Our membership with Wycliffe Bible Translators may have come as a shock to some of you. To others, something like this had been expected for a long time. So, how did we get here?

Serving overseas has been on Emily’s heart for about 10 years. She first felt a call to missions while studying at Biola University, and expected that she would be overseas much sooner than this. Instead, life took a detour, and she ended up getting married and having a kid! When we were first married, Matt was studying to be a teacher. He was never able to find work teaching; it seemed like every door was closed. He eventually found other work and became a network administrator and computer technician instead.

In 2014, we took a course together called “Perspectives on the World Christian Movement,” and one of the speakers was from Wycliffe. She talked about how there is still a huge need for Bible translation in many languages, and how in recent years computers have been used to greatly speed up the work of translation. While it used to take decades to complete the New Testament, it now takes 8 years on average; a recent African New Testament just broke a record at publication in under 4 years! After hearing this, Matt realized that God had closed other doors and led him into the IT field to prepare him for this. This was how God planned to use us to spread His Word: by supporting the technology that has become so vital to translation. On January 1 of this year, we became Wycliffe members and have accepted a position to serve in Ukarumpa, Papua New Guinea!