C {Cameron Townsend}

Since becoming "official" members of Wycliffe in January, we have had 6 weeks of online training and, in April, spent 2 weeks in Orlando, FL at the Wycliffe Headquarters. This training included an array of information, including the background of how Wycliffe was founded. (Yes, Jason the history buff was excited!)

So today, here's a little about William Cameron Townsend, or Uncle Cam as he's affectionately remembered.

Uncle Cam was a college graduate, trying to sell Spanish Bibles in Guatemala in 1917. He discovered that the majority of people he was selling the Bibles to didn't understand Spanish. He was so convinced that it was God's will that the Cakchiquel people be able to read the Bible in their own language that he stayed among the people and stopped selling Bibles. The Cakchiquel people took him in, helped him learn their language, create an alphabet, analyze the grammar and translate the New Testament in just ten years.

But Uncle Cam didn't stop there. He was concerned for other Bibleless groups and opened Camp Wycliffe in Arkansas in the summer of l934. Named after the first translator of the entire English Bible, John Wycliffe (see yesterday's post!), Camp Wycliffe was designed to train people in basic linguistic and translation needs. Only two students enrolled. The next year, five new students enrolled and Townsend took the group to Mexico with him to begin translation work.

In 1942, Townsend and three associates—Kenneth Pike, William Nyman and Eugene Nida—officially founded Wycliffe Bible Translators and its affiliate organization, the Summer Institute of Linguistics (now know as SIL). In 1948, after surviving a serious airplane crash in Mexico, Towsend founded the Jungle Aviation And Radio Service...now known as JAARS...we'll talk more about this soon!


Townsend wrote many books and articles over the years. Many of these were on the topic of linguistics, for which the late Professor Edward Sapir, one of the world's great linguists, commended him. Townsend’s ultimate goal was to serve others scientifically, materially and spiritually. Uncle Cam passed away in 1982, but his vision to see Bible translation completed for every language that needs one has never been closer. Today, Wycliffe and each of its affiliate organizations continue to strive towards that goal.