In 1917 Cameron Townsend was a young missionary in Guatemala, working among the Cakchiquel Indians. He had trouble learning their difficult language but by 1931 he had completed a full translation of the New Testament. When ill health forced Townsend and his wife back to the United States they decided to start a summer school to show missionaries how to translate the Scriptures into the many unwritten languages around the world. Called the Summer Institute of Linguistics, it began on a farm in Sulphur Springs, Arkansas in 1934. By the 1940s the Institute had grown to the point it required more than part-time staff and temporary facilities. Renamed the Wycliffe Bible Translators in 1942, it became the world’s leading translation ministry.
Impact: Today Wycliffe has nearly 6,500 workers in over 50 countries. Their efforts have produced Scripture portions in hundreds of languages.