Translating The Gospel

Welcome back to the program.

This is Peter Rosenberger. We're glad that you're with us. Hopeforthecaregiver.com. Forty-one years ago this month, I met two very special people. We were all freshmen at Columbia Bible College in Columbia, South Carolina.

Now it's called Columbia International University. And that's John and Cindy Hampshire. They've gone on to have an amazing ministerial career in missions with Wycliffe Bible Translators, and they are in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Did I get that right, John?

That's right. And with your indulgence, I'd like to depart a little bit from our caregiving scenarios and our caregiver issues and talk about missions, global missions. And one of the reasons I'm having John and Cindy on today is when people ask me a lot, what do you do? And I said, well, you ever heard of Wycliffe Bible Translators?

They said, yeah. And I said, well, I kind of do that for caregivers. I help them understand the gospel in a way that caregivers can process it. And John and Cindy have been a model for me because that's what they do with Wycliffe Bible Translators.

And I thought, well, instead of just always making comparisons, why don't I have the real deal on here? So we set up a Zoom call, and it's great to be able to see you guys and have you on the program. And John, after all these years, other than the white hair, you really haven't changed very much. You look great. And it's just a treat to have you both here.

Thanks, Peter. It's great to join you, and I appreciate the invitation to share with you today. Cindy and I have been with Wycliffe for about 34 years. We joined Wycliffe Bible Translators right after Bible College. And the Lord led us to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, what was then Zaire. It used to be called Zaire.

But through a series of insecurities and wars, they changed the name in the 90s, and we work in the Congo. And we have a deep joy to be here. Our desire, really, is to see lives transformed by an understanding of God's Word. And we recognize that there are many, many languages here in the Congo. People speak French, and people speak Swahili, and there are Bibles in French, and there are Bibles in Swahili. But until they really have God's Word in the language of their hearts, their mother tongues, they don't really have a deep understanding of scriptures.

And so that's why we're here. We're here to help them have those scriptures in their heart languages, in their mother tongues. When you show up on the field to do this, what does that look like? I mean, walk us through because this is a huge journey to be able to translate scriptures like this.

And what does that look like when you show up on the mission field? When we showed up 30 years ago in the Congo in 1992, things looked a little differently for us then. There were different—one family worked in one language project and could be there for the life of the language project. They had to analyze the language, figure out how it works, because the language wasn't written down. These languages aren't written down, so we've got to figure out what letters they're going to use in their alphabet, their orthography, before we can ever start translating. And then we start into translation.

That was 30 years ago. These days, all of the Bible translation work that's being done here in the Congo is being done by Congolese. And we are coming alongside and training them and equipping them and providing computers for them and searching for funds for them and prayer support.

And so really we're supporting our Congolese brothers and sisters in the work that they're doing. There are 200 languages in the Congo, just in our country, 200 languages. And right now we're working in about 50 of those languages at various stages. Some of those are still developing the language and writing it down. Others are into Bible translation. Others are doing literacy work or a combination of Bible translation and literacy work to teach the people to read and write.

We also do audio recordings so that people can have the scriptures available on their smartphones, and they can listen to them because we recognize that not everybody is going to learn to read and write, but people can listen to the scriptures in their heart languages. And so, yeah, it's a huge task before us, but we work with our Congolese brothers and sisters in partnership with them and the churches, and that's how things are getting done here. In relative size-wise, how big is the Congo? Give me a perspective like in the United States.

How big would the condo fit? Well, if you take the continental United States, the Congo is as big as the United States east of the Mississippi River. So if you take the Mississippi River and cut the country, the Congo would fit in the eastern part, everything east of the Mississippi River. That's how big the Congo is. Most of it's rainforest.

Where we used to live in a village location, it rained 11 months of the year because we lived in the rainforest. We don't live in that location. Now we're in a town that's a little more temperate, but the Congo is a vast country, a big country with very little food, very little infrastructure. There's a lot of issues and security issues here, and it's been like that for decades, and so there are many challenges to the work here.

But we've got really committed Congolese brothers and sisters, Congolese Christians who are really committed to the task just as much as we are and really want to see God's Word available in their heart languages. Do you ever find yourself in a place where you guys don't feel secure, that you've been in very dangerous situations? We have been in very dangerous situations.

We've had to leave the country. But I always tell people the safest place for us to be is in the center of God's will. That doesn't mean an absence of danger or an absence of death even. We could lose our lives. But I define safety differently. Safety to me is knowing you are where God wants you and nothing's going to happen to you that He doesn't know about and He doesn't allow, and so we're safe. We're safe in His will. He wants us here. It can be a dangerous place.

We just rely on Him for our welfare, and we trust His plan for our lives. That's a message that I've been talking to this audience about, is learning that we can be safe and free and even joyful in the midst of very harsh circumstances. You and Cindy have had that journey. What was it like when you guys had to evacuate? You had your kids over there. When the kids looked at you, you looked at them.

You looked at Cindy. What was that like for you to have to evacuate, to flee, because it was dangerous? Yeah, lots of questions came up. God, what are you doing? We've got to leave the country that we thought you were sending us to. Questions and concerns and a sense of loss of the ministry, because we had to go to Kenya for 12 years and live there while it was insecure here, and yet you just have to keep trusting in the Lord and His plan.

He allowed the work here to continue, and in some ways it caused the Congolese brothers and sisters to take up more responsibility and more ownership of the work when the expats had to leave. And so, yeah, it was a scary time. It was a hard time. We literally lost everything we owned here, but God provided.

He's just a Jehovah Jireh. He provided everything we need through friends and churches and supporters, and we never lacked for anything. So it could be a scary time, but when we trusted God, He was there with us every step of the way. Are the Congolese people, have you found them to be very receptive to you through this process? They are, and in fact, this is a very open country. It's not like some of the closed countries where work is going on, where missions work is going on, but it's very open here. We are invited in by the churches to help them do the Bible translation work.

So we're here at their invitation. We find that Congolese people overall are very friendly, very receptive, very hospitable, very personable, and so we're welcomed here and we have a lot of friends here. We worked in Ghana, we still do, but over there and we found a lot of the same things that they were very receptive. We worked with their government to teach and train with prosthetics. And we found that I have not, I've had people reach out from Congo to do prosthetics, but we haven't had an infrastructure there, but I have one now because of you.

And so hopefully we can work that out. I have treated patients from Kenya. We had our first patient from Kenya this year. I got to brush up on my Swahili. Let me see if I do okay with it. Zooty Abadagani. Yes, my Zooty sauna.

Now, where were you Jay? That's about all I got. That's all I got. So how many languages do you speak? All of our business at the office is in French. So we speak French because French is the official language of the country being a former Belgian colony. But then Cindy and I also speak Swahili.

We find a lot of our workers, the guard staff at the office, they don't speak French that well. They prefer Swahili. So we use Swahili with them. We speak French and Congolese Swahili. Do all your children speak the same French and Swahili? No, because our boys grew up, you know, they were both born in Kenya and lived there until we moved back to the States. Our girls speak some French. They know a little bit of Swahili, but they speak more French. And our one daughter lived in France and worked as an au pair for a year.

And so both are, and Burundi as well. So both our daughters speak some French. Well, I remember you being a lot better student than I was, John. And Cindy was a lot better student than both of us put together.

I got by by the skin in my teeth and on Cindy's coat tails. I graduated, thank you, Lawdy. But I'm not from Columbia. I ended up leaving there several years into it, ended up getting a degree in music, but I cherish my time. I wish I'd been a little bit better student while I was there. And because we had the benefit, we benefited from some great teachers, didn't we?

We did. And you may wish that you were a better student, Peter, but I appreciated your music ministry at Columbia. I remember going into a shortest chapel and it being dark in there and you'd just be in there playing the piano. And it was from time to time. And that was a real ministry to me. You could see the joy in your life playing the piano before no crowd at all in a dark shortest chapel auditorium. So I think a lot of good came out of Columbia despite ourselves.

Well, I'm counting on it. And thank you for remembering that about playing the piano there. I love those times. They had a beautiful nine foot Steinway there in the chapel.

So enjoy being able to go there and play. And I didn't know you were listening. So thank you for that memory. I'm talking with my friends, John and Cindy Hampshire.

They're missionaries with Wycliffe Bible Translators in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Cindy's not on camera, but I know she's listening and she'll chime in if I say something goofy. Cindy and I always had to sit by each other in class when they had any type of attendance because her maiden name was Reinsberger. So I got to know Cindy quite well. I think you two started dating the first week of school.

The first week you met each other. And you're such a wonderful couple. You inspire me. You encourage me. You strengthen my faith. I know you're strengthening this audience's faith. This is why we're talking about this today. This is Peter Rosenberger. This is Hope for the Caregiver.

We'll be right back. Do you know what a PVA bag is? I'm Peter Rosenberger and at Standing with Hope, which is the presenting sponsor of Hope for the Caregiver, we do prosthetics for amputees over in West Africa. We've been working with Ghana for years, since 2005.

This was Gracie's vision after losing both of her legs. And we help them buy a lot of material for the prosthetic clinics. In exchange, we get to share the gospel with individuals and be able to present the gospel, not only with the patients, but their families and the community and even the nation. We've done national interviews with many of their public officials, including their vice president and the US ambassador to Ghana. But PVA bags, polyvinyl alcohol bags, they're using the lamination process to make these sockets that we make. They're brand new.

They're custom fit on site. And we purchased them in Ghana. Right now they're out and we need to get some more so we make some more legs. We also need resin. We're always buying resin because that's one of the critical items in these acrylic resin sockets that we make. Now we'll recycle the prosthetic limbs.

They come from all over the country to a prison run by CoreCivic down in Arizona. And inmates volunteer to disassemble them for us so we can recycle the knees, the feet, the pylons, the screws, the adapters, the clamps, all that kind of stuff. But some things we have to purchase.

PVA bags and resin are two of those items that need to be regularly purchased. Would you help us out with that, please? StandingWithHope.com slash giving. StandingWithHope.com slash giving. And be a part of giving the gift that keeps on walking. StandingWithHope.com slash giving.

Thanks so much. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver. This is Peter Rozenberger. This is the program for you as a family caregiver. Hopeforthecaregiver.com. We're talking with John Hampshire.

He's over the Democratic Republic of Congo with Wycliffe Bible Translators. He and his wife, Cindy, I've known them for a long time, knew them when they first started dating. I have admired their work from a distance and been negligent to have them on the program. And I'm trying to right a wrong now and have them here because I think what they're doing is so important. And it's also very personally meaningful to me. I've modeled a lot of what I do for the family caregiver after their work. John, I do read your stuff by the way, and I do pay attention to what you do.

Don't tell anybody. And what I've done is I've understood that I've had to immerse myself in this world. And then I've had to learn the heart issues that go on with the caregiver before I can even speak to my fellow caregivers.

I've had to do this. And with Bible translation, you don't just show up to people you've never met before and start translating the Bible to their language. You've got to spend time with them.

You've got to understand their history, their culture, what's going on in their heart to be able to explain it. But you have to also be walking with the Lord in such a way that you're going to get insights into this from scripture. John, what has surprised you the most about going into a culture that you, you know, stepping out and stepping off the plane and literally going into a culture like this and you're entrusted with the word of God to speak to these people? I mean, that's got to be a tremendous responsibility. I know it almost kind of makes the thought of it makes my knees quiver a little bit to think about the responsibility of that. What goes on in your heart and your mind with that?

Yeah, that's a great question. And it makes me need to be vulnerable for a second. Yeah, it's an important task and a significant ministry. But I discovered 30 years ago when we first arrived here, I think I was ready to do the Bible translation work. I was trained. I had four years of Bible college.

I had a year of linguistics and translation training and phonology and all of that kind of training. But I didn't really have a love for the Congolese people at that point. You know, you're not just going to automatically start loving people you work with.

At least that's what I found. And I had to pray, Lord, just give me a real love and a real heart for these people so that what I'm doing is genuine and something that I want to do and something that will be significant for these people, not just because it's a job work for me to do, but because I love them and because the Lord has asked me to come here. He's commissioned me basically to come here and do this. And God did that. God gave me a love for the Congolese people. And Cindy has a love for the Congolese people as well. And so we discovered that, you know, you can have all let me say I personally discovered you can have all of the training and all of the know how.

But if your heart really isn't in it, it's really tough. And the Lord gave me a love for these people. We just have so much joy to be here. And they're friends of ours.

They're not just, you know, a ministry. But these are genuine close friends that we're working with when we some year do leave here. It'll be tough.

It'll be tough to leave our friends because of God's given us a love for them. You and said he'd been married now 38 years, 36, 37 years, 37. We just had our 36th anniversary this last week.

And, you know, your whole life has been spent in this journey. What has that done for the two of you all that you know, you've been in a place where you've had to kind of lean on each other in ways that maybe a lot of couples don't don't have to experience. Cindy, you're welcome to weigh in on this, by the way.

I'm giving her the eye and asking her to come and weigh in on it. I think the Lord draws us closer to each other every year. And to him, you know, Cindy is my best friend and has been since I met her. And in this we've discovered in this ministry, you know, it's really it's really good to be friends, because you spend a lot of time together. And the Lord has just, you know, drawn us closer to each other and to him, you know, through the 37 years that we've been married. So some people may sound cheesy, but it's really No, it doesn't.

It doesn't sound cheesy. So some people say no way could they work, you know, with their husband or their wife. But we are together all the time we work together.

So even the code thing where everybody had to stay in and people had to stay with in close quarters. Oh, we do that all the time. Anyway, it was no big deal for us because we do work very closely with one another. And we're grateful that we can do that, that we've had that these years. And so we're a team. We do a lot together, even our letters that we write and send out, we do that as a team.

We do have to spend time apart, we did spend 31 or two days in separate countries this summer on part of the plan part not. And, you know, so we do not, we do have some time to apart, but we're grateful that we're a team. Now, do you teach a lot as well as translate? Are you preaching, you're teaching, you know, what does an average day look like for you guys? We were trained to be translators, linguists and literacy workers.

And we did actually that for a very short amount of time. And I was drawn into administration. So I've started I've been in administration, I'm the branch director. And I've done various admin jobs over the years.

But right now I'm the branch director. Cindy is our bookkeeper. So she works with numbers all day long. She's our finance person. And she was a better student than both of us.

I do recall that very well. She's training and mentoring Congolese people to do bookkeeping work and working with financial reports and things like that. I'm also mentoring Congolese in various aspects of leadership and administration.

And so we do consider ourselves teachers, trainers, mentors, but we both really have admin jobs and have for a long time. There are a lot of folks right now that are searching out what God would have them do for their lives. And as they think about the mission field, a lot has changed on the mission field from when you guys started to where you are now.

We couldn't even have this kind of conversation many years ago when you first started. But what were your first thoughts you would share with anybody that's considering mission work like what you do, whether it's Bible translated, whether it's medical missions or whatever, what are some thoughts that you would offer to them? I think I would say this, Peter. When I was at Bible college, we had a chapel speaker who challenged us to be ready to follow God, to obey God anytime, anywhere, and in any capacity or any place.

And that's the most important thing. Once you make that decision, I'm going to follow you, God. Whenever you tell me to go, whether it's today, tomorrow or next year or to stay here, I'm going to follow you anywhere. So even if it's to a country like Zaire back in the 90s, that was in bad shape.

And I'm going to do whatever you want me to do. And if you come to that decision and really make that commitment, then everything else just sort of falls into place. You know, I've seen people make lists of pros and cons, you know, pros and cons of coming to work in the Congo. This is all the things that are for going there. And these are all the things that are against going there.

And now I'm going to weigh those things out. Well, you can do that, I guess. But I think really the key is just being open and obedient to God's leading. It's a very simple message. Trust and obey. It's a message that, you know, Cindy and I have tried to follow for years. It's very simple. It sounds simplistic, but it's really very profound.

If you trust God and obey Him, then, you know, He leads and He guides and He opens doors and He closes doors and He tells you where He wants you to be. You know, I've been doing a whole series of things. Um, every time I do one of the programs and I do 25 hymns that every Christian ought to know, because we've gotten away from the hymns so much in our churches, of course, you and I were spoiled. And we got to sit in there and chapel with a thousand people singing full throated of a, and you and Cindy of course, traveled with the choir and so forth. And we, I missed that a lot.

And that's a, I may have to step over here to the caregiver keyboard. But I love that hymn. When we walk in the light of His word, what a glory He sheds on our way. While we do His good will, He abideth, He abides with us still.

I don't have my glasses on John. And with all who will trust and obey. And with all who will trust and obey. Trust and obey for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.

That is a simple message, but it's really profound. Do the Congolese people like to sing these hymns? They do. Um, there's a, there's a Congolese style of music as well. And sometimes they put these hymns to that style of music. Uh, but they do this and they do sing some of the old hymns. Um, they also sing the praise songs.

Congolese are great musicians. They love to sing. They love to dance when they sing. They don't stand still when they sing. And uh, they're, they're very musical people. Um, I'm mentally trying to picture you dancing with them. Yeah, I don't dance so much.

I'm not, I'm not so sure that's a visual I'm prepared for, John. And, uh, when they sing what in their own language, you know, is there, is there a great passion for these things when they, when they do these? Yes, it takes on a whole different demeanor when they're singing in their heart language. And there are songs, they write songs for their own languages, uh, and then they develop hymn books and we've had hymn books printed of script of songs that they've written in their mother tongues. They're a lot different than when they sing the French and the Swahili.

I mean, they get into the French and the Swahili songs too, but when they sing in their mother tongue, it's a whole new ball game. You know, I've witnessed that in Ghana when we've gone over there in West Africa many times, and it's so beautiful to see the exuberance and the worship and to listen to it without the encumbrance of Western style, just to watch, just to observe. And I think it's a picture of how we're all called to be able to worship Christ, that we can worship Him in spirit and truth. And for me as a caregiver and for this audience, one of the things I try to do is help us to understand what it's like to do this in our own language.

You know, as caregivers in the midst of our heartache to express ourselves, to be able to have that freedom without the encumbrance of what other people think we might ought to do. And it's again, another picture of the greater body of Christ that John, you and Cindy continue to inspire me to understand. You just bring these wonderful illustrations. So I thank you for that. I'm talking with John and Cindy Hampshire.

They are with Wycliffe Bible translators in the Democratic Republic of Congo. We've got more to go. One more segment here and I want to ask him a few more questions while I got him. This is Peter Rosenberger.

We'll be right back. I'm Peter Rosenberger and many years ago when my wife Gracie became a double amputee, she saw the importance of quality prosthetics. She saw the importance of a support team and people that could help her regain her life after losing both legs. And she had this vision of creating an organization that would help others do the very same thing while pointing them to Christ.

And for more than 17 years, we've been doing just that. We purchase supplies, we send equipment and we train and we send teams over to West Africa. We've been working with the country of Ghana, several clinics over there now. And each week more people walk because of Gracie's vision. In 2011, we launched a new program outreach to family caregivers. Drawing on my now 36 plus years as Gracie's caregiver through a medical nightmare, I offer insights I've learned all of it the hard way to fellow caregivers to help them stay strong and healthy while taking care of someone who is not. If you want to be a part of this, go out to standingwithhope.com slash giving, standingwithhope.com slash giving to help us do more. At Standing with Hope, we're reaching the wounded and those who care for them. Standingwithhope.com slash giving. Take my hand, lean on me, we will stand.

Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver. This is Peter Rosenberger. That is the incomparable C.C. Winans singing one of the 25 songs that every Christian ought to know. Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine. A lady that wrote the tune for that came to Fanny Crosby and said, I've got this tune I've been working on.

Do you have a text for it? And as the story goes, 15 minutes later, they had this hymn, blessed assurance, Jesus is mine. It's a great hymn. We're talking with my longtime friends, John and Cindy Hampshire. They are with Wycliffe Bible Translators in the Democratic Republic of Congo. And the reason I wanted to spend some time with them today is for twofold really, because I really enjoy what they do. I enjoy their work and their ministry. And I also want to introduce them to you all and to explore what's going on around the world with Christians and the kingdom of God, how we can draw strength from the stories of others. Sometimes as caregivers, we kind of get locked in our own little bubbles and I want to be able to expand our horizons a bit and see what's going on on a worldwide level, a global level through the kingdom of God. John, not too long ago, I was watching a lot of documentaries.

I like to watch them. And I watched the documentary on John Wycliffe. And I was struck by all that was happening during the reformation when we had such biblical illiteracy. It's astonishing to know that John Wycliffe's body was exhumed. His bones were exhumed 38 years after he died and they were burned.

His bones were burned in the castle to see, you know, all the story gets in the river because they were so angry with him for translating the Bible. And I look at today's world. And one of the things that I think is really heartbreaking is that we have so much available, available to us on our smartphones. And yet biblical illiteracy is still a massive problem. Whereas we have it, but we're not processing it into our hearts. You are there every day doing this and you've been doing it for your entire career. Talk a little bit about the word of God as it as you translate it and the look when you see people understand a concept that you've explained now in their language and they could see it and read it and hear it in their language.

Talk about what that does to you and the passion you have for this and Wycliffe in general. Yeah, OK, the when we see people and we have seen people hear scriptures for the first time in their language, I can give you an example. Cindy and I, when we worked in translation, when we first got to Africa in the early 90s, the first translation that we did was Luke Chapter two, because it was right before Christmas and we wanted to have this available to us during the Christmas season and for the Christmas service.

And I remember that during the Christmas Christmas Day, they had a church service and several of us read portions from Luke Chapter two. Cindy, I probably butchered butchered the language, the language, but people understood. And when they started to understand, wait a minute, this isn't French, this isn't Swahili, this is my language.

It was like the light bulb, the light bulbs went on. They could they had an understanding of it that they have never had before. And they had these huge smiles on their faces and their whole demeanor changed because here they're understanding scripture that they've read many times. They've heard the story of the birth of Christ many times read in French or Swahili. But when they heard it in their own language, it's like Jesus speaks their language, too. And in fact, he speaks all 7000 languages that are spoken in the world. And that's just amazing.

It's astounding. biblical illiteracy is a big problem here in the Congo as well. And it's, it's why we're here. And even if we translated scripture helped the Congolese have translated scripture, even if it was just for the church leaders and pastors to have it so that they could use it when they preach, it would be worth it. But in fact, when we do translate scriptures, one of the first things we do is put it in audio form, we work with partners, other partners who do this, we put it in an audio form, record it so that they can have it on their smartphones.

Because Congolese, no matter how poor they are, many of them will have a smartphone. And they can have scriptures in their language on their phones that they can listen to. And so we're trying to combat that biblical illiteracy in several different ways. And I think we're finding success with that because we're seeing people for the first time, hearing scripture in their own language and having a new understanding. What is a biblical concept? You know, things like covenant and atonement or things like that.

What is a biblical concept that really seems to more than any others resonate with the people that you're reaching? The first thing that comes to my mind would be grace. We know a lot of people whose names are grace.

So it's an important thing. Names are important here. We know I'm married a woman named Grace.

Yes, you do. And we have men and women whose names are grace. And it's an important concept here. You hear a lot of messages about God's grace. And I think it's because people see that there's such depravity in this country, such moral failure on every level. And yet God's grace can reach anyone. And, you know, from the lowest functionary right up to the president, God's grace is powerful and can reach people. So that's one concept. By the way, you're describing America too, by the way.

There are times when we're glad we are here in the Democratic Republic of Congo and not there. I can understand that. I can understand it. I think that's one of the concepts in scripture that people talk about a lot. It resonates with them and it reaches them to know that there is a God whose grace is deep and powerful. You know, if you ever played that song by Andre Crouch, the blood will never lose its power.

Let me step over to the caregiver keyboard here. It reaches to the highest mountain that flows to the lowest valley. I love that song.

It will never lose its power. That's what I was thinking about when you said that, because that is, that's a beautiful concept that the human soul, no matter what country, no matter what language you speak, to that grace, because I think we're built to understand grace through the power of the Holy Spirit. When we hear it and particularly hear it in our own language, realize that grace is there for me.

Mercy there was great and grace was free. That's got to be deeply meaningful to you and Cindy both to see the looks on their face light up. Tell a little bit more about Wycliffe, what the organization is about, its history, and then how people can get in touch with you. OK. Yeah, Wycliffe has been around since the mid 1930s, about 80 years, I think. I heard Cindy correct you. Yeah.

That happens from time to time. Wycliffe has been around for 80 years, according to my wife. You know, over the years, we've evolved our ways of working.

They've evolved and they've changed. And Wycliffe now is working in many, many countries around the world. There's a whole global, what we call global alliance of Wycliffe organizations. In many of those countries, including the DRC, the Congo, where we work, our goal really is working in partnership.

With other organizations, with churches, with whoever wants to work with us to see the scriptures in local languages. And another big push of ours is training and equipping local citizens. Not that we want to work ourselves out of a job. We feel like God wants us here. So we still want to be here, but we want to work with them and we want to pass on our skills and they actually pass on their skills as well.

It's kind of a reciprocal thing. So we're really training and equipping Congolese to do the work. And they're doing most of the translation work that's taking place here.

So those are some of the changes over the years in Wycliffe. If people want to get in touch with you, what's the best way to do that? If they want to send an email or if they want to be a part of sponsoring you guys and supporting what you do, what's the best way for them to do that? Really the easiest thing is to go to Wycliffe.org and you can search for missionaries and you can search for us, John of Cindy Hampshire, and find information about us on there. You'll see what we do and where we work and things like that. So Wycliffe.org is our website. And that's Wycliffe, W-Y. It's not W-I, it's W-Y.

Right. W-Y-C-L-I-F-F-E dot O-R-G. John, I got to tell you, this has been a remarkable time to have with you guys the fact that we're able to do this at all. When we were in chapel together and listened to people coming home from the mission field and so forth, none of this was available.

I mean, a phone call was exorbitant to make. And people, I remember the old days when we would make, missionaries and their families would make cassette tapes of audio just so they could hear each other's voices. And here we are.

Yeah, you did. Because when you started off in the 80s, that's what it was. And here we are able to do this live and see each other. And I'm very grateful for this. And I'm very moved by what you and Cindy do and your whole family. And you've been an inspiration to me for a long time. And I'm very tardy at bringing you onto this program, but it will not be the last time.

And I want you to come back. Last thoughts, just on a heart level of where you see the Lord taking you in about the next 30 seconds here. If you see, where does the Lord have you going next? We get asked that question often at our age, which is just about 60-ish. And our answer is we don't know. We don't know how long we're going to be here. We don't know how long God's going to have us here. We're here as long as He wants us to be here, unless, you know, He would have a reason to take us elsewhere or back to the States. Our children are in a good place, and we're mentoring other people to do the roles that we do if we should leave. But we'll be here as long as God wants us here. John and Cindy Hampshire in the Democratic Republic of Congo with Wycliffe Bible Translators, thank you for being a part of this program today. This is Peter Rosenberger. This is Hope for the Caregiver. Hopeforthecaregiver.com. We'll see you next time.