This is the first in a series of five short posts, explaining why we think what we do is worth us spending our time and energies doing it.
As you might have noticed, the title of this blog is also the text on the heading of our blog and it tries to sum up, as best as we can, what we are all about. To kick off, let’s break it down a little and see what each part is about…
‘Wisbeys’: well that’s us. We are Matt, Liz and Levi Wisbey (just turned 1!). Having met at university in Sheffield, worked for a few years and got married, we decided that we wanted to spend our time working alongside people in less privileged situations than ourselves. We weren’t sure how this would work out in practice but we felt that was the direction God was leading us as a couple (and now as a family).
‘with Wycliffe’: since 2007 we have been voluntary (that means we don’t get paid a salary) members of Wycliffe Bible Translators. Despite the name, Wycliffe does far more than help to translate the Bible – we’ll get to that in a later post. For the record we are not, and never will be, translators!
‘supporting’: we’ve always felt that the best thing we could do was to try to share our skills and experiences with people who haven’t had the opportunities we have had. Ultimately, seeing people reaching their potential is what keeps us going!
‘development through literacy’: Having decided Wycliffe was the place for us (for now at least), we decided that the area that best fitted our skills, passion and personalities was literacy work – helping people to read and write (and so much more besides). Literacy is an integral though often underestimated part of Bible translation, since without readers any translation work will be wasted. Literacy is also a major key to effective development and we feel very passionately that loving people holistically is an important part of our call as Christians.
In coming posts we’ll go into a little more detail about what all these parts mean and why it is something to get excited about and involved with! For now, however, if you want to find out how you can partner with us in this work just click here.