Love, Our Motivation (1996)

Message from Urbana 96
by Jacqueline Huggins

“I’m always surprised when people ask me, ‘How did YOU get into Wycliffe Bible Translators?’ You know, my answer is always the same: ‘I simply obeyed what God told me to do. I thought that’s what everybody did when they came to know him.’”

I have a friend named Akai. I met Akai in 1987 when I first arrived on Cagayancillo Island in the Philippines to begin Bible translation work. What I remember most about Akai is her smile. And I knew right away that I had made a friend. Akai was a servant in the home of the mayor where we lived for a few weeks before finding our own place to live.

We always looked for opportunities to talk to each other. She didn’t know my language, and I didn’t know her language, but we pieced together a little of the national language, a little English, a little Spanish, she taught me some Kagayanen, but most of the time we used our hands a lot, nodded our heads and smiled.

But over the days and weeks and months, Akai and I became very close. We became very good friends. It just seemed natural to me that eventually I would share my faith with my new friend Akai. So after a while, when I felt a little more comfortable in the Kagayanen language, the day came and I said, “Akai, I have a very special friend. He’s the most important person in the whole world to me. I love him so much, and He loves me too. My special friend’s name is Jesus. Will you let me tell you about him?

And I remember that Akai took a step back from me. She shook her head and said, "I have my own religion." I said, "I know you do, Akai, but I don't want to talk to you about religion. I just want to tell you about my special friend, Jesus. Won’t you let me tell you about him?"

Still smiling, she shook her head and said, "I have my own religion." And that's how it went, over the days, weeks, months, years. Wherever we were, whether we met in the road, or in each others’ houses, no matter what we did, Akai always knew that when she saw me, the first thing I was going to do was ask her, “Akai, are you ready for me to tell you about my friend Jesus?” And I always knew that Akai’s response would be “I have my own religion.”

But what Akai didn’t know was that Jesus wasn’t always my special friend. As a matter of fact, I can still remember saying to my sister, "If you keep talking to me about that Jesus person, I'm going to call the mental hospital and try to have you committed." And my sister stopped talking to me about that Jesus person, but she didn’t stop praying.

I guess my animosity against religious things began when I was a small child. My brother, sister and I spent about eight years in a foster home before going to our natural mother. We were spitefully placed there by my dad when my parents’ marriage dissolved.

What I remember about the foster home is that it was very religious. We said prayers every night. But it was also a very abusive home – physically abusive, mentally and emotionally abusive.

And I remember planting a thought in my mind as a young child, "People don’t need religion, and when I grow up, I'm going to help people know that they don’t have to believe in God." When I became an adult, I really believed that my sole purpose here on this earth was to help people not believe in God, and not believe in the Bible.

I’d go all over and ask people, “Are you a Christian?” If they said yes, I’d begin to teach them why they didn’t have to believe in God. Then I’d begin to teach them my philosophy and why, if there’s no God, there can’t be a Bible that is his word. And if I’d meet people who said, “I’m not a Christian,” I’d say “I’ve got good news for you.” I’d begin to help them develop their own well-planned and well thought-out philosophy and live by it, and why they didn’t need to believe in God, and didn’t need to believe in the Bible.

Now my sister had this habit, every Monday night, she would call me, because every Tuesday night she went to a Bible study. She’d call me every Monday night and invite me, and every time I would refuse and hang up on her.

But this one particular night I thought, “Wait a minute.” Until now, I had just been talking to people one-on-one, in the doctor’s office, on the street corners, wherever I happened to be on my job – but I thought, “Wait a minute. Who goes to Bible studies? Christians! I've reached the big time! No more one-on-ones! I can help a whole roomful of Christians not believe in God or the Bible."

But, you know, I never made it to Bible study that night. And, by the way, I had called up a friend of mine who was likeminded, and said “Let’s go help the Christians tonight.” She’s sitting here tonight. I didn’t make it to that Bible Study because my cat got sick and died. Anybody who knows me knows that I am very fond of cats, and I was devastated. So I sat in the home, and I was crying, and I said, “Why has this happened to me? Why has my cat died?”

All of a sudden, a thought came into my mind: “Wouldn’t it be something if there really is a God, and you’re the one who is wrong?” And I thought, “If there really is a God, I’m in big trouble.” Then I thought, “I had better find out if there is one, because I'm going to get another cat.”

But you know, it could have been worse than losing a cat. So I said, “Here I am. If there is a God, it’s just you and me now. If you exist, you ought to be able to see me now; you ought to be able to hear me; if you're there, prove it!”

And immediately, a voice in my head – not out loud – but a voice said, “Go get your Bible.”

And I responded, "I don't have a Bible."

"Yes, you do. Remember the Bible your friend's aunt gave you a month ago for your birthday?"

And I said, "But I threw that away!"

"No, you didn't."

I got up and tore my house up that night, but I found that Bible. I said, "Okay, here I am with the Bible. What am I supposed to do with it?"

"Look in the back. Look up the word repentance."

At first I thought, “What’s that?” I didn’t understand the word, but I figured maybe there's a dictionary in the back of the Bible. And when I read what repentance means, then maybe if there is a God he won't be mad at me anymore.

So I looked in the back and I saw all these verses with the word repentance in them. And I thought, “You mean I have to read all of these verses, and then God won’t be mad at me anymore? How about if I just read one?” So I began. “Eeny-meeny miny mo, catch a monkey by his toe.”

And I ended up on Romans 2 verse 4. And it says, “Or do you despise the riches of his kindness, his tolerance and his patience, not realizing that it is the kindness of God leading you towards repentance?"

I read that verse over and over, and asked, “What does this mean? Why do I have to repent? I'm not all that bad. And who’s talking to me anyway?”

The voice said, “Well, didn’t you ask if I existed to prove it? That’s what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to tell you that not only do I exist, but I care about you. I’m trying to tell you that I love you. And that I want to forgive you.”

All of a sudden I understood what repentance meant. I said, “God? Forgive me?” All of a sudden I understood and said, “I am so sorry. I didn’t realize that this is how You talk to people. I didn’t realize that you speak to people through the Bible. I didn’t know.”

And I said, “God, please forgive me. Forgive me for being your enemy for so many years forgive me for telling people you didn’t exist, and that the Bible wasn’t your word.”

Instantly I felt this weight, that I didn’t even know was there, lifting my shoulders. I thought, “What happened? Something just left me.” But I knew I was a different person. My mind was different.

That night, I didn’t understand everything that happened to me, but I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, that night – November 15, 1977, when I was 28 years old – I had made peace with God.

But I thought, “Now don’t go around telling people you’ve talked to God. They lock people up for saying things like that. So you just keep it to yourself, go on living life as normal, and just quit telling people there’s no God and the Bible’s not his word.”

But, you know, I found out I couldn’t go on with life as normal. I found that whenever I sat down to chart a person’s horoscope, to tell them how to live, I started to get a feeling that this stuff was really evil, and I shouldn't be doing it. Eventually I ended up burning all the horoscope books and trinkets and things related to astrology, and things related to Satanism and the Occult that I had filled my home with. I began to burn it all.

And I thought, “Got that down; now just go on with life as normal. I found out that I had some friends I hung around with, who were the wrong kind of friends. And maybe we did some things we shouldn’t be doing. And after a while I thought, “What’s going on? How come all these things are bothering me that never bothered me before?”

Finally, I sought out my sister’s pastor, and for the first time I told someone my cat story – my repentance story. I really thought he was going to say, “You talked to God? What did he sound like? What did he say?!”

But he acted like he heard stories like that all the time. He said, “I see God’s finally got your attention.” And then that pastor took a little simple chalkboard drawing of a cross and some verses from the gospel of John, chapter 3. He began to weave the beautiful story of the gospel of Jesus Christ in with my cat story.

And I really understood then, fully, how much God really loved me and what he did for me on that cross. I said, “Hurry up pastor! Hurry up and finish the story, because I’ve got a lot of work to do.”

I said, “This is the news that everybody in the world is looking for. They just don’t know it. They don’t know how to find it. So now I've got to tell my friends; I’ve got to tell my relatives who don't know this good news. I’ve got neighbors, colleagues, and … what about all those people I told there was no God? I’ll never see those people again!”

But you know God paid me back for all that. Because for the whole first year, that was the kind of person I ran into – people who were like me. People with vain philosophies, but really they just sounded foolish and lost.

I got involved with a church right away. I got involved in ministry. And I’d go knocking on doors telling people God loved them and what Jesus Christ did for them. I went through nursing homes and hospitals and prisons. I also, especially, went to juvenile delinquent detention centers and homes for juveniles. I had become familiar with places like that as a kid.

After a while, I had learned a little more about how to share the gospel, and one day God said to me, “Okay, now it’s time to go to the uttermost parts.”

And I said, “Oh yeah, God, that’s a big mission field. But this is inner-city Philadelphia! Surely there cant be a better mission field than this!”

But God said, “It’s time to go to the uttermost parts.”

But I wasn’t listening.

One day, I was standing on the corner of 56th and Market Street in Philadelphia. I was sharing my story with a businessman – a shopkeeper there. As I was telling my story about how I had come to know Christ, the businessman stopped me and said, “Wait, wait. I know all about the Bible.”

I was a freshman in Bible College at the time, but this man, on that corner, took me from Genesis to Revelation, and gave me a little mini Bible survey course. And he said, “You know what else? I know the plan of salvation. I know that a person must believe and trust in what Jesus did on the cross for their sins, and when they die, they can spend eternity with God in heaven.”

And I said, “Wow, this is a brother! He’s already in. No need to share the gospel with him.”

Then the businessman said this: “But you know what? I reject all of it. I choose to reject every bit of it.”

I was shocked. Then he said, “You know how I can do that? I have a free will. And with my free will, I choose to reject God and the Bible.”

And I said, “Okay, Lord, let’s go to the uttermost parts, where people haven’t heard about Jesus Christ. Maybe where there are no churches and no Bibles.”

That’s when I heard about the work of Wycliffe Bible Translators: translating the scriptures for people, in the language they understand best. I thought, “Now this is the work to be involved in. I remember how God reached me with his word.”

I couldn’t imagine that there were people in over 3000 languages – never written down – who don’t have any scripture in their language. Well, in 1984, I was accepted as a member of Wycliffe Bible Translators.

I’m always surprised when people ask me, “How did YOU get into Wycliffe Bible Translators?” You know, my answer is always the same: “I simply obeyed what God told me to do. I thought that’s what everybody did when they came to know him.”

Well since 1986 that’s what I've been doing in the Philippines: together with Carol Pebbly and Louise MacGregor, translated the Scriptures for the Kagayanen people.

Well what’s that like – translation? I can remember working with one of the Kagayanen ladies – my translation assistant. Her name is Beth. We were translating a portion of the gospel of Mark – where Jesus feeds the 5,000 people. We had just finished the story, and were polishing it up and checking it. Beth was reading over the story and she said, “You know, Jackie, this sounds like real good Kagayanen. As I was reading the story I thought, ‘there is something missing.’ In Kagayanen we have three definite articles: Ih, An and Yah. They weren’t in our story anywhere after the noun.”

And I said, “Beth, how come they’re not in our story?” So she read it and said, “Well, yes, you’re right. It’s not there, but we don’t need them here.” She couldn’t explain why we didn’t need them. So I began putting Ih, An, and Yah in different places as I had learned to use them, or thought they were used.

Then Beth read the story – “Well, if you insist.” She fixed some of them, and some of them were okay. Then she read the story about Jesus feeding the five thousand. And she said, “Jackie, this is pure Kagayanen now! But there’s just one problem with it.”

I said, “What’s wrong now?”

She said, “You can’t say it like this.”

“What do you mean?”

“The way it sounds now, it sounds like you were right there, and you saw Jesus feeding the five thousand people. And that’s impossible.”

Now Beth was a believer when she was a small child of eight. Her father led her to the Lord. She knew the books of the Bible by heart, from Genesis to Revelation. She knew the stories about Jesus. And she knew that I couldn’t possibly have been there when he did these things.

I thought about what she said, and I said, “Beth, you’re right. I wasn’t there. I didn’t see Jesus feeding the five thousand people. But Mark was there, and he saw it, and he is writing what he saw.”

And Beth looked at me, and said, “Do you mean to tell me that Mark was a real person? Mark saw Jesus?”

I said, “Of course he was a real person!”

And then she said, “What about Matthew? Was he real too?” And Luke? And John? They were real people? They saw Jesus?” And I said, “Of course they were.”

She said, “I thought we were just translating what you heard about Jesus, or what somebody told you. I didn’t realize we were translating eye-witness accounts.”

And I said, "Yes, we are! And we don’t want to get anything wrong.”

And she took that story and said, “We’ve got a lot of work to do on this!”

That day our translation work was revolutionized.

Another time we were working together on a passage of Scripture, and it had to do with sharing your faith. I said, “Beth, have you ever shared your faith with your husband Robert?” And she said, “No.”

I said, “Why not?”

She said, “Well my father told me about Jesus when I was a little girl, and I guess nobody ever told Robert.”

So I said, “Beth, did you ever think that you’re the closest person to Robert, to be able to tell him about Jesus Christ?”

And I drew two arrows on a piece of paper. I said, “Beth, it’s like you're going this way and Robert’s going that way. Don’t you want to both be going in the same direction?” She said, “Of course! I never looked at it that way!”

Well, Beth takes off; she runs home, goes up to her husband and says, “Robert! I’m going to heaven, but you're going to hell!”

Robert said, “I am? How come?” And she said, “Because you don't know Jesus as your Savior, and your sins have never been forgiven.” And Robert said, “How do I get to know Jesus as my savior? How do I get my sins forgiven?”

And she began telling him about the love of God through Jesus Christ that night. When she told me the story later, she said, “Jackie, you should have seen us. Robert’s there crying, and I’m crying because he’s crying, but the thing that really broke my heart was when my husband said to me, “Beth, I’ve been married to you for six years. How come you're just telling me this now?”

That night Robert gave his life to Jesus Christ. Robert had a lifestyle that was displeasing to God, but he stopped it immediately, and began worshiping in the church together with other believers.

Beth told me, “Every night now we pray together before bed, and we read the Scriptures.”

But they’re reading the English scriptures. What are they getting out of it? I don’t know.

Maybe you’re wondering whatever happened to Akai. Well, we continued our little game. “Akai, are you ready to hear about my friend Jesus?” “I’ve got my own religion.” We did that for years, and one day, Akai came to the house to return something she had borrowed.

Normally we would chat awhile, and she would go home. But this particular day she kind of hung around. I remember I was really busy, so after we chatted I went and sat down in the office, and continued doing some work. Akai kind of walked around. She came into the office and I heard her mumbling, “How come you didn’t ask me?”

I thought I had misunderstood “What did you say?”

“How come you didn’t ask me what you always ask me?”

I wanted to hear her say it. I said, “What is that?”

She said, “You know, about your friend Jesus.”

And I said, “What about Jesus?”

She said, “I am ready to hear about your friend Jesus now.”

That night I began to share with her the story of how I came to know God through the love of Jesus Christ. I shared with Akai my story, and I asked her, “Akai, are you ready to have Jesus as your special friend, like I do?"

And Akai said, "Couldn’t I know him tomorrow?"

We had just translated a passage from the book of James that says your life is just like a vapor, a puff of smoke. You might not even be alive tomorrow.

Akai read that in Kagayanen and said, "Okay, okay! I’m ready to know him now."

And she prayed the sweetest prayer that night, just asked the Lord to be her special friend, to forgive her for her sins, and gave her life to the Lord.

Then she goes home, tells two other servants in the house where she was working, and they too accepted Christ, and are worshiping with the believers there on that island today.

But you know, it isn't always easy like that. There are a lot of misunderstandings about why we do what we’re doing. I can still remember the time a group of ladies came up to us and said, "We know why you’ve come here to our place: there are no more eligible men left in America to marry! So you came here to marry our Kagayanen men."

Another group once told us, “You probably came to our place because you know now what we’ve known: that our language is the most important language in the whole world. Now you’re going to learn it, and then you’re going to go back to America and teach all the Americans how to speak Kagayanen. Then you’re going to translate books and take Kagayanen books and sell them there in America, and make money.

There are other misunderstandings, and you know, sometimes we’re really isolated in difficult locations, difficult to get into and difficult to get out of. Sometimes we have limited food, drinking water – where I am right now, the drinking water is limited, and I’m constantly getting kidney stones.

But those things seem pretty small when I hear what I heard when I came home this furlough, when a group of Kagayanen said to me, “When you go back to your other home, make sure you remember to thank those people who allowed you to come over here and help us by giving us God’s word in our language.

But what about you? I know that you have a story. Everybody has a story. What are you doing with your story? Have you experienced the love of God? If you have, what are you doing with it? Some of you are still standing on the corner, trying to convince the businessman, who has heard the gospel so many times, he’s had it up to here.

For some of you, your place in God’s fields is vacant today. I know because I’ve seen it. My colleagues and I try to fill it. Many of us have two, three, four, five different jobs besides our regular jobs. Why? Because there are not enough people to do all the work that needs to be done.

But if you know God’s love, I’m going to challenge you to love him back, and obey him with your life. Then, come on over and help us. We need you. We’re waiting for you. We’re praying for you too. God bless you.

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Love, Our Motivation (1996)

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December 27-31, 2009