The Story of Gambarambi

A man in Zimbabwe named Gambarambi (Gahm-ba-rom-bee) would sit by the side of the road talking with people and smoking his hand-rolled cigarettes. A Bible translator who was translating the New Testament into Gambarambi’s language and he really wanted Gamabarmbi to have a New Testament. When he told Gambarambi this, Gambarambi told him that it probably wouldn’t be a good idea as he would tear the pages out and use them for his cigarettes.

The translator was in a quandary as to what he should do as he knew that Gambarambi needed to read about Jesus but he didn’t relish the thought of the New Testament being used for cigarette paper. He prayed about it and came up with an agreement for Gambarambi.

Changed by Prayer

In November 1983, David and Ray began praying that the Juni people of Sudan (a community of over 40,000 people) would receive the Bible in their own language. In May 1986, Jerry and Jan started praying for the Juni people as well. And in March 1990, Jane and Margie began praying too.

It turns out that the same month in 1983 that David and Ray started to pray, a young Juni man became a Christian! In June 1986, this man was accepted into a program for theological studies - just after Jerry and Jan began to pray! He later applied to study linguistics and translation so that he could translate God’s Word for his people. And in March 1990, the year that Jane and Margie began to pray, he was accepted as a Bible translation student. 

Called to Communicate

There have been many books written on calling, and many people have very different points of view on how to discern your calling and how to hear from the Lord. Saying such as: "Think about what in the world makes you the most angry - that's where you're called." Or "Don't know where God is calling you? You're already there. Keep going."

I definitely can't say I know the formula on how to know where God's calling you, but I do have confidence in where God is calling Dan and I. I also have confidence that our calling is not only something that will happen in the future. Presently, he's calling me to the kids and my co-workers in our church's child care center, and he's calling Dan to the people he sees each day. He's also currently calling us to our Equip training with Wycliffe. At Equip, we will be trained in how to begin our Partnership Development, and once Equip is over we will be called to our partners. We will continue to be called to our current work places and the people we interact with there as well.