Southeastern University Students Present $30,000 to Wycliffe Bible Translators
A check for $30,000 was given to Wycliffe Bible Translators by Southeastern University students last Wednesday during chapel service.
A check for $30,000 was given to Wycliffe Bible Translators by Southeastern University students last Wednesday during chapel service.
The money was raised through offerings given in the school’s chapel since the school year began, according to Rodney White, professor of missions at the Florida-based school. All the chapel offerings go to fund mission work.
Each year missionaries submit funding requests to Southeastern President Mark Rutland and White, who determine which request is the most pressing.
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This year’s recipients, John and Ariana Glennon, were chosen because they had sold their home at the missions base in the highlands of Papua New Guinea and planned to use the proceeds to pay for construction of a translation center there.
This will be the third attempt at maintaining a translation center in Papua New Guinea, where a couple has worked for nearly 21 years translating the Bible into the local language. The first center was overtaken by rebels. The second was covered when a volcano erupted.
“Dr. Rutland and I thought they shouldn’t have to sell their home to do this,” White said.
The monetary funds from this year’s chapel offerings will help with construction of the translation center.
“I had no idea that the Southeastern students could come up with this kind of money and have this kind of generosity,” said Cora Ligon, an admissions counselor at Southeastern and the Glennon’s daughter. “College students don’t usually have a lot of money.
“To have a group of college students who believe so wholeheartedly in what my parents are doing, to give out of their lack and to give without fully understanding what they’re giving to …” Ligon continued. “I believe it has revitalized my parents’ view of Christian youth and their passion for God’s work and for literacy amongst people who speak an unwritten language.”
Ligon said her parents mostly have been supported through the years by individuals who believed in their work.
Southeastern is attempting to gather a group of students to travel to Papua New Guinea in June to assist with the center’s construction. Ligon said her parents also want the students to help put together comic books of Bible stories in the native language to give to the local children.
