God’s Spirit moved unexpectedly during an Easter Sunday service in a crowded church in Trinidad. As executive director for Wycliffe Caribbean, I would be away speaking in churches on most Sundays, but this time I had the weekend off and decided to attend a church a few blocks from my office. I had visited a few times and preached there once.

The usher seated me in the front pew, next to the pastor and his wife. After half an hour of rousing musical worship and celebration, the pastor introduced the special visiting speaker, the denomination’s president.

“But before our president brings the message,” he said, “I’d like to welcome our brother Jack from Wycliffe. Jack, please come up and bring a few words of greeting from Wycliffe.” Inviting visiting pastors or missionaries to say a few words is customary in many Caribbean churches, so I was not surprised. I took the microphone, knowing the pastor expected me to speak for at least five to ten minutes. I gave a two-minute update on Wycliffe Caribbean and the world of Bible translation. I continued, “This Easter morning I remember what happened the first time we spent Easter in the Canela village of Brazil.”

I then told a three-minute story about the Canela older men’s council arguing over how someone had died. Some insisted he had been executed. Others disagreed, saying he had been killed in a fight, “How else did he get holes in his hands and feet if he wasn’t grabbing and kicking at the spears?” Suddenly I realized they were talking about Jesus, His crucifixion and death!

As I prayed for an opportunity to speak, the chief called on me to join the group. “We’ve been hearing news from our Portuguese-speaking Brazilian neighbours,” he explained. “This week, everyone is mourning the death of a really important man, but we don’t understand what happened. Do you know anything about this?”

“Yes, I do!” I said and ran home to get the freshly translated story.

“Even though it was only a first draft translation, hearing the facts about Jesus’ death and resurrection made a long-lasting impact on the Canelas.”

That was the first time I publicly read the Easter story in Canela. Even though it was only a first draft translation, hearing the facts about Jesus’ death and resurrection made a long-lasting impact on the Canelas. It would be another fifteen years before we completed the translation project, and Christ established His Church among the Canela people.

“Hundreds of millions of people,” I told the congregation, “speak over 3,000 languages in which none of the Bible has yet been translated. It breaks my heart that right now, today, this very Easter Sunday morning, they are still just as confused about Easter as the Canelas were back in the early 1970s.”

I sat down, and the visiting speaker entered the pulpit. He opened his Bible, arranged his notes, looked over the congregation and said, “I sense I should allow some of you to respond to what you have just heard. Do you feel God wants you to give yourself to Him to act in whatever way He calls, to bring God’s Word to those who still don’t have it in their own languages? It may be that you are willing to go overseas personally or to pray or give as you have never prayed or given before. If you are ready to commit, come forward, and I’ll pray for you.”

One by one, men, women, young people and older folks got up and walked to the front and stood with bowed heads. After about twenty people had come, the pastor whispered to me, “I’ve never seen this before, come with me,” stood up and organized a line for people to be prayed for by the visiting speaker, by himself, by the chief elder and by me.

“The people kept coming. We kept laying our hands on them and praying.”

The people kept coming. We kept laying our hands on them and praying. When over half the congregation had come, received prayer, and had returned to their seats, nearly an hour had passed. The visiting speaker never did preach his sermon. He stood with tears in his eyes, asked everyone to rise, and gave the benediction.

Some months later, a Wycliffe team came to that church and ran a well-attended, in-depth workshop on how to get involved in Bible translation. The following year, Wycliffe Caribbean signed a ministry partnership agreement with that denomination, the largest one in that part of the Caribbean.

God is at work! Since I told that three-minute-long story seventeen years ago, Caribbean people have joined the worldwide movement to pray, donate and volunteer to serve overseas. People groups speaking hundreds of different languages have received God’s Word in their language for the first time. New Bible translation projects have been started and are ongoing in nearly one thousand languages! May God speed the day that not one person on earth remains confused about who Jesus is, why he died and what His resurrection means to them.

Jesus came, he died as our substitute, and he rose from the dead declaring victory over Satan. He is alive! Happy Easter!

You can read more of Jack’s stories and purchase his books at Jack’s INsights & OUTbursts

Want to give a gift full of Hope this Easter? Hope Connections is a collection of stories to inspire hope for all. Available at Amazon, and other retailers.