in the past, so they’re anxious to move forward regardless of the risks.”

Playing Our Part

Many Christians in the United States and other parts of the world haven’t experienced the kind of thirst for the Gospel that these believers have, but we can still help them achieve their goal. Right now, requests for translation assistance are flooding Wycliffe Associates, and they need all the help and resources they can get if they want to make an impact.

“The immediate need that we’ve had is financial support, so that enables us to fund the training workshops and the technology that is needed in order to get them off and running,” Smith says.

You can also be praying for Wycliffe Associates projects, including their ongoing training in Asia.

“We’ve actually got the training workshop on the calendar, we have a location, and we’re going to be converging here in the next — we’ll say in the next couple of months,” Smith says.

“The more people they bring, the more progress they’re going to make in translation during the workshop as well as bringing that expertise back to their communities so that they can train others and add to the translation team.”

Their current mission? Finish translations of the New Testament within the next 12 years.

“There is a level of urgency and level of commitment and sacrifice that local Christians are willing to make in order to get scripture because they see that that’s their only hope for eternity going forward and they see the impact that it can have for their communities,” Smith says.

“These are things that they can pray about, that they can be aware of, even in the face of opposition and persecution that we hear about within Christian media. The reality is that the local people understand that to be normal and and they’re not fearful because of it. They’re moving forward by faith despite those oppositions, and that’s something that we can have a part in helping them to make that progress and having God’s Word in their own language.”

Connect with Wycliffe Associates to find out how you can become a part of the team.

*Country’s name hidden for security

Header photo courtesy of Wycliffe Associates

Christians know that our ultimate award awaits us in heaven. But on earth, recognition can serves as a means of accountability, transparency, and the pursuit of excellence. Recognition also motivates and refocuses ministries. Wycliffe Bible Translators USA recently received the GuideStar Platinum Seal recognition. This means that Wycliffe has been diligent in measuring progress, has improved their impact, and continues to look for ways to be more effective.

Chris Winkler of Wycliffe explains, “We’ve been really blessed to be honored with the GuideStar Platinum Seal and status with Guidestar. Guidestar is one of the largest independent evaluators of nonprofits in the country. And one of the things we’ve been striving for is to be fully transparent with the public, with our donors, those that are wanting to pray with us, those that are wanting to serve with us.”

Wycliffe works in many areas of the world, but all Bible Translation projects take hard work, diligence, and collaboration (photo courtesy of Wyclffe USA via facebook)

Financial transparency is important in building trust with donors and volunteers in both secular organizations and Christians organizations. But for the latter, the transparency has to do with honoring God.

“We do feel that we should be doing everything as unto the Lord, whether that’s translating God’s Word or whether it’s working with our finances. In our culture, we tend to demand excellence from our sports teams, from our retails stores.

“But in my thinking, we need to be striving for excellence when dealing with some of the most important things that God has called us to, like the translation of God’s Word, church planting. The souls of men and women are at stake and they deserve nothing less than our absolute best.”

Winkler says they’ve been blessed by the thousands of people in the United States praying and supporting their work financially. He understands that this group of supporters cares about transparency and knowing that the resources they give are going to good use.

(Image courtesy of Wycliffe USA).

It comes down to this: In their work as Bible translators, Wycliffe is a steward of the people, prayers, and funds that God has given them.

“They’re not Wycliffe’s—those are God’s that we’ve been entrusted to steward for this season.”

If you’d like to get involved with Wycliffe, Winkler says now is the time:

“The work of Bible translation is at a really exciting point where we’ve never seen translation starts happening as quickly as they’re happening now. There’s great movements all over the world. And we invite those listeners to be a part of that—you can go to Wycliffe.org and find out how you can pray for this work. You can adopt a Bible-less people group to be praying for. You can give to the work, you can serve.”

For more information, click here.

For many years, Wycliffe Associate translators had to seek out people who would be willing to start a new translation. But now that problem is flipped on its head. Wycliffe Associates is beginning to seek new resources to keep up with the demand for Bible translation.

Clearly God is opening doors, but why now?

Bruce Smith, President and CEO of Wycliffe Associates, poses two reasons for the new opportunities: a restructuring of the translation workshop methods and improved resources.

Empowering the local church for Bible translation

In 2014 Wycliffe Associates launched a collaborative translation workshop method called mobilized assistance supporting translation, or MAST. MAST allows local churches to be more heavily involved in translation than they have been in the past.

Smith explains that MAST equips local churches with the training and resources they need to work in conjunction with translators. With the tools they need, local church leadership and people well-versed in a mother tongue can work accurately and efficiently.

The MAST model passes decision-making power from foreign missionaries to put the stewardship of resources in locals’ hands. Smith says, “They can decide what the priority is for starting the translation, where they want to begin, how many people will be involved, how quickly it will continue, how it will be published, what form, all of those kinds of things. And it essentially puts all of those decisions into their hands for really the first time in a long time.”

Using modern tools to translate enduring truth

However, Wycliffe Associates is doing more than just coming alongside mother-tongue translators. They are providing local workers basic computer tablets through their Tablets for National Translators program.

Using tablets for Bible translation keeps the work mobile, easy to access, and safe. Tablets save work continuously so if a natural disaster or terrorist attack occurs, the work is not lost. It also provides a simple way for translators to check progress and critique each other’s work. This helps ensure accountability and faithful Bible translation.

Bible translations in the hardest places

MAST and new technology allow those who have the most experience with a language to help bring the Bible to life from the ground up. It gives the local Church a new sense of freedom and excitement about the work. And so, Bible translation is thriving despite pressure from antagonistic communities.

(Courtesy of Wycliffe Associates)

Smith explains, “The reason Bibles have not been translated in much of the world is because of the security and antagonism of surrounding majority religions around them. And so, as we press toward the goal of seeing every language in the world have a Bible in our lifetime– really by the year 2025– inevitably we end up in these same kind of arenas.

“So, interestingly that doesn’t prove to be a limiting factor in terms of the interest and the enthusiasm of the local believers in getting Scripture into their area. In fact it’s almost the opposite; the more dangerous and insecure the arena, the more committed and enthusiastic the local people are, because they know that it’s the only way to get light into a dark situation. And they want that for their own families and their neighbors, so they can have the Word of God available to them in a language they can understand.”

How can you help?

Bible translation is crucial. The Bible is within reach for so many who want to know God. Smith says this is the first time in years that so many people are willing and able to begin translation. But the problem is resources.

Smith asks for help: “We’re of course inviting people to look at this and consider Bible Translation as a priority in their own financial stewardship, to participate as a financial supporter. We certainly invite and desire people to be involved in prayer support as well. We have a number of prayer resources that people can engage with, so they can be praying effectively as Bible translation is underway and of course we certainly also still involve volunteers.”

Will you help today Wycliffe Associates translate the Bible into the more than 600 languages ready for translation?

Join Wycliffe Associates as a financial supporter and see your gifts bring the Word of God to those anxious to learn more about Christ. Pray that local workers accurately translate the Gospel this year, so more people might learn about Jesus. For more ways to pray click here.

Present at the dedication were Ray and Helen Elliott who spent 54 years of their lives working on the project. "83 years of age, now very frail, but as he went up to the stage on a cane. he very ceremoniously unpacked the first box of New Testaments," said Bruce Everhart with Moody Radio reporting for Wycliffe. 

According to a TIME Magazine article, the Elliott's moved their three children to a dirt floor cabin in 1953. Because Helen unexpectedly became the village nurse, Ray learned the Ixil word for giving without receiving anything in return: "shum." It was the word he'd been struggling to find to translate "love."

Until now, the Ixil people used the Gospel of Mark that Wycliffe released upon its completion.  Everhart said the people now seem to be ready for more. "There are people being saved all over the Guatemala region. As a matter of fact, one of the translators we talked to believes there's not a single person in the Ixil area who has not heard the Gospel today, but they haven't responded yet. The work is now in the
hands of the church in Guatemala."

With 40 translation projects in the entire country and many years of work, there are just three more projects in progress.  "They're anticipating completion of all the translation work, I would say, over the next 5 years. The Central American region for Wycliffe is really winding down."  From there, they will be focusing more on Asia and Indonesia where there is a lot of work yet to be completed.