May/June 2015
19
Speaking he ang age
of he Hear
BY BRUCE WHEARTY
P
resbyterian World Mission sends mission co-
workers to more than 50 countries around the
world. These mission co-workers are expected to
demonstrate mastery of the local language appropriate to
their work, within the limits of their context, their length
of service and their job assignment.
This requirement is so basic to our understanding of
mission in partnership that local language skills are part of
the formal evaluation of mission personnel. Speaking the
native language is not listed in the area of "professional
competence" but is included as part of "serves as a credible
witness to the love of God in Jesus Christ."
Language is foundational to our work in spreading the
Good News in a cross cultural context. It is absolutely
vital that mission co-workers can speak to local people in
the language that touches their hearts. If the mission co-
worker doesn't already speak the local language, learning it
can play out in a variety of ways, depending on a mission
co-worker's particular context.
Learning the Language
Sometimes—as with a language commonly spoken in the
United States, such as Spanish—fluency can be built
into the qualifications for a particular assignment. Other
times, such as when mission co-workers need to learn
French for an assignment in the Democratic Republic of
Congo, they might be sent to France or Canada for sev-
eral months of language study.
If the language to be mastered isn't spoken widely out-
side the country, mission co-workers often go straight to
Jim
Dandy/SIS