Introduction from Jessie Wright, Missionary to Papua New Guinea

Dear WSLCC Family,

Thanks so much for all of your love, prayers, and support over the years. Having a church family supporting me located so close to my hometown means so much to me. For those who may have begun attending WSLCC more recently and who may not know me as well, here is a little about my background and work in Papua New Guinea. I grew up in Averill Park and graduated from the high school there before attending HVCC and then SUNY Albany. My grandparents, Ed and Beth Wright, started attending WSLCC, which at the time was Lake Avenue Community Church. When they moved to the area from Maine, I got connected to WSLCC through them.

How was I called into missions?

My parents were planning on serving in overseas missions through mission aviation. However, God ended up directing them a different way. But they never lost their heart for missions, so my mom used to read missionary stories to my brothers and me on our way to and from church. I always thought I would love to be a missionary someday but did not think I had the gifting for it because I was shy, awkward around people, and terrified of them too! But when we read several Wycliffe books about missionaries who translated the Bible, I thought, maybe that was something I could do.

But nothing came of that until much later when I was in my mid-twenties. By then I had graduated from college with an accounting degree and had worked as an auditor for four years. At this point in my life, I had finished school, gotten a degree, had my own apartment, and had a great job with good benefits. Except for a boyfriend/husband, I had obtained everything we are told we are supposed to be striving for in life, and yet I felt completely unfulfilled and empty. So, I decided to take a good hard look at my life and goals in order to figure out the reason for my unfulfilled feelings. I soon began to realize that everything I was striving for in life was because the church had told me that those were things I should be striving for. In particular, the church had told me that as a Christian woman, I was supposed to be a wife and mother. While both of those things are excellent pursuits, since graduating and getting a job there was nothing at all happening in that department. As a result, I realized that I had been subconsciously putting my life on hold for the past four years, thinking that my life as true Christian woman could not really start until I was in a relationship. Since that was not happening, I was left feeling purposeless and empty, wondering what the point of my life was.

As I kept digging into the cause of my emptiness, I also realized that although I had thought I was striving for what God wanted me to do with my life, in reality, I was just doing what the church had told me God wanted for my life. And it struck me that I had never actually asked God Himself what He wanted me to do with my life. And so, I decided to stop allowing the church to be a go-between between God and myself and ask God directly what he wanted for me.

However, I ran into a slight obstacle. If I was going to ask God what He wanted me to do with my life, I needed to be ready to follow whatever it was He had for me. This thought scared the pants off me! What if He asked me to do something I truly hated, or something I could not do, something I was too afraid to do, or something I did not have the gifting or ability to do? “But is this really the kind of God that I serve?” I asked myself, “One that sits up in heaven and asks us to do the impossible and then laughs at us when we cannot do it?” What kind of sadistic view of God did I have? Or do I serve a God who deeply loves me beyond any love I could ever imagine?

Was He not a God who would never ask me to do something I could not do without providing the means to do it through Him? Not just the means to do it, but the means to thrive and succeed at it? And what if He did ask me to go through some hard times? If He really was a God that loved me as deeply as the Bible said, then would He not only ask me to go through those hard times for my own benefit so that I would be more and more like the woman God called me to be? And would He not use those times to draw me close to Him so that through those experiences I could come alongside others and show them God’s incomprehensible love through me? Could I ask for anything more than to be used by God in such an amazing way?

Surrendering does not necessarily mean that He would ask me to give up those dreams since oftentimes it is God himself who plants those dreams in us in the first place. But what it meant was that I needed to be willing to turn control of those dreams over to Him. I went ahead and decided to take God at His Word and surrendered all my hopes, goals, and dreams to Him, knowing that I would need to give up those dreams and hopes if that were what He would ask of me. Is that not better than having the weight of the responsibilities of those dreams on my shoulders anyway? How freeing it was to put the responsibility of leadership on Him who knows what truly will give me peace, joy, happiness, and fulfillment, better than I could ever know myself.

With these thoughts in mind, I gave control of my life goals to God, knowing that whatever He asks of me, be it smart, great, easy or hard, I would be fulfilled and at peace, knowing I would be in His will, fulfilling the perfect plan that He has for my life before He created me, His beloved child.

And so began my journey into missions. Once I turned over all control to God, He began guiding me towards Bible translation in Papua New Guinea (PNG) with Wycliffe Bible Translators, fulfilling the seed He had planted in my heart so long ago as a child listening to my mother read those missionary stories.

Long-term goals for my work in PNG:

I currently work with the Tiaang language group, one of the 800+ language groups that are in PNG. My translation partner Rebekah Drew and I divide our work with the Tianng people into three broad categories: literacy, Bible translation, and scripture engagement. Over the next 20 to 20 years, we hope to work with the Tianng People to practically expand and implement each of these categories in the following ways.

Literacy:

• Finalize the creation of the Tiaang alphabet.
• Teach the local elementary school teacher how to teach the children how to read and write in Tiaang using their own Tiaang alphabet.
• Implement adult literacy classes

Bible Translation:

• Complete the translation of the New Testament into Tiaang.
• Train and mentor the local Tiaang Translators so they can continue with the translation of the Old Testament when we retire and become mentors of other PNG language groups as they endeavor to create their own Bible Translation Projects.
• Build a Tiaang Bible Translation Center/Office where Bible translation can occur with the needed accouterments such as a table, chairs, electricity, printers, and the like.

Scripture Engagement:

• Teach the Tiaang people how to engage with their newly translated Scripture through Bible Study, personal devotions, group devotions, Scripture memorization competitions and the like.
• Hold basic and more advanced Bible knowledge classes and training for the layperson and the pastors.
• Teach local pastors how to read and understand their Tiaang Bibles and how to do proper exegesis when preparing a sermon.

Short-term goals for my work in PNG:

• Initiate and complete the construction of the Tiaang Bible Translation Center/Office in the Tiaang language area by the end of 2023.
• Finalize the Tiaang alphabet.
• Help our Tiaang translators finish their translation homework from the Initial Bible Translation Training Course they took so we can pick a book of the Bible to start translating.
• Finish translating the remaining 100 hymns for the hymn book.
• Initiate a schedule of yearly or bi-yearly scripture engagement workshops

What are the best things that you can be praying for me and my ministry on an ongoing basis?

• Consistency in schedules. The PNG culture is not very time-oriented, so creating and sticking to a schedule is challenging for our Tiaang colleagues.
• Growing maturity and leadership among the younger members of the Tiaang Translation Team.
• Remembering to let God lead and for us to follow.
• Protection against Satan’s attacks as he tries to thwart God’s work.
• Unity and knowledge as we lead/co-lead the project and mentor our coworkers