From Then Until Now
April 13, 2023 | Mary Jane Barrow
Forcey's first missionary
As we celebrate our 90th Anniversary this month, I am reminded that Forcey Bible Church has a rich legacy of worldwide outreach with the Gospel of Christ. In the 1940s, under mission-minded Pastor DeLoss Scott, the church began supporting its first missionary. Rosella Entz was a missions candidate with SIM (Sudan Interior Mission) when the church was in prayer for someone who needed support to go overseas in missions. By the end of the 1940s with Forcey’s support, Rosella was headed to Dahomey, W. Africa (present day Benin) where she served for over 2 decades. As part of a team, she helped translate several books of the Bible into the Baatonum language for the Bariba people. But initially she had a problem – writing by hand was time consuming and Rosella asked for a typewriter so she could work more efficiently. The Forcey Ladies Missionary Society took on the task and raised $55 ($686 in today’s money) to send a typewriter to Dahomey, Africa in April 1950. After translation of 2 Gospels and several of Paul’s letters, Rosella reported in the British edition of “The Sudan Witness”, July 1969, “I am thankful to say that with the Lord’s enabling – and in spite of the heat – we [working with Bariba pastors] were in due time able to complete translation of the Book of Acts.”
Today, the Baatonum speaking people have the entire Bible in their own language. Close to 150,000 (13%) of the Bariba are believers and they are no longer considered an unreached people group!
As Pastor Mike recently mentioned in his sermon on Acts 2, there are still thousands of unreached people groups (UPGs) and nearly half of the world’s languages have little or no Bible translation. FBC seeks to send workers to reach UPGs and is still supporting Bible translation. Three of our current missionaries, Joy & Bill Carrera (translators support), Brian Migliazza (translation oversight), and Alex Crum (IT) work with Wycliffe Bible Translators. None of these folks need a typewriter because the work has been simplified by computers. But the workers are still few… Perhaps this is an area where the Lord is calling you to serve.
-Mary Jane Barrow