15 Discovery Trips: 35 Alumni Mobilized for Bible Translation

An oldie but goodie; the Ghana Discovery team of 2002!

 Eight years ago research was done to determine how effective the Discovery program was in moving people forward into missions.  The results were exciting and confirmed for many of us that Discovery cross-cultural internships were indeed providing new members for Wycliffe Bible Translators and other missions organizations. This past fall (as John and I were preparing for a major partnership development trip to Arizona,) we wanted to get a better sense of how fruitful the Discovery trips we personally have led were, so we decided to conduct a survey of just our Discovery alumni.  It turned out to be a bigger undertaking than we’d imagined...but was very encouraging!

   We attempted to contact all of the 179 participants of our 15 trips; 106 responded to our survey (that’s 59%) and we knew enough about another 21 alumni to be able to include some info about their after Discovery life as well (that’s 12%).  That left us with 52 alumni for whom we lacked recent information 29%).  The stats below are based on all 179 participants, so the numbers are likely a bit low...but here’s what we learned:

• 56 alumni (31.75 %) have served in a mission for one or more years post Discovery;
• 29  (17%) joined Wycliffe Bible Translators for a year or more; an additional
• 6 (3.25%) joined other Bible translation organizations;
• 19  (11.5%) served with various missions organizations not related to Bible translation;
• 26% have given or continue to give financially to support the work of Bible translation; and
• 4.5% would still like to become missionaries .

THIS is the fruit of our many partners prayers and donations as they have partnered with us over the years; together we rejoice in what God has done and continues to do!