Behind the Scenes

Did you know that the average Hollywood movie has approximately 300 employees involved from beginning to end who work to bring a movie together? Yet I can probably only name four or five people (maybe 10 to 20 for a large cast) per movie: leading actors, the director and/or producer, maybe the composer. Some movies have started including outtakes, or suspenseful teasers for the next film in the franchise. I think this is to keep us in our seats and encourage us to see that it takes a small village to make a movie. 

Bible translation specifically, but missions in general, operates in a similar fashion. It may be easy for you to think of those missionaries who specifically work as translators. These people are the ones who are more often the face of a translation project. To get them to that point they had to work with someone in recruitment, applications, at least a few people in finance, HR, communications, and IT. Then there are those welcoming them to the field, helping with orientation, plus our counterparts on the field who work in finance, HR, communications, IT and so on. Of course that is just for one person. If we have a family, there is also someone who connects with them in regards to education, education resources, and of course we also have international schools and all those who work in that realm. 

How many people does it take, from the first phone call to the very end when a missionary retires or moves on to whatever God has next for them, to enable one missionary's journey to happen? Off the top of my head I can think of about 25 others who would need to be involved. That is before considering their needed education (such as a master's degree in linguistics), pre-field language and culture learning course, re-entry programs, financial and prayer supporters, and anything connected to children and children's education and children's re-entry programs. 

We don't have an end credits scene in missions but I do want to encourage you today to remember that we do have a large group of people behind the scenes. We don't tend to amaze, inspire, or inform you with how many budgets were approved, how great an audit went, how many attempted hackings were prevented, how many phone calls were answered, or how many hours we spent working with a missionary to help keep them healthy and able to continue in their ministry. Sharing the triumphs and challenges in these positions are not the stuff of newsletters. I encourage you to find out who some of these people are and offer to pray for them and consider financially supporting them (see below).

If your church has always supported only missionaries who are "on the field", I encourage you, or your missions pastor/committee, to remember that no missionary would be on the field without those who work behind the scenes from Canada. I challenge you to prayerfully and financially support some who work in the home office that send your missionaries. These staff often have the most challenging time raising support as they are not considered by many to be missionaries.

Hopefully you are asking yourself, "How do I find these people?" Fortunately, I do have the answer to this question:

• You can write the missionaries you support about the people who work with or for them behind the scenes. 
• You can check out https://www.wycliffe.ca/about/members/ and scroll through the member bios. 
• You can write to me at mca.brandie@wycliffe.ca. 

Take time to consider one of the options above, and support those who support others. Also, thank you for supporting me. I too am needing to increase both my prayer and financial support team. If you are interested in this, in supporting the ministry of member care, please email me personally at brandie.green@wycliffe.ca