Stories from the Field

August 2003

Students are the ‘perfect resource’ for Celtic ministry

"As human resources go, student missionaries are an almost perfect resource," commented John Robinson, team leader for the Celtic Languages Team. "Students have a great deal of energy and enthusiasm, they have no inhibitions, they respect authority, and these days they have a real passion for God, a spiritual intensity and a commitment to win the lost."

The Celtic Language team encompasses people groups who speak one of the Celtic languages in Wales, Scotland, Ireland and in the Bretagne region of France. The Irish people are a group with whom Robinson has used a number of student mission teams and wants to use many more because of the mysterious nature of the information available to reach the Irish.

"At present, there is conflicting information about even the most basic demographics related to Irish speakers," Robinson says. "For example, "How many are there? Where are they? How important is the language to them?, etc. A good bit of this research could be done in any library or on the internet. However, we also desire good ethnographic information which requires personal interviews and observation."

To accomplish these interviews, Robinson has requested students to be CeLT researchers for a semsester. "These researchers will be traveling around to Celtic-speaking areas trying to answer important anthropological questions, such as "Who are the gatekeepers in these communities? Who makes the decisions? What is the world view of this people?" This is only possible through personal contact.

"Another important aspect to this research is people group mapping where we map out every geographic region with at least 200 speakers," Robinson added. "Each area will then be targeted for a cell group. The final impact is that we'll be able to hand information about how to reach these people to new career missionaries before they even arrive on the field. This will save them a lot of time and give them lots of contacts.

Robinson has invited students to work with him in the summer for the past 4 years. "Regarding evangelism, last year, through the ministry of the teams, about 40 Welsh young people came to faith in Christ. I don't have all of the figures for this year," he added, "but I know of at least 16 decisions of that nature, and literally thousands of seeds planted. And I have been personally enriched by my involvement with these students. All of the students from last year still call me 'Papa John,' and a number of them came to visit me while I was on stateside assignment.

"It's very rewarding to see what happens in their lives. I have received a journeyman who was a student missionary and it won't be long before others will be coming back as career missionaries."

Information on the CeLT projects and other projects with John Robinson at www.thetask.org/students/projects keyword: United Kingdom.