Jordan Monson on Katharine Barnwell-the greatest missionary you have never heard of
The Clarity Podcast presents a profound exploration of the life and contributions of Kathryn 'Katy' Barnwell, a missionary whose impact on global missions remains largely unrecognized. The episode features an enlightening conversation with Jordan, the author of a biography dedicated to Katy, who is heralded as one of the most influential yet under-appreciated figures in Christian mission's history. In this discussion, the host and guest delve into Katy's extraordinary ability to blend creativity with scientific rigor. Her unique talents allowed her to develop innovative systems for Bible translation, ensuring that the message of Jesus Christ was accessible in the heart languages of diverse communities around the world. This episode underscores the critical significance of Bible translation as a foundational element of global missions, emphasizing Katie's pivotal role in training others to carry forth this vital work. Through her relentless dedication, she has contributed to the spiritual growth of millions, a testament to the transformative power of faith when communicated in one's heart language.
Transcript
Hey there and welcome back to the Clarity Podcast.
Speaker A:This podcast is all about providing clarity insight and encouragement for life mission.
Speaker A:And my name is Aaron Santemaier and I get to be your host.
Speaker A:Today we have the phenomenal opportunity to sit down with Jordan and Jordan has written a biography on Kathryn Barnwell.
Speaker A:He refers to her as Katie and also is the greatest missionary that we've never heard of.
Speaker A:Just impactful read for me on how Katie used the natural talents, acquired abilities and the spiritual giftings that God has given her, her creative abilities.
Speaker A:It's interesting somebody as creative as she is and then also has a scientific mind to be able to go in and translate and put systems in place and train others so they can translate the gospel mess into national languages and the heart languages.
Speaker A:So the people, when they hear about the name of Jesus, it's not through a language that is second or third to them, but they're hearing the tongue or the language that they grew up speaking and just the importance of hearing about the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ in that way.
Speaker A:He will share about the importance of Bible translation and how Bible translation kind of acts as the headwaters for global missions.
Speaker A:He'll share about how Katie worked with the Jesus film and how to make that into different languages and understand the enormity of that task.
Speaker A:But once again she used her creative mind and her giftings and abilities to be able to train others and develop computer systems.
Speaker A:And he'll talk about coding and different things.
Speaker A:Just amazing, amazing leader and just it was great to learn about her.
Speaker A:She served solo and so for those who are listening in, who are serving solo, just the impact that this woman has made around the world and for the name of Jesus Christ is phenomenal.
Speaker B:Do want to ask you to continue.
Speaker A:To subscribe to the podcast and know the podcast I'm subscribed to or the one I listen to, they're ones that show up on my feed and know what I'm going to be listening to throughout the week.
Speaker A:Do want to ask you also to.
Speaker B:Continue to send in your questions for.
Speaker A:Back channel with Foeth.
Speaker A:That's where we get to sit down with Dick Foth and get to learn from him.
Speaker A:And that always is a joy.
Speaker A:And my book, A Caring Family, it's out.
Speaker A:It's the book I wish I would have read 20 some odd years before my kids were grown and out of the home.
Speaker A:But just the reality that we can choose to be loved and known or unique and special and the importance as a father, mother, parent, grandparent, how we can demonstrate and emulate to our kids, what it really means to love Jesus Christ and to share that compassion with others.
Speaker A:Well, there's no time better than now to get started, so here we go.
Speaker B:Greetings and welcome back to the Clarity podcast.
Speaker B:So excited to have a new friend of the podcast today with us.
Speaker B:Jordan.
Speaker B:Jordan, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker C:Yeah, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker C:It's an honor.
Speaker B:Jordan, will you go ahead and share a little bit about yourself?
Speaker B:One of the joys of being the podcast host is I get to do background information and get to see, read up about people, but probably most of the people listening in haven't had that opportunity.
Speaker B:So will you share a little bit about yourself and then we're going to jump into this fascinating book that you've written and looking forward to our conversation.
Speaker C:Yeah, sounds great.
Speaker C:So my background, so I'm 37.
Speaker C:I'm a professor of missions and Old Testament at Huntington University in Indiana.
Speaker C:And when I graduated college, I knew I wanted to go into missions.
Speaker C:And so I'm this strange creature where I have straddled my career between both church planting overseas and in the US and also Bible translation.
Speaker C:And now some people might think, well, that just makes good sense.
Speaker C:But there's a sort of stereotype of like what a church planter is like or what a Bible translator is like.
Speaker C:And they tend to be kind of on two opposite ends of the spectrum or two opposite poles.
Speaker C:So that's just kind of a funny thing to have spent my career doing both church planting and Bible translation, but through Bible translation.
Speaker C:This is how I met the subject of this book, Catherine Barnwell, or Katie Barnwell, I'll call her throughout.
Speaker C:Just a.
Speaker C:I think one of the most influential missionaries in all of Christian history.
Speaker C:And I thought, man, no one's telling her story and someone needs to.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker B:So what are some, what is the.
Speaker B:You mentioned there's some common stereotypes of a Bible translator.
Speaker B:What are some of those common stereotypes?
Speaker C:Yeah, So I may use some personality lingo.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:So, you know, I know the Myers Briggs type test was a big deal 10 or 15 years ago.
Speaker C:People seem to have moved on.
Speaker C:But the sort of the intj, the corner, sit in the corner of the library, the istj, the person who wants to completely figure out a system.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:And wants to be studious and wants to solve puzzles and sort of be alone and an introvert, that's kind of at least a stereotype that's, I mean, it's somewhat fairly deserved.
Speaker C:A lot of Bible translators, not all, but a lot of them do fit that mold.
Speaker C:Of wanting to be kind of geeky linguist, architect types who sit in the corner.
Speaker C:Whereas church planters are sort of the opposite.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:They're much more maybe wired like you, just from our brief Interact introduction, right.
Speaker C:It's like extrovert out there, you know, wanting to move people to do things right and sort of wanting to ignite a passion in people.
Speaker C:And of course, everyone needs it all.
Speaker C:You need people with various skill sets.
Speaker C:And so Bible translators always looked at me a little askance, like, who are you?
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker B:Well, I'm looking forward to a conversation today.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:So Katherine Barnwell, you decided to write on her.
Speaker B:So what, what are some reasons, do you think, that, that her story has remained largely unknown, but she, you know, as, honestly, I'd never heard of her.
Speaker B:I've been in missions for 20 some odd years, never heard of her.
Speaker B:And I saw that she had, you know, great impact in Madagascar where I'd served for 14 years.
Speaker B:So what are some reasons you think that her story is not so wide, so well known, despite the impact that she's made?
Speaker C:Yeah, I think the way that we measure impact is it tends to be somewhat correct, but there's a, there's some big black holes in how we measure impact because what we do is we largely measure for celebrity, not so much impact.
Speaker C:And so if someone's part of the evangelical industrial complex, right, if they're speaking podcasts, you know, radio shows, that they've got their own TV stuff, whatever, if their, their face is on books, then we say, okay, this person now matters, right?
Speaker C:This person is part of the evangelical industrial complex.
Speaker C:They have influence.
Speaker C:When really, I think a lot of the heavyweights of heaven won't be those kinds of people.
Speaker C:And unless somebody.
Speaker C:This is the weird accident of history.
Speaker C:If I weren't writing this biography, it wouldn't be written, I don't think by anybody else.
Speaker C:But this would be the big mistake is like, I actually, I have the receipts.
Speaker C:She's probably one of the most 10 influential missionaries in all of Christian history.
Speaker C:But if I hadn't written it, I don't know.
Speaker C:I mean, I mean, so anyway, to get back to your question, in Bible translation, she's an absolute legend.
Speaker C:You won't talk to any Bible translator really in the world who doesn't know who she is.
Speaker C:She's just the Michael Jordan.
Speaker C:She was introduced to me as the Michael Jordan of Bible translation, which is funny because she's this sort of frail, you know, white British lady.
Speaker C:And so it's just what a, what a mind job to, to have that.
Speaker C:But she never sought fame.
Speaker C:Every single thing she's done has been like, every book, every journal article, every conference she goes to is within her field.
Speaker C:It's within her deal.
Speaker C:She doesn't go to, like, broader, you know, passion conferences or broader sort of things.
Speaker C:She doesn't have a popular level book that regular people, you know, can interact with.
Speaker C:Sorry, I don't have my headphones.
Speaker C:Hopefully that's not too bothering.
Speaker B:No, you're good.
Speaker C:And so she's just never really sought the public Persona and public life.
Speaker C:But you go to any Bible translation in the world, any minority language community in the world who's gotten a Bible in the last 60 years, or even portions of scripture, oral, you know, audio written, Jesus film, any of that in the last maybe 60 years.
Speaker C:And that has her fingerprint all over it.
Speaker C:And so in terms of, like, the number of people who come to Christ with the Jesus film, she helped to completely rewrite their framework.
Speaker C:They basically started to run out of languages in the late 90s.
Speaker C:All the ones that had been really institutionalized and fully written, they were running out of them.
Speaker C:They had to do original translation for the first time.
Speaker C:And they recognized they didn't know how to do that.
Speaker C:And so they reached out to Wycliffe and said, you know, who's the best person you've got?
Speaker C:And they're like, well, here's Katie Barnwell.
Speaker C:And so somewhere in the neighborhood of, you know, 300 to 600 million people have become Christians largely because of the translation work she has done.
Speaker C:And the global church is reading Bibles that were translated according to her methods, her teachers, her or, sorry, her students, her disciples of or her students of students of students.
Speaker C:If you draw a family tree of all of the Bible translators in the world, kind of like a messy, hairy, you know, family tree going all the way up, they almost all end in Katie Barnwell.
Speaker C:And so, you know, you look at like a Billy Graham who's so famous, he had about 2.2 to 3 million people become Christians in his entire life's ministry.
Speaker C:Now, of course, he also started institutions that continue to bear fruit.
Speaker C:But Katie Barnwell, the number of people who become Christians just through her Jesus film work alone is estimated at 400 million.
Speaker C:And that's not even counting the Bible translation.
Speaker C:Now, even if you say there's a lot of optimism in those stats, right, Sometimes missionary statistics can be dubious.
Speaker C:But even if there's a lot of optimism there, we're looking at someone who's much more influential, probably on a global scale than Billy Graham.
Speaker C:But she's unknown.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker B:So what are some things about her earlier life?
Speaker B:Honestly, her life was fascinating just for me to read about it and to think about and consider.
Speaker B:And you mentioned some things about her earlier life.
Speaker B:What are some things that stuck out to you as you were writing this book about her earlier life and what put her on this trajectory to become a Bible translator?
Speaker C:Yeah, I can't get this out of my head that her earliest memories are essentially how the beginning of the book and the movie the lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe begin.
Speaker C:So her earliest memories are of the air raids and the sirens in London when the Nazi bombers are coming in.
Speaker C:And she's hiding underground in a church crypt.
Speaker C:You know, so you've got, you know, coffins and dead bodies here, corpses here, and bombs above, and she's hiding from these, you know, bombing raids.
Speaker C:And then just like the Pevensey children and the lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, she and her family have to escape out into rural England to avoid the bombing threats.
Speaker C:But she.
Speaker C:Her.
Speaker C:Her dad works in the military or worked in the military and then for the railway.
Speaker C:And so every two years they would move or she very quickly learned that, you know, she could make friends in a new place.
Speaker C:But very quickly she learned, you know, those friends keep turning over.
Speaker C:And so I think she put less and less effort into making new communities.
Speaker C:When you just keep having to turn those over.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Just like an mk, it's hard, right?
Speaker C:Mks will, you know, move and come to love this new community.
Speaker C:And then five years later, they have to go and then go again.
Speaker C:At some point, as a survival mechanism, you maybe try a little less hard than.
Speaker C:Than you should for healthy community.
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker C:I forget.
Speaker C:Yeah, Your audience is well aware of this.
Speaker C:This issue.
Speaker C:So she ends up finding, you know, her books and the church.
Speaker C:It's the one thing that could stay consistent in her life.
Speaker C:So she read everything, you know, voracious reader, typical background for a Bible translator.
Speaker C:And she loved.
Speaker C:She loved poetry and she loved the natural world.
Speaker C:She loved the sciences.
Speaker C:And she sort of insisted on, how can I.
Speaker C:How can I not just be a poet or a scientist?
Speaker C:How can I put those together?
Speaker C:And that's really what linguistics is.
Speaker C:You know, if you were to put poet, poetry and the natural sciences together, you get linguistics.
Speaker C:So she.
Speaker C:She kind of stumbled into linguistics in her undergraduate degree.
Speaker C:She went to St.
Speaker C:Andrews back at a time when fewer than 1% of British women went to college.
Speaker C:And she wanted to study English literature, but just as a.
Speaker C:A little general that she had to take along the way, she had to take philology and linguistics, and for most, they hated it, but she loved it.
Speaker C:She took to it, and then that sort of became her.
Speaker C:Her passion in the world was linguistics and translation.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker B:Wow, what a phenomenal story.
Speaker B:So what are, you know, you share about this different ways and missions and how it's working out today.
Speaker B:So what does Catherine's work and her story help us understand about different ways that the gospel can be spread?
Speaker B:Is that a fair question?
Speaker C:Yeah, I think so.
Speaker C:And maybe kind of put me back on the track if I veer off here.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C: hurch, where, you know, since: Speaker C:So as from the west to the rest.
Speaker C:Right, from the west to the rest.
Speaker C:And for almost 500 years, that's just how missions worked.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Of course, there were a ton of Christians in the Middle east, but then a lot of them were decimated either through war or forced conversion.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:To Islam.
Speaker C:And so it's.
Speaker B:It.
Speaker C:We.
Speaker C:It's not that Christianity was a Western religion, but almost by default, by the rest being killed or forcibly converted, it sort of became Western.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:And then missions was from the west to the rest.
Speaker C: And then around the: Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:The west said, we maybe shouldn't be in the pilot's seat anymore, you know, and let's train and equip.
Speaker C:And that's happening across the board, right?
Speaker C:Through Bible translation, through water treatment, orphan widow care, education.
Speaker C:Every single mission has gone through this massive shift.
Speaker C:I'm sure your listeners are nodding and saying, yeah, this happened to us too.
Speaker C:How do we pass Western spearheading off to global church leadership?
Speaker C:And then how do we step in as Westerners more into financing, equipping, training, helping role, Though there's of course, still a place to be the point of the spear in some aspects, there's largely been this shift, and Katie Barnwell, I would say more than any other single figure, led that charge.
Speaker C:Now, of course, she led it within her own field of Bible translation.
Speaker C:But the reason that's so impactful, I say Bible translation is a kind of headwaters of the rest of the global missions movement, because the entire global missions movement uses Scripture.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:And.
Speaker C:And all the Glo like The global church that's out there in minority languages and small communities, when they're using scripture in order to reach their neighbors, in order to champion local mission, they're using scripture that's translated according to her methods.
Speaker C:Her teachers, her trainers, her students, her books, her articles, that's all swimming downstream of her.
Speaker C:And so by her helping to pass the baton and train thousands of translators that were not Western, thousands of people from languages that were never written down in the first place, I mean, what she did was almost miraculous.
Speaker C:She went in and trained people who'd never written down their language in human history, not only to write it, but to then grammatically get a sense for how it functions.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:And then to teach them to translate their own scripture.
Speaker C:Well, all the while helping them with some of the stuff along the way.
Speaker C:So, yeah, that baton passed to the global church, though.
Speaker C:No single person led it.
Speaker C:And if Katie weren't alive, somebody else would.
Speaker C:It was sort of a historical shift.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker C:But if anyone was out front of that historical shift, it was her, because she was the one equipping the global church to then keep doing that work.
Speaker B:Wow, what an amazing story.
Speaker B:Is it?
Speaker B:And so you.
Speaker B:You shared about this, the.
Speaker B:The way she approached it, where she went in and she.
Speaker B:Is that something that was that trial and error?
Speaker B:Is that something she developed on her own or was that something she saw, something she hypothesized?
Speaker B:Because I think you.
Speaker B:We do have an aud that's listening in and it sounds like Katie was very.
Speaker B:Is very creative.
Speaker B:She.
Speaker B:This idea that you said, the stereotype of, you know, Bible translators.
Speaker B:But at the same time, you'd have to be very creative.
Speaker B:When I read about her for the things that she's done right.
Speaker B:She's just.
Speaker B:And so I think that's the beauty of seeing someone and the inspiration that comes from.
Speaker B:Because she's not only she has a scientific mind, she has that analytical ability to think and process at the same time.
Speaker B:She's come up with some very creative ways to.
Speaker B:For that to distill down.
Speaker B:So any thoughts on that?
Speaker C:Yeah, I think I sometimes refer to her as a kind of Forrest Gump of the Bible translation world that just, you know, I don't even remember the movie that well.
Speaker C:I was quite young when it came out.
Speaker C:But I do remember he just sort of.
Speaker C:He found a way of sort of blundering his way into all these important historical events.
Speaker C:Now, of course, she was more purposeful, but you would be hard pressed to find a single massive Bible translation innovation in the last 60 years, maybe into the last five years, but for the last 60 years, you would be really hard pressed to find a single massive paradigm shift that she didn't either start directly or was deeply involved in from the beginning.
Speaker C:Now, part of that, she'll swear she says, hey, you know, stop giving me this credit.
Speaker C:Everything I did, I did on teams.
Speaker C:I just happened to be in the right place at the right time, you know, caught in this great crux of history.
Speaker C:And there may be some truth to that, that, that.
Speaker C:That, you know, she was in Nigeria and not in the highlands of Mexico with Aztec tribes.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Like, certain.
Speaker C:Certain assignments would not have given themselves to what she was able to accomplish.
Speaker C:But at the same point, it's always her.
Speaker C:I mean, every innovation.
Speaker C:I mean, she's not even a computer person, but 95% of the Bible translators in the world use these two different software packages to do Bible translation.
Speaker C:And even though she's not a computer person, she was instrumental in starting both.
Speaker C:She called the shots on saying, we need these things.
Speaker C:You know, 10 years before anyone else was calling for them.
Speaker C:She was moving money around, flying people in from other organizations from all over the world to make these things happen.
Speaker C:I'm just like, woman, like, you don't even know how to code.
Speaker C:How are you ahead of all of these programmers and figuring this out?
Speaker C:So still today, if you see a team of Bible translators in Madagascar, what's open on their computers will be the program she commissioned.
Speaker C:That'll be what they're working on.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker B:And I think that's one thing.
Speaker B:Anytime I see the word Madagascar, it jumps out to me, because obviously I spent a lot of years there.
Speaker B:And the beauty of that you mentioned this idea and the importance for people to hear and read the gospel in one's original language.
Speaker B:How do you think that, or have you seen that, how that impacts someone when they encounter Jesus?
Speaker B:When it's in their original language and they're reading and hearing it in the original language, how does that impact their encounter with them?
Speaker C:Yeah, it's just incredible.
Speaker C:Honestly, one of the best memories of my life, I was in a little island country off of Nigeria and Guinea Bissau.
Speaker C:It's called.
Speaker C:So it just means St.
Speaker C:Thomas Prince.
Speaker C:But because there's a St.
Speaker C:Thomas in the Caribbean, we just leave the one in Africa in Portuguese on the map.
Speaker C:And I remember.
Speaker C:So some of the people there that are more fortunate will speak Portuguese as their former colonizing language.
Speaker C:But many people, especially more in the inland kind of hinterland, will speak more indigenous Bantu African languages from you know, where their ancestors had spoken long before the Portuguese ever took them as slaves, basically, and brought them to this island.
Speaker C:Anyway, so they're speaking these languages.
Speaker C:And I remember coming through with a team of Bible translators, and many of them were local Africans who were bilingual in both these indigenous languages, but also in Portuguese.
Speaker C:So I'd only speak Portuguese.
Speaker C:I was interacting with these African translators through Portuguese.
Speaker C:And then we're training them to translate into their original, you know, mother tongues.
Speaker C:And I remember going into this village, we were doing oral Bible storytelling, which is a whole different story.
Speaker C:But most of the world is not as literate, or they don't really care for literary culture like we in the west do.
Speaker C:What's spoken is first and foremost.
Speaker C:You know, in the west used to be like that, like in the era of Homer and the Odyssey.
Speaker C:We used to be an oral culture.
Speaker C:Now we're more written in terms of what's the first authority.
Speaker C:Anyway, we go into this village and our African colleagues start rehearsing, sort of start performing or telling Bible stories like parables and just famous, you know, Old Testament, New Testament stories.
Speaker C:And when the people start to hear it just for a second, you know, they realize, oh, these guys are speaking, you know, in my language.
Speaker C:And they start to listen.
Speaker C:And some of them had just enough familiarity with a couple Bible stories in Portuguese to realize what stories were being told.
Speaker C:And they started laughing, but I don't mean laughing like this is funny, but almost like an uncontrollable joy of, like a child.
Speaker C:Like, this is ridiculous, you know, almost like a voluntary laughter.
Speaker C:Like, these are the.
Speaker C:These are those church stories, you know, from Catholic church down the way that we go to once a year.
Speaker C:This is in my heart language or my mother tongue, right?
Speaker C:This is the language through which I learned the world.
Speaker C:And to see that on their faces, they were just blown away.
Speaker C:And then we.
Speaker C:We got into this whole conversation, and our African colleagues explained to them, you know, you are born in the image of God, right, in your language, even though you're on this island.
Speaker C:Sort of what they feel like, they're kind of the dregs of global culture, right?
Speaker C:They're on this island in the middle of nowhere.
Speaker C:The descendants of slaves.
Speaker C:They're not in New York, they're not in Lisbon, they're not Paris, Beijing, wherever.
Speaker C:And.
Speaker C:And my African colleagues explained to them, like, no, you are born in the image of God.
Speaker C:And your language, your culture, your country, have just as much worth before God as the person in London, right, or as Lisbon.
Speaker C:And they.
Speaker C:They were just Blown away by it.
Speaker C:And I think Bible translation and those stories in their tongue showed that right, that you are so worthy, that you're not just some backward language that's never going to get scripture.
Speaker C:Like God wants to speak to you in your heart language because you matter.
Speaker C:It was huge.
Speaker C:And it's hard.
Speaker C:I'm probably not doing a great job of explaining it, but it's one of the maybe three or four greatest memories of my life.
Speaker C:And of course, the rest are like my wedding day and my kids.
Speaker C:And so this is like, the only career one that makes it in is watching these people hear these stories in their own language for the first time.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker B:It's beautiful.
Speaker B:It's beautiful to see that we have a God that knows our name and a God that knows our language.
Speaker B:And for people to.
Speaker B:For those.
Speaker B:For all those things that align is wonderful.
Speaker B:And the reality of it is, I think, you know, I remember we went to France to learn French, and then we moved to Burkina Faso.
Speaker B:And I remember, you know, being in a meeting and they.
Speaker B:And introduced me to the national church, and I said, you know, I've been in France for basically 11, 12 months learning your language.
Speaker B:And, you know, they responded, you know, in French, you know, you speak the language of the colonizers.
Speaker B:You don't speak our language.
Speaker B:Our language is more.
Speaker B:And so I do think that there are some cultural things that permeate when it does come from a colonial language rather than a heart language.
Speaker B:And, you know, I thought.
Speaker B:You know, I was discouraged.
Speaker B:I was young.
Speaker B:I thought, man, I just spent 10 years of my 10 months of my life studying something that you're not even.
Speaker B:You don't even think was that important.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So then jumped into Moray.
Speaker B:But just once again, this idea of hearing the gospel, and it takes away a lot of those confounders when you're trying to communicate something, and maybe some misconceptions that are there when you're trying to share the love of Jesus Christ.
Speaker B:So great stuff.
Speaker B:So when it comes to Katie, you refer to her as Katie.
Speaker B:What is one thing from her story that inspires you maybe to live out your faith?
Speaker B:You're a professor of missions.
Speaker B:What are some.
Speaker B:What is one thing that I'm going to ask you one for you personally, and then I'm going to ask you another question about with your students and maybe missionaries that are listening in on how you would challenge them to live out what they're doing differently.
Speaker B:So for you personally and then for others.
Speaker C:Yeah, remind me the first part of the question.
Speaker C:How does she encourage.
Speaker B:How does she encourage you or inspire you to live out your faith differently in a different way?
Speaker C:Way?
Speaker B:Katie.
Speaker C:Yeah, she.
Speaker C:I've got a few ideas.
Speaker C:So.
Speaker C:One, she's almost pathologically humble, which is.
Speaker C:Let me just close that down so it's not beeping.
Speaker C:She's almost pathologically humble in that she really doesn't.
Speaker C:I don't know, it's just.
Speaker C:You read about the saints.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:How.
Speaker C:Or you know, the so called saints.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:And how they're, they just become more and more aware of, you know, their sin over the course of their life and less and less aware of the great impact they're making.
Speaker C:And it seems like everybody around them can tell that they're this crux of this movement.
Speaker C:They're the start of this order.
Speaker C:They're this big deal.
Speaker C:But they themselves seem to be the only people who can't tell.
Speaker C:They can't, they can't see it.
Speaker C:And Katie is like that.
Speaker C:When I sent her the early preview, a sort of early look at the COVID of the book.
Speaker C:And this is a biography of her.
Speaker C:Right?
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker C:I don't know if you've ever seen a biography without the picture.
Speaker C:She writes back.
Speaker C:She normally writes back within just a few hours.
Speaker C:She works a lot.
Speaker C:And then she, she took a few days and she wrote back.
Speaker C:And the subject line was, you know, sharing thoughts today, which if you know her is bad news.
Speaker C:It's like.
Speaker C:And she said, I only wonder why my picture needs to be on the COVID And that was her honest response, like, you know, Bible translation.
Speaker C:I, you know, I did this work on teams, you know, it's a global work.
Speaker C:Like, why is my picture on the COVID of this?
Speaker C:And of course I'm thinking here as the author, I'm like, this is a biography, you know, that's what goes on the COVID But that's just her.
Speaker C:And I think, I don't know if I have a specific, you know, therefore this is the motivation, but remarkable self.
Speaker B:Humility.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah, that humility.
Speaker C:You know, I think, Louis, maybe you can remind me of this.
Speaker C:CS Lewis has this good point and I'm kind of butchering it, but he'll say, you know, everyone in trying to seek individuality, ends up becoming kind of more like each other.
Speaker C:Whereas people who give up of themselves to seek after Christ, not only do they become more like Christ, but they actually become more individual in the process, more unique, even though they're chasing after that goal of Christ.
Speaker C:And I see that in her, that she, through her selflessness, she's become such a unique personage, but she's not looking for individuality.
Speaker C:She's not trying to find this sort of inner core.
Speaker C:Katie, she's just going after Christ all out.
Speaker C:So that's very encouraging to me, for sure.
Speaker B:For sure.
Speaker B:And when you're with students, you have students in the classroom, you have the opportunities to influence them.
Speaker B:Do you emphasize her humility?
Speaker B:Are there other things that you would maybe emphasize to students or people listening in when it comes to her character, future?
Speaker C:You know, this is interesting.
Speaker C:I probably shouldn't even say this.
Speaker C:It's something we don't talk about that often, but Katie has been single her whole life.
Speaker C:She was open to, you know, finding a man and, you know, and getting married.
Speaker C:And as she'll say, it just didn't happen.
Speaker C:And so, though that's not maybe a big concern for a lot of the missionaries listening, who are probably well into their careers, a lot of students are really wrestling with that issue.
Speaker C:You know, do I go into missions?
Speaker C:Do I go now?
Speaker C:You know, do I.
Speaker C:Do I have to?
Speaker C:Do I actively try to prevent growing roots?
Speaker C:You know, because I don't want to be too stuck here.
Speaker C:You know, it's.
Speaker C:They're trying to make all these good decisions, right.
Speaker C:And so I actually have, maybe a few times a year I have a mission student who.
Speaker C:Who asks, you know, I.
Speaker C:I'm.
Speaker C:I feel like maybe I have the gift of singleness or maybe I feel called to be single.
Speaker C:You know, what do you think?
Speaker C:And as Protestants, we don't really know what to do with that.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:So, like, topics that maybe over encourage that.
Speaker C:That.
Speaker C:Whereas Protestants, we almost under encourage that.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:But of course, scripturally, there is really a call for some people to be fully devoted, right?
Speaker C:In that way, right.
Speaker C:To not be worrying about, you know, pleasing their spouse, not be worrying about these normal cares, but to just be all in.
Speaker C:And that's not my calling.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:I have a wife and kids, and I know that's not many people's calling, but that often comes out because here Katie has just become one of the most revolutionary, important missionaries in history.
Speaker C:And there's no way that she could have done that if she were also being a good wife, good mom, you know, good spouse.
Speaker C:She was sometimes on the road nine months a year, and you just couldn't do that if you had a family.
Speaker C:So that's maybe a kind of a random answer, but that comes out actually.
Speaker B:That'S a vitally important one.
Speaker B:You know, I would say, at least within the missions organization I serve with.
Speaker B:There is a lot of people serving solo, and I think it's a, it's an encouragement.
Speaker B:I think it's a testament to what Katie's done.
Speaker B:I think it's an encouragement for those that are listening in that are, that are serving solo and they recognize that, that, you know, there are other people that have done this and to see the impact that they've made.
Speaker B:Also.
Speaker B:I think it's, I think it's a wonderful point and I was hoping that you would bring that up because I think it speaks deeply and just the reality of the impact that we can make and that, yeah, it helps move it forward.
Speaker B:So one of the other things, let.
Speaker C:Me ask you, you have quite a few single female, particularly missionaries on the field, I bet, right?
Speaker C:Not many single male.
Speaker C:Is that right?
Speaker B:Right, exactly.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:There's, you know, there's the old joke.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:For every three missionaries on the field, two are a married couple and one is a single female, and the rest are men.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:But there's, of course, there's no rest there.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:And so that's obviously been an issue in the church really for a long time.
Speaker C:But yeah, hopefully, you know, I guess to all the single ladies out there, you know, keep serving and you guys are awesome.
Speaker B:Oh, man.
Speaker B:And they have my deepest respect.
Speaker B:Deepest respect.
Speaker B:And they, they do a phenomenal job and we're, we're thankful for them.
Speaker B:Within our mission, there are there men that, that serve solo, but I would say the majority would be.
Speaker B:Would be females.
Speaker B:And what a blessing.
Speaker B:What a blessing.
Speaker B:One of my first mentors was a female.
Speaker B:A female serving solo.
Speaker B:And throughout my missions career have had the opportunity to serve alongside and be encouraged by and be challenged with focus and their creativity and their drive and their work ethic.
Speaker B:And so it's, it's, it's been a joy.
Speaker B:One of the other things you mentioned when they.
Speaker B:I was reading over was that oftentimes missionaries will be accused of being spies.
Speaker B:Is that a common thread?
Speaker B:And I thought that was an interesting point.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:I'd actually be interested to hear if this ever happens in your organization.
Speaker C:So in Bible translation, it's very common.
Speaker C:And I think it's because especially in, like, remote jungle areas, you have these really highly educated Westerners, you know, white PhD Westerners flying in on little planes, you know, because a lot of Bible translators working in places that are not accessible any other way.
Speaker C:And so they're, they, they'll clear these little jungle paths and then, and then other people can get in more easily by landing on A jungle cleared Runway in the middle of, you know, South America or something.
Speaker C:And so if you're, especially back in the 70s, 60s, 70s, 80s, if you're a country that's sort of dabbling with communism and of course the CIA is doing its, you know, dabbling and to prevent that, and also all these white Westerners with PhD start flying into your jungles and dealing with your minority tribes.
Speaker C:You know, it makes them wonder.
Speaker C:Now here's the thing.
Speaker C:There has been no, as far as I'm aware, there has been no evidence, not even.
Speaker C:Not just credible.
Speaker C:There's been no evidence at all of any kind that any Bible translators had any dealings at all with the government.
Speaker C:And now that, that is, that means a lot because there's like 10,000 Western Bible translators or something, right?
Speaker C:And just as a journalist, as a writer, as an academic, and a regular hunter of skeletons, man, if you have really highly trained intelligence officers, maybe a few dozen of them can keep secrets.
Speaker C:But if you 10,000 pre regular people who are like, some of them are selling intelligence, like you can't.
Speaker C:No, there's no way to keep that a secret.
Speaker C:So what I mean to say is, as far as I'm aware and as far as any of the evidence shows, there's been zero intelligence work in the Bible translation community.
Speaker C:There was an example in the 50s of a completely different organization, sort of medical doctor, you know, completely right, Bible translation.
Speaker C:There was a famous medical doctor named Thomas Dooley who was actually voted one of the most influential people, right behind Billy Graham that year.
Speaker C:He was kind of a celebrity.
Speaker C:He was a medical doctor in, I think, Vietnam in that area.
Speaker C:And he ended up selling intelligence as a missionary.
Speaker C:He would.
Speaker C:He would sort of.
Speaker C:He became a source, you know, for the CIA.
Speaker C:And that exploded and went global.
Speaker C: t page news everywhere in the: Speaker C:And what that did is it sowed this seed that of course it is possible for that to happen.
Speaker C:So I'm sure it has happened before.
Speaker C:But in a world that was trying to shut down colonialism, you know, and rightly so, and in a world that was, you know, being exposed to early, you know, James Bond plots and other spy movies and stuff, it just caught the global imagination that, okay, there was this one missionary who was a CIA, you know, cut out.
Speaker C:So could they all be right?
Speaker C:Yeah, you have all these people who could be living a better life, a more comfortable life in the West.
Speaker C:They could be sitting in endowed chairs at universities.
Speaker C:So why are they in Africa?
Speaker C:Getting malaria, Living in the middle of nowhere and flying in at all odd hours of the night, you know, their notebooks and data and whatnot.
Speaker C:What, you know, maybe it's because they're spies.
Speaker C:So I think a lot of that becomes from not understanding the gospel, right?
Speaker C:You've got these politicians who are afraid that you're going to cause this, you know, unrest or insurrection kind of stuff.
Speaker C:And they don't understand the motivation of bringing the good news of Jesus to all people like he told us to.
Speaker B:To.
Speaker C:And if you don't understand that motivation, it is really suspect.
Speaker C:Why are all these people giving up this good life to go get malaria?
Speaker C:Like, I don't understand.
Speaker C:Maybe it's they're being paid as spies and I'm sympathetic, though that's not the case.
Speaker C:I am sympathetic to the suspicion.
Speaker C:If you don't know the gospel, it doesn't make any sense why people are going so far and wild.
Speaker C:And so in Bible translation we get that accusation.
Speaker C:I'm.
Speaker C:I'm hopeful.
Speaker C:I'm imagining that in other organizations where most people just have undergraduate degrees, I imagine the pressure and the accusations are maybe a little bit less toward the spy thing.
Speaker C:Do you guys ever get accused in closed countries or anything, semi closed countries of being spies?
Speaker B:You know, I can't speak for everyone.
Speaker B:I can speak for myself.
Speaker B:You know, I've been accused of being, you know, a mercenary.
Speaker B:And for some, and there have been several, I can't say thousands of times, but one handful of times that I've been accused of because I did a lot of.
Speaker B:I would travel into the rural areas and do medical care.
Speaker B:And there were several times that there was suspicion that, you know, that I was representative of the CIA or what was I doing or was I.
Speaker B:What was I coming to gather and what was my reasons to be there.
Speaker B:But very similar, right.
Speaker B:You're in places that the rest of the world's not trying to go and you're there with, you know, we were there for, you know, honestly to do medical care and to share the love of Christ.
Speaker B:But there was a level of suspicion if there was an ulterior motive and ulterior reason.
Speaker B:So, yeah, I could tell stories, but I don't want to bore everybody with all my stories.
Speaker B:But we.
Speaker B:That has definitely been some of my experience.
Speaker B:I can't say it's been over 24 years a hand handful of times.
Speaker B:And so not like every day or every week.
Speaker C:What was the first word you used?
Speaker C:It was like a paid soul.
Speaker C:Mercenary.
Speaker B:Mercenary, yeah.
Speaker B:You know, I've.
Speaker B:That.
Speaker B:That was.
Speaker B:As we lived through a few coups that was often an accusation that we were, you know, you were a hired mercenary, that you were there and you know, I'm about as far, far from a Ms.
Speaker B:Merchant mercenary than anyone could be.
Speaker B:I'm a missionary, but not a mercenary.
Speaker B:I'm not a, you know, I'm not a courageous guy like that.
Speaker B:And so it was, it was somewhat comical.
Speaker B:My kids would laugh and if they said, if they really knew you got.
Speaker C:A bit of a military look, I.
Speaker B:Mean I think that's might, that might be what it is.
Speaker B:But unfortunately I don't have that military heart.
Speaker B:So I'm very thankful those who serve, but I don't have that level of courage.
Speaker B:For sure, for sure.
Speaker B:So one, I'm trying to think of one.
Speaker B:I have one last question for you and then I'm going to ask you to pray for us as we them as we walk.
Speaker B:So finding this book, where can people find the book?
Speaker B:And as they read it, what, what, what's the big take home point you would have for them as they read this book and where can they find it?
Speaker B:Work?
Speaker B:And then the big take home point from it, from that you have maybe.
Speaker C:The big take home point or maybe even the take home sort of what I want people to feel viscerally right as they, as they would read it or listen to it.
Speaker C:It is that God is still doing amazing, amazing work in the world, right?
Speaker C:So when we read.
Speaker C:One of the reasons I wrote this book is that I would read these books of the so called missionary greats, right?
Speaker C:These are always like Western, Western hall of fame, you know, greats.
Speaker C:And I would read these stories and then I came to know Katie's story, you know, Katherine Barnwell story.
Speaker C:And I thought, you know, here I know a story that's greater than a lot of these so called great missionaries, more influential, more inspiring, more danger, what have you.
Speaker C:And I thought this story, you know, needs to be told.
Speaker C:And when I wrote it I thought maybe because she's a woman, I thought maybe the people who would most gravitate toward the story might be like, you know, young women or women in ministry.
Speaker C:Women in missions.
Speaker C:And I was actually quite wrong.
Speaker C:The people who gravitated the most toward this story, I mean missionaries were part of it.
Speaker C:But we got an overwhelming response when this first ran as a cover story at Christianity and Day.
Speaker C:And we got an overwhelming response from people who work in ministry in the US Just regular, you know, pastors, campus past, people who have been doing ministry forever.
Speaker C:Especially people maybe 40, 45 plus who have been doing ministry for Quite some time.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker C:It's been a hard season.
Speaker C:It's been a hard season to do ministry West.
Speaker C:You know, you watch, not only you watch a lot of your own friends from high school or college kind of walk away from the faith as you're trying to be faithful and do this work, work, but then you might even watch your own kids or grandkids leave the faith or struggle with gender identity and all these things that are.
Speaker C:That are so tricky and difficult, right, for so many people.
Speaker C:And it's.
Speaker C:You read these missionary greats and then you have your own experience in ministry and you think, man, this is really not what I was hoping.
Speaker C:This is not what I was signing up for.
Speaker C:I wanted to see revival.
Speaker C:I wanted to be changed hearts.
Speaker C:And when people read Katie's story, great, a lot of them just reported that they wept all the way through.
Speaker C:And even though it's not sad, you know, they just sort of wept for joy because they're seeing all that great work that they've read about in these missionary biographies as kids.
Speaker C:That is all still happening.
Speaker C:And even if it's not our season right now in the west, that work is still happening around the world.
Speaker C:We're just not as familiar with it.
Speaker C:And I think the takeaway, in a sense, is the hope, it's the encouragement, it's the drive to know that really it's God is the one who is fulfilling his great commission and he uses us as he pleases.
Speaker C:And there's a weird, strange kind of comfort in that, right, that like, you know, the, the we don't do anything to lift the tide.
Speaker C:You know, those forces are happening outside of us.
Speaker C:And in the same way, you know, whether, whether we're going through a secularization or a revival, we can have a small part in our local community, but we really can't move the tide, right?
Speaker C:That's the work of the Holy Spirit.
Speaker C:That's the work of God.
Speaker C:If we're going to be going up or down in the numbers, yeah, that's really not our are.
Speaker C:We just have to be faithful in our own communities.
Speaker C:But God is still raising the tide around the world, right?
Speaker C:He's lifting the.
Speaker C:The water level around the world.
Speaker C:And that's really encouraging just to remember, like, this is his kingdom and we're just doing our small little part.
Speaker C:And a lot of people find courage in that.
Speaker C:As to where you can find it, I want to be especially sensitive to a lot of missionaries listening.
Speaker C:Won't be in places where you can buy English books in paper form.
Speaker C:So it Is available on Kindle already for pre order.
Speaker C:Audible.
Speaker C:It'll launch on, on launch day, I think on any audiobook, you know, Apple, Ibooks, go, whatever.
Speaker C:It'll be on all those stores.
Speaker C:And then of course you can buy it on, you know, Amazon and just regular hardcover as well.
Speaker C:So it's basically, you know, the whole, like wherever books are sold.
Speaker C:That's the, that's the line.
Speaker C:It should be in all the Barnes and Nobles and stuff too.
Speaker B:Good deal.
Speaker B:I love the.
Speaker B:I think the encouragement for me was the cumulative effect of a life well lived following what God has asked you to do do.
Speaker B:And you highlighted that.
Speaker B:The cumulative effect, I think so many times, at least in my life and ministry, if you just took a snapshot of a few days or even a few weeks or even a year, it could be discouraging as you highlighted.
Speaker B:But when you look at her life, it's an inspiration to see somebody who cumulatively those cumulative day after day doing what God has asked her to do.
Speaker B:Now you can look back and see this huge impact that she's had because she's been obedient to the giftings and talents that God had given her.
Speaker B:Her natural talents are acqu.
Speaker B:Abilities to do these translations.
Speaker B:And then I would honestly say as I read it, she has a spiritual gifting.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:A spiritual gifting of leadership and insight.
Speaker B:That which, you know, I was, it was, it's inspiring to me just to hear about it.
Speaker B:So for those who are listening in, it's.
Speaker B:And it's an aspiring.
Speaker B:It's an expiring read.
Speaker B:And I think for those who as, as missionaries, on days that you are discouraged or you're, you're wondering is this all worth it?
Speaker B:Or you know, am I do it.
Speaker B:Is it what impact just to read about somebody that has lived a life so well.
Speaker B:And as you said, like she's 86, right?
Speaker B:So there's not been 25 books written about her now.
Speaker B:She's not been, you know, this press, she's not well known.
Speaker B:But it, she's.
Speaker B:The impact is there and you can't argue with that.
Speaker B:And yeah, it's been a joy to spend some time with you today.
Speaker B:Will you pray for us?
Speaker C:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker C:And then remind me, what do I call your audience?
Speaker C:How can I pray for you guys?
Speaker B:You can pray for them however you missionaries, global workers, there's pastors that listen in, there's people that don't believe in Jesus yet that listen in.
Speaker B:So you can pray however you would like to.
Speaker C:Okay, sounds good.
Speaker C:Father, we thank you so much for this time just to talk about the amazing work you are doing in the world and we thank you that you are the ones or you are the one who lifts the tide, that you are the one who employs us, whether you've called us to be knights or bishops or pawns or queens on the board.
Speaker C:We just thank you for this calling, for this work.
Speaker C:Thank you for this audience who's listening today for missionaries and pastors and global workers of all, all slices and flavors.
Speaker C:I just pray you give them encouragement, give them hope, help them to be encouraged whether it's through reading this book or, you know, to be honest, many of them won't.
Speaker C:I just pray that this little clip that they'll, they'll hear of this life and be encouraged and know that you are doing wonderful things in the world.
Speaker C:We just thank you for this time and I lift up all these listeners in Jesus name, Amen.
Speaker B:Amen.
