2011 Missions Strategic Partners
In an effort to raise awareness of our many missionary partners throughout the world, we are highlighting two missions this year. Please know that our Mission Fund gives both of these ministries significant financial support because God is working miracles through them. To help you get to know both these strategic partners better, we will be sharing more about their work in worship and other venues in the church. These partners and all of the missionaries supported by Christ Church of Oak Brook are doing significant work, because people like you give generously to the Mission Fund.
Local Mission Project
This mission has been making a difference in the lives of children and youth since 1972. They provide after school programs, camps, and leadership development opportunities for the inner city children of Chicago’s Humboldt Park, Logan Square, and now Cicero.
ICI exists to present the living Christ, primarily to unchurched inner city children and youth, discipling and integrating them into a local church.
ICI serves more than 1,200 children and youth each year. The Cicero expansion is a target area that will involve 15,000 children attending 13 different schools. Plans include refurbishing a recently purchased 3-story building.
Global Mission Project
Wycliffe Bible translators is currently involved in more than 1,400 translation, literacy, and language-development programs, touching nearly 800 million people in 93 countries.
But there are 2,200 languages, representing nearly 350 million people that still need the Scriptures. More than 2.3 million people die annually in these language communities without hearing or reading God’s word.
Ten years ago, Wycliffe committed to seeing a Bible translated into every language by the year 2025. This will give every person the opportunity to get to know God’s word how they are most comfortable and how they learn best, in their own language. Since they made that commitment, 780 new language programs began in the past decade. This is an increase never before experienced in the 2,000 year history of Bible translation. It reduced the timeline for reaching remaining language communities by 122 years.
Wycliffe was founded in 1942 by William Cameron Townsend, a missionary to the Cakchiquel Indians of Guatemala, after some Cakchiquel-speaking men expressed their concern that the Bible was not available to them in the language they understood clearly.
For more information, please contact the Missions office.