Terry and Karla Smith
www.wycliffe.org

Partner Agency:  Wycliffe Bible Translators

Partner Contact Information: 
P.O. Box 628211
Orlando, FL 32862-8211
Personal correspondence:
Casilla 345
Huánuco, Perú
Telephone:  011-51-62-51-9746
E-mail:  terry_smith@sil.org

Asbury Mission Team Area:   Ends of the Earth

One of Asbury’s first strategic mission partnerships, Terry and Karla have been serving with Wycliffe Bible Translators in Peru for over 20 years.  They are working alongside native partners in the Panao region of the Andes Mountains to provide a Bible translation in Quechua Panao.  Since the inception of our partnership in 2004, Terry and Karla have shepherded numerous “Scripture-in-Use Workshop” teams from Asbury, modeling ways to reveal God’s loving heart to the people in that region, building relationships and teaching them the life-transforming Word of God in their own “heart language.”  Our hearts have been humbled and broken with love for our partners and the people they serve in Peru, allowing us to share incomparable experiences, shaping Asbury’s concepts and understanding of being on mission for Christ.

“As we translated the book of Hebrews for the Panao Quechua people, chapter 11 lost all of its punch; no one knew about the Old Testament ‘heroes of the faith.’  So we began writing a book to tell the heroes’ stores.  And since Hebrews 12 begins with, ‘Such a large crowd of witnesses is all around us!...So we much keep our eyes on Jesus, who leads and makes our faith complete,’ we titled the book, ‘Let’s imitate those who lived in God’s hands’…Thank you, Asbury UMC, for helping us publish this book to tell Panao Quechuas how God ‘gave his approval to people in days of old because of their faith.’”

“Are you called to be a speaker? Then speak as though God himself were speaking through you. Are you called to help others? Do it with all the strength and energy that God supplies…”—1 Peter 4:11

“The Apostle Paul writes of his willingness to undergo great suffering for the sake of proclaiming the Gospel.  The Asbury mission team members also suffer… in their own sense of success…God uses their weakness to empower the Panao Quechua people:  by overcoming the threat of shame, they are discovering the source of Life; by being loved by the gringos, they also get a sense of God’s loving heart.”

Missionaries, and all believers, if I understand 1 Peter 2:5 correctly, are given a priestly authority (part of the definition of being ordained).  “…for you are a chosen people. You are a kingdom of priests, God’s holy nation, his very own possession. This is so you can show others the goodness of God (missionary work!), for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.”