Missionary challenge: Educating children overseas

Wycliffe Associates, faced with the threat of having to close a Philippine high school for missionary children, has launched a capital campaign to raise $95,000 to build a new school.

Because of the imminent threat of losing its Western Association of Christian Schools accreditation, Wycliffe Associates—which supports Wycliffe Bible Translators through volunteer programs—has opted to spend $45,000 it was holding to construct the new school to purchase a parcel of land immediately. As soon as the $95,000 is raised, the six-month construction process can begin.

Accreditation officials said the lack of classroom space was the only obstacle to the school keeping its accreditation. In an effort to help Wycliffe, WACS officials granted the school a provisional accreditation, but only if more space is added to the school. Accreditation is essential for high school graduates seeking to attend universities in the United States.

Wycliffe officials said the situation in the Philippines underscores a growing problem in overseas missions work: limited educational opportunities for missionary children. The educational issues are exacerbating a longtime threat—growing persecutions against Christians, especially since Sept. 11, Wycliffe said. The tensions have forced Wycliffe to spend more than $1 million evacuating and relocating missionaries out of danger zones during the past two years alone.

A shortage of teachers and a desperate need for space is approaching crisis levels for many Wycliffe missionaries who spend their days translating Scripture into indigenous languages.

Southeast Asia, for instance, is home to more than 700 languages that are in the process of being translated into Scripture. To complete those translations, Wycliffe must have a fulltime commitment through the next two decades from missionaries who can live and work with the people whose languages are being translated.

And, in the Philippines, where missionaries have been able to establish a center to translate about 40 languages, 50 translators and support staff are worried they may have to go back home if they can’t educate their children.

According to Wycliffe, over the years, the Philippines has become a center for Bible translation in Asia, due to its stability, safety and geographic centrality. Wycliffe has been involved in the Philippines for more than five decades and most of the languages of the Philippine Islands are either completed or in progress.

To support missionary families, many of whom feel strongly about not sending their high schoolers to faraway boarding schools because of the separation and expense, local high schools have become an alternative to keep families intact.

Such was the case in a remote part of the Philippines, where a Christian high school was established. The high school began in a rented house, with only 23 students, faculty and administration, and is projected to continue to grow in the next 10 years.

That growth, officials said, has prompted the facility emergency and the fund-raising campaign.

For more information log on to wycliffeassociates.org or call 1-800-843-9673.

Published by Keener Communications Group, February 2004

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