Being Thankful

00:01
Dr. Wayne Braun
The most important tool that a pastor or missionary or church worker or lay leader or Bible class teacher has is the Scripture. 

00:22
Rich Rudowske
Welcome to the Essentially Translatable podcast brought to you Lutheran Bible Translators. My name is Rich Rudowske. I’m the Chief Operating Officer here at LBT. Today’s episode features LBT Board member Dr. Wayne Braun. Wayne serves as senior pastor at Fishers of Men Lutheran Church in Sugarland, Texas, near Houston. He has served at various intervals on LBT’s board over the past 20 years, is himself a former missionary to Germany and a joyful minister of the Gospel at every stop to which the Lord has called he and his wife Linda, to serve. We sat down to talk about the importance of thankfulness in the Christian life and about LBT’s upcoming giving Tuesday 2020 campaign. Wayne is a great storyteller, so enjoy this special Thanksgiving Day episode of Essentially Translatable. 

01:11
Rich Rudowske
All right, we are with Dr. Wayne Braun, member of the Lutheran Bible Translators Board of Directors, and we are talking some about Thanksgiving and being thankful and our upcoming Giving Tuesday. So before we get into all that, let’s let the audience get to know. 

01:25
Dr. Wayne Braun
You a little bit. 

01:26
Rich Rudowske
Tell us some about yourself, your background, and how you got involved in Lutheran Bible Translators. 

01:31
Dr. Wayne Braun
Well, I’m a Lutheran pastor. Been LCMS pastor for 36 years now and grew up in the Chicago area. Son of a Hegan air conditioning man and office worker. The family of three sisters went to school at Concordia Milwaukee. That’s where I met my wife Linda. That was back in the days when it was a college, not a university. It was in downtown Milwaukee, not out on the lake. We used to call it the UCLA “University of Concordia by the Lake, Almost”. But little did we know that’s what it is right now. It is right by, you know, I met wife there. I always tell people that my pastor wanted me to go to Concordia Milwaukee to meet and be influenced by Prexi Stunkel. Walter W. Stunkel, who was the president then, but he was only there a semester, and then he retired. Oh, really? 

02:25
Dr. Wayne Braun
I had him for one class, got to know him. An amazing man. But I think God brought me there for two reasons. One was to meet my wife Linda, obviously, that was the most important reason, and along with getting education, everything. The other was to meet Pastor David Koch, who was the campus pastor, and he’s in heaven now. But David was. I always considered him my pastor, even though I never belonged to any church that he pastored. He was a great mentor to me. Did our wedding, was part of my ordination on down the line. When I was at seminary I thought about being a missionary. I remember sitting in Pritzloff Hall, I think it was at Seminary in St. Louis. And they had this big presentation from world missions and got us all excited. 

03:07
Dr. Wayne Braun
And for a little bit I thought oh, maybe I should do that. And then afterwards I thought are you crazy? And I didn’t think I could stand being that far from home and family and so forth. So I just went the route of parish ministry. And how I got involved with LBT is kind of a funny story. When I was campus pastor at Concordia, Wisconsin back from 1997- 2001, one of the campus ministry leaders was a young man by the name of David Federwitz. David and Nathan Esla, who had graduated the year before, who are both LBT missionaries, had started a mission movement on the college campuses called Beautiful Feet. It was their brainchild. It was those two young men that started that. 

03:53
Dr. Wayne Braun
I think it’s still going every fall or someplace one of the campuses they have a missions emphasis and David started that. So I got close to David. I went to that trip. First one was in St. Louis at the international center. Anyway, somewhere along the line, my first or second year at CUW, David a student says to me, would you like to be on the Lutheran Bible Translators Board of Directors? And I thought, yeah, right. You’re a college student. Okay, David, yeah, I’ll be glad to serve. I thinking all the time know he’s a college student, know nothing’s going to come of this. Well, before I knew it, by that spring, I was on the Lutheran Bible Translators Board of Directors. I did not know at the time how many Federwitzes there are connected with David. 

04:44
Dr. Wayne Braun
David is really the door to me getting involved. It’s really kind of interesting because I’ve met numerous people over the years who got their start in world missions or some kind of mission work because of their relationship with David. I can’t think of her name right now, but she used to be an LCMS missionary in Macau,which is across the bay from Hong Kong. And I was visiting with her and she said, I asked her how she got into mission. She said well I met a young man named David Federwitz… and I thought okay, you don’t have to say anything more. So David’s how I got on the Board way back, I want to say 1999, maybe 2000, something like that. I served 13 years. I had one nine-year term and then I was off for a year and I got re-nominated. 

05:39
Dr. Wayne Braun
I don’t know if David re-nominated me, or the Board did or who? But I got back on. That’s how I got involved. That’s my history of missions for Wayne. 

05:48
Rich Rudowske
Sounds good, right? Okay, so in addition to the missionary connection with David and the Federwitz family, now you have a family and several of your kids have also served in mission and you mentioned your own missionary service. Tell us a little bit about those. 

06:01
Dr. Wayne Braun
Well, we have two sons that are pastors. Benjamin is a pastor, our oldest is a pastor, in Penfield, New York. And our youngest, Stephen, is also a pastor. And he has just taken a call to serve as pastor at Risen Christ Lutheran Church in Fairport, New York. And he’ll be starting that sometime in November, December. I’m not sure when this gets broadcast, but anyway, our middle son is the one who’s Jonathan, who’s always had kind of an interest in missions. He was trained at Concordia University of Wisconsin as what they used to call the Lay Ministry program. Now they’ve changed it to Director of Church Ministries. And his emphasis was in missions and youth ministry. And when he got up from college, he went and served as a geo missionary. 

06:54
Dr. Wayne Braun
Was just kind of a voluntary position for two years teaching ESL, working with children. Really, it kind of bothered us when he went first off, and we’re missing him a lot. But then went over on a trip to visit him and realized, okay, this is right where he belongs. He’s happy. He’s doing what God wants him to do. He met his wife there, who was an Indonesian lady, Dora, and eventually he moved to Indonesia. Then he got hooked up with the Mission of Christ Network, which is right there in Concordia, Missouri as well. Concordia, Missouri has become this new missions mecca. (That’s right.) Anyway, he got hooked and he spent a number of years working Indonesia for MCM, but he also served as a missionary for two years in Hungary, doing ESL work there as well in the Budapest area. 

07:47
Dr. Wayne Braun
So both Stephen’s had some involvement with missions and both Stephen and John went through the Lay Ministry program and I think they majored in missions. Stephen, like I said, he’s going into Parish Ministry now. 

08:00
Rich Rudowske
So you’ve been involved with LBT’s board then? On and off for part of about 20 years now. So from the perspective of being on the Board, how has the ministry or Bible translation ministry changed during those 20 years? 

08:16
Dr. Wayne Braun
A couple of things. LBT has changed. I always felt a little bit like, and I don’t mean this as a cut, that LBT at the beginning was very much a ‘mom and pop’ organization and it was started by two missionaries who came back and started it in California, and it really needed to grow, I want to say, into the big leagues of Bible translation because we have so much to bring. And that’s one of the biggest changes I see. I think that’s happening now. I think the influence and the work in Bible translation that this small mission organization is having is just tremendous. And the partnership with illumiNations, for those of you listeners that haven’t heard about illumiNations, is kind of a partnership. 

09:05
Dr. Wayne Braun
A number of different Bible translation organizations that are pooling their resources together to get the Scriptures translated into the languages don’t have it yet. And it’s really cool. And from what I’ve learned as a board member is that LBT is well respected in that community and that we’re having a big influence on Bible translation work. Now, the other and probably the bigger difference is, I think the way we work with partners, I think this is probably a puzzle to a lot of Americans who are used to sending missionaries, and we still do that at LBT. We send missionaries to various parts of the world. But now, and I think it’s Sue McConaughey, Jesus in Ethiopia has really opened the door for us. 

09:47
Dr. Wayne Braun
They’re wanting to do translation work, and so they’re partnering with LBT to build this facility and build this program where they train translators to do the work. To me, in another sense, it’s another sign that the center of the Christian world is shifting away from the West, shifting away from America. It’s already shifted away from Europe and into places we would call third-world or into Africa and other places where Christianity is just booming. And they’re building the mission infrastructure now, which is really cool. So we’re working to equip people to do their own translation work and consulting with them. And I think it’s really expanding and growing the ability to do translation work. And that probably is the biggest difference from when I was on the first time to what I’m on now. 

10:39
Rich Rudowske
What is it about LBT ministry and the ministry of Bible translation that you’re passionate about? 

10:45
Dr. Wayne Braun
Okay, I’m going to tell you a story. I’m a storyteller. When I was in Texarkana as a pastor, we had a friendship Sunday, and a lady showed up by the name of Linda Mabry, and she had a special needs daughter. And when I went to visit her at her home, her husband and her daughter at her home, after the friendship Sunday, one of the things she said is, “I would really like Kelly to go through confirmation.” And so we set it up. And the materials, I did some research, and Bethesda in Wisconsin from Watertown directed me towards some materials that the Wisconsin Senate had developed. And so I used their confirmation material. And anyway, we had our first session together, and Linda, she cautioned me, she said, Pastor Braun, Kelly, she learns on a third or fourth grade level. 

11:40
Dr. Wayne Braun
You can’t expect her to understand quickly. Don’t be disappointed. The attention span is short. And so we only did 15-minute sessions once a week for two years. But I said to her, and I said, “Well, you know, Linda, I know that we have an advantage that the math teacher and the history teacher doesn’t have. We’re going to use the Scriptures, and the Scripture is God-breathed the same breath of God that breathed into the nostrils of Adam and made of a living being breathed through these pages. And so we’re going to trust that God can work through his Word to do some things in Kelly’s heart that the math teacher didn’t have that advantage.” And it was amazing. 

12:28
Dr. Wayne Braun
During those two years, I still remember the night, the day we spent 15 minutes talking about the Lord’s Supper and the mystery of the real presence. And this young special needs, well, she’s probably 19-20 year old special needs girl, grasped it almost instantly. That was the Holy Spirit. Sure. What does that have to do with Bible translation? That’s because we use the Word. The basic tool of ministry is Scripture. I get all the books, and I read them, too. I’m reading a book called Unstuck Church now, and all the things you’re supposed to do to help your church grow and so forth. But let me tell you that there’s only one key ingredient. There’s only one kind of seed that the Lord sows, and that’s the Word. And without the Word, any growth we have is not what God is looking for. 

13:21
Dr. Wayne Braun
With the word, that growth is possible. That’s the basic tool of ministry. So imagine you’re living in Ghana, and you’re a pastor talking, trying to share the Gospel with people. And the only Bible you have is English or Portuguese or Spanish. But the people don’t speak those languages. They speak. Where’s that? 

13:53
Rich Rudowske
Yep, that’s in Ghana. 

13:54
Dr. Wayne Braun
Ghana. They speak Komba. I can’t imagine if right now, if the only Bible I had was German and I was trying to teach and share the Gospel with the people of Sugarland, with a German Bible, I might have three or four people that knew what I was talking about. The most important tool that a pastor or missionary or church worker or lay leader or Bible class teacher has is the Scripture. So why I’m passionate about it is that because that’s how God reaches people’s hearts. That’s how he reached my heart. And I love the phrase. The LBT mission statement has changed a little bit, but the words that have remained there is about making the Word of God available to people in the language of their hearts. That spoke to me, and it still speaks to me. 

14:47
Dr. Wayne Braun
I think, about that phrase, language of their hearts. If somebody starts singing a tune, not the words, but a tune from the liturgy of the Lutheran hymnal that I grew up with, I can fill the words in automatically. It will trigger it, and off I go. Why? Because liturgically speaking, that’s the language of my heart. That’s what I grew up on. And I still pray some of the prayers from that hymnal in my daily prayers. Well, imagine what it means to have God’s Word in the language of your heart. Stephen was on an internship in Germany because he knows German, and this is a number of years ago. And he called us one day and he said, I’m starting to have dreams in the German language. (Wow.) 

15:37
Rich Rudowske
Yeah. 

15:39
Dr. Wayne Braun
Which was cool, if you want to put it that way. The language of your heart is in some ways the language you dream in. And so if God’s Word is available to people in the language I remember, I don’t think it was a Komba speaker, but I’m going to use that. Watching a video back when Marshall was Executive Director of LBT and we were watching a video on the Board, it was a video of something going on in the mission field and Marshall, in the video, one of the speakers said, now God speaks Komba. And what a joy that was for him. That now the Scriptures- God spoke to him in his own language. What do you understand best? I understand German, but it’s a struggle. But I understand English, even American-English pretty well. Even understand British-English fairly well. 

16:39
Dr. Wayne Braun
That’s why I’m passionate, because I really think that image of God shaping Adam from the dust of the ground and breathing into his nostrils the breath of life, it’s the same word only in Greek that Paul uses when he says all scripture is God-breathed. That’s powerful. I think LBT’s work is the first step in any mission field. It’s one of the most important things that can happen in a mission field, because how do you make Christ known? You bring them His Word. 

17:12
Rich Rudowske
Very good. So, as we’re in 2020, which has been a difficult year, we are at Thanksgiving now. And just in general, why is being thankful important? What’s the importance of thankfulness. And why is it important to mark an occasion like Thanksgiving? 

17:29
Dr. Wayne Braun
Gratitude takes you out of yourself and focuses your eyes on the true source of everything. Gratitude is not possible. It keeps you from navel-gazing. It lifts your eyes off of your troubles. And to the God who is the giver of every good gift, it lifts your eyes off of the stuff that makes you want to pat yourself in the back and reminds you that, hey, everything we have is a gift of God. I personally believe that the soil in which gratitude grows is not what we have, not focusing on what we have, but focusing on who has think. Because some people say, how can somebody who’s poor and doesn’t have anything be grateful? Well, sometimes they’re the most grateful people in the world. 

18:24
Dr. Wayne Braun
And I think what that comes from, I remember we took a mission trip with the youth to Mexico, and they said, well, they seem so happy and everything, and sometimes we seem so miserable. And I think my comment to the student was, well, gratitude is not because of what we have. It’s because of who has us. When we focus what we have, we tend to get miserable. We focus on who has us. That’s what lifts us up. That’s what gives us confidence. In Deuteronomy eight, when Moses tells them not to forget the Lord, their God, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, what he was telling him is, don’t forget who has you. And so I think gratitude is part of remembering that God has us in his hands, he’s taking care of us. And boy, is that important this year. 

19:10
Dr. Wayne Braun
I was reading something this morning. It was about that sometimes we moan and lament about everything that’s going on in the world, and we forget that God is still in charge. He’s still in control. Sometimes we let all that other stuff become too important and take His place in our lives. And it’s like somebody once told me when I was in the hospital, Wayne, sometimes God puts you flat in your back, so the only direction you have to look is up. And I think sometimes that’s what’s happening in our nation right now. We think that prosperous economy and health and having the right person in office, that’ll solve all our problems. It all comes down to our relationship with God. And I think God wants us to look up and give thanks. 

19:56
Dr. Wayne Braun
And so a day like Thanksgiving, which isn’t a church holiday, it’s a national holiday, was a wise move by the forefathers of this nation to say, we need to remember who has us. And who takes care of us and we need to pause and give thanks for that. 

20:14
Rich Rudowske
Absolutely. Yeah. In many ways, the effects of original sin are what you mentioned. Just looking in at yourself, that’s what you see actually happen in the story of Adam and Eve’s first thing they do is notice themselves. 

20:28
Dr. Wayne Braun
Yeah, they’re naked. 

20:29
Rich Rudowske
Right. I guess it stands to reason that one of the impacts of the Gospel is to look up and to remember and be thankful for what we’ve been given in spite of what we’re experiencing now. 

20:44
Dr. Wayne Braun
Right. 

20:44
Rich Rudowske
So in a tough year like 2020, what are you thankful for? 

20:48
Dr. Wayne Braun
I’m thankful for my family. I’m thankful that for all sorts of reasons that God is gracious and continues to love me. One of the things, I’m like everybody else, I mess up a lot. And one of those moments when I was really aware of my own sin, it dawned on me that Jesus knew I was going to do whatever I did in each moment, all the mess that I would make in life. He knew that before the foundation of the world and still he chose to die for me. The day I was baptized in January 1, 1959, he already knew what all the stupid things I would think, say and do in my life. And he said, yeah, I want him. What is that but the grace of God? 

21:39
Dr. Wayne Braun
So if you want to know what I’m thankful for, I’m thankful that he loves me in spite of everything, that he still wants me in his kingdom, that he still invites me to his table and that he has a place for me in heaven and that he has loved all of us that way and that all my children, our children are believers. And I didn’t talk about Bethany. She’s not serving full time in church, but she’s a teacher in school and she’s been a teacher of special needs kids. If I don’t remember to mention her, I’m going to be in trouble because I love all my kids. 

22:19
Rich Rudowske
All right, Bethany, we got you. Now, if you’re listening. 

22:24
Dr. Wayne Braun
Know and our grandkids, know and believe in Jesus and our one son-in-law and the two daughter-in-laws are believers and that I’ve been given a wonderful wife who is very gracious and a reflection of God’s grace to me. That’s the other partner in mission, too, has been Linda because she’s kind of supported me through all this. She’s been part of this. We work together in the mission here. We worked together in Germany. We worked together. She was a preschool {teacher} in Flower Mound. She’s the preschool director here. I’m just thankful for the family that God has given me all the things that I think what really feeds that gratitude is the fact that I didn’t deserve any of this, and yet he gave it to me. 

23:19
Dr. Wayne Braun
I’m reminded Paul, if you read Paul’s writings, he goes from being, over time, and you can trace it. He goes from being the least of all the saints to being, by the end of his life, the chief of sinners. He becomes more and more aware of his own sinfulness and how great and wonderful is the gift of God, that God would love him and love us. So that’s what I’m grateful for. 

23:46
Rich Rudowske
Absolutely. And depending on when folks are listening, it may be Thanksgiving evening or just the day or two following. But some of the, in my opinion, the irony of this season is then you kind of launch out from Thanksgiving into this hustling, bustling season leading up to Christmas. And for me, the keeping track of what I’m grateful for and being thankful for is really important during that time as we, of course, arrive at Christmas. And the greatest gift of all that is the source of our thanksgiving in the first place. Jesus given to us. So as we go into the season, as we’ve talked about on this podcast, Lutheran Bible Translators, shortly here has Giving Tuesday. It’s the Tuesday immediately following the airing of this broadcast, and that’s coming up with an emphasis to raise funds for literacy work in Sierra Leone, West Africa. 

24:43
Rich Rudowske
Tell us some about Giving Tuesday and the opportunities there in Sierra Leone. 

24:48
Dr. Wayne Braun
I can’t think of her last name. Amy. A missionary. 

24:51
Rich Rudowske
Amy Formella. 

24:52
Dr. Wayne Braun
Yeah, Amy Formella. She’s a really good friend of our son Stephen, and she works among the Mende people. 

25:01
Rich Rudowske
That’s correct. 

25:02
Dr. Wayne Braun
And I’m not sure if she’s doing translation work or literacy work, but I know that what amazes me is that she, right now, she’s had to be back in the United States because of COVID But as I understand it, she’s up early in the morning here in the United States on Zoom or whatever they’re using, talking with the partners in Sierra Leone, continuing the work, and I think that’s really amazing. You guys sent me, I think, four documents, and I was reading through them about an institute for Sierra Leonean languages. The work among literacy work among the Mende people. I’m going to say these names wrong. Loko and Limba. And, you know, a lot of it is scripture engagement and literacy work. And you may think, well, why is LBT doing that work? 

25:55
Dr. Wayne Braun
Well, it’s because it doesn’t do much good to translate the Bible if they can’t use them. And so we do the literacy work to help build the skills to help people and pastors and church workers that are there to learn how to use their own language, to be able to use the text of Scripture that we translated. So LBT’s work is really both translation and then making sure it’s able to be used, that the book doesn’t just sit on the shelf. And I think that’s what’s going on. I looked at the statistics and I think total, if I saw on the pages you sent me, was close to 2.2 million people being touched or have the potential of being touched by this work with God’s Word. 

26:46
Dr. Wayne Braun
And one thing I want to say to people, just because the world seemed to stop the last six months with COVID God’s work didn’t stop. I was reminded of this one Sunday, early July, a family just had a baby, and four days later, in the midst of COVID brought the baby to church on Sunday morning, and we baptized the baby with masks on. And God’s work is continuing. It didn’t stop. And this work in Sierra Leone, that’s why I shared that story about Amy being up early in the morning. It didn’t stop. It’s still going on and it still needs our support. That’s what Giving Tuesday is about. 

27:27
Dr. Wayne Braun
And I think this giving Tuesday, the emphasis is on that work in Sierra Leone and how we can help to help those people there, to be able to use the scriptures and the language of their hearts to help Amy and other missionaries that are working there with. Working with our, you know, you’re helping to make God’s Word available to people by the gift. You are part of the translation work by your gifts and by your prayers. I used to think missionaries asked for prayers because that’s what you had to do. It not be right not to say something about, you should pray for me until I was in Germany, and then I would get notes and cards from people back in the States who didn’t know me, who were supporting us, and they would say that they’re praying for me. So important. 

28:20
Dr. Wayne Braun
So please support with your prayers, support with your gifts. These folks are doing tremendous work when they are able to be in country. They’re around the world, away from home, away from family, and why? Because they love Jesus and they want other people to know about Jesus and that matters for eternity. 

28:42
Rich Rudowske
Yeah. And it is so true what you said, that the world may have seemed to stop, but the work of God’s mission definitely continued. And were thrilled, honestly, around the world to see how resilient our partners have been in adapting and working under some difficult circumstances. And every nation has a different situation and set of rules. 

29:04
Rich Rudowske
And there was a period of time where we here, as LBT in the United States, felt a little immobilized and like, well, what can we do at this point? And we saw it as an opportunity to shift gear some and make sure that we upped our game in being able to tell the story of what folks out there were doing. If we couldn’t be there with them, we could still share what was happening and be sure that they had the resources ongoing to do the work that they were doing. So this podcast is a result of that time and certainly work on our social media. In the meantime, as you mentioned, folks like Amy and others have shifted to being able to work like most of the world has done on Zoom or other tools. And it’s been wonderful to see how technology has served. 

29:53
Rich Rudowske
There’s an old mission sermon from Walther, one of the founding fathers of the Missouri Synod, where back in 1850 already he makes the point of saying all this technological development has happened, and everybody that’s developed it has thought that it’s for their profit or for their own ends. But what they don’t know is it’s a highway for God’s mission. And if that was true back then, even more so now. 

30:18
Dr. Wayne Braun
Wow. 

30:19
Rich Rudowske
All of this technology has been a highway for God’s mission. And so there’s a lot of folks listening now that have been newly following us or kind of taken more interest in learning more about the work of Bible translation, following on our social media and seeing the stories. And so Giving Tuesday is really a great opportunity to up your involvement a notch by committing to pray for Bible translation work or even to contribute financially through this Giving Tuesday campaign. When you think about involvement in ministry, why is taking your involvement in ministry up a notch by prayer or financial support important? 

30:54
Dr. Wayne Braun
Because you’re investing in people who are going and doing the work that you’re not able to do. I’m not able to do Bible translation work. I don’t have the wherewithal or the brains to be able to go over and do it and what these folks are doing. But we’ve got people that are trained. And so if you care about people getting the word out around the world, then support this people to go and do where you can’t go and do. Jesus said, “You’ll be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria into the ends of the earth.” That means that everybody he was talking to that day went to the ends of the earth, but they supported people that went to the ends of the earth and we are all part of that mission. 

31:41
Dr. Wayne Braun
Ed Westcott, who way back when was the head of World Missions for Synod, way back in the, remember hearing him in sermon, he said, “Your mission field starts where your feet hit the ground in the morning.” Sure. The other thing he reminded me of was that he said, “What’s happening on the news is not really what’s happening.” At that time. It was sending, I think, people from Cuba and people were all upset about this and people were all upset about the international students studying in the States. And Westcott said, “What in the world is wrong with you Christians? God is bringing us people from nations where we cannot send missionaries. So he’s bringing them here where we can share the Gospel with them.” 

32:26
Dr. Wayne Braun
And some of them will come to faith and they’ll go back and share the faith there as missionaries in their own land. Right now everybody’s so upset and anxious and we’ve got Covid fatigue and we’re worried about the elections and all the division and the fighting and the rioting and what’s going on in the world. The news isn’t the news, I can guarantee, even though I don’t understand it. God is allowing, using all of this so that His Gospel can get out, so that His message can get into the world. He’s using it somehow to open up places where in the past the Gospel couldn’t go. And so when you step up, you get to be a part of that. I read something the other day. 

33:08
Dr. Wayne Braun
The churches that are going to be ready when Covid is over are those that are moving forward now. Absolutely not waiting till it’s over. And this isn’t the time to sit and stall out. This is the time to trust God and become a part of it. And I think that’s the other thing. A lot of people are worried and fearful financially. Having more money is not going to take away that fear. Having a firm job is not going to take away that fear. Only thing that’s going to take away that fear is putting your faith and trust in God. Absolutely trust him. Let him have all of it. 

33:40
Dr. Wayne Braun
That’s where it’s a real step up because you’re learning to step out and trust him and ask him to use everything you have, whether it’s where you live or in Sierra Leone, to help bring the Gospel to people. 

33:52
Rich Rudowske
Yeah. And one of the things I find just, again, in service to the Gospel is the whole concept of Giving Tuesday is not an LBT thing. It was developed by folks just working in general nonprofits. But the whole thought behind it, even the symbols in the logos are there’s a heart for Giving Tuesday. And that reflects what the Scripture taught us thousands of years ago already. As Jesus said, where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. And so in the midst of so much uncertainty and so much going on, that investment of time for prayer, or that investment even of a small gift, you put a piece of your heart there as well. 

34:32
Rich Rudowske
And I think in uncertain times like this, where there’s a lot of questions, it’s really important to be part of something bigger than yourself and to put part of yourself into something like that. And so that’s really one of the opportunities available in work with LBT. And LBT’s Giving Tuesday. 

34:51
Dr. Wayne Braun
This know, when I was a kid, I used to love it when my dad would say, hey, you want to come help me build some shelves in the basement? Giving Tuesday, LBT is your father in heaven saying, hey, want to come help me build some Bibles in Sierra Leone? And you don’t have to leave your living room. You can be a part of that, and you are a part of that. And that’s really cool. 

35:14
Rich Rudowske
Absolutely. And there’s a lot of great opportunities and causes to be involved with and to contribute to a better world. Why should someone listening consider making Bible translation ministry and Lutheran Bible Translators a priority? 

35:27
Dr. Wayne Braun
Because I don’t think that any other mission work can happen effectively without the Word of God. And so if you want to help missions, then help make the Word of God available to people in the language of the hearts and help LBT, because they do really quality work with partners and they do really faithful work of seeking to translate the Scriptures into the language of people’s hearts and to help people to use those Scriptures. They have been faithfully going about this now for over 40 some years. That work is growing. They’re partnering with some great people, great organizations. 

36:06
Dr. Wayne Braun
And I think when you want to know that your dollars are being used faithfully in the mission work, well, then you can know that with Lutheran Bible Translators and be confident that, hey, when I give, this is helping to make that translation work and that literacy work happen. 

36:23
Rich Rudowske
Absolutely. Thank you so much. We’ve been talking with Dr. Wayne Braun, member of Lutheran Bible Translators Board of Directors, and certainly want to wish you and Linda and your family a happy Thanksgiving as you celebrate and thanks for spending your time with us today. 

36:39
Dr. Wayne Braun
You’re welcome. Rich. You guys too. Say hello to your family. Say hello everybody over there in Concordia, Missouri. 

36:43
Rich Rudowske
We’ll do thanks. 

36:48
Rich Rudowske
Our thanks to Dr. Wayne Braun for being on the podcast today to share his thoughts on ministry and the role of thankfulness in the Christian life. We’re excited for LBT Giving Tuesday 2020 as one way to share our thankfulness for the great gifts that God has given to us. Join us on Tuesday, December 1 on any of our social media channels, or go to lbt.org/givingtuesday to see some of the great prizes and opportunities to get involved, to collaborate and rally around this important work and to help raise $45,000 for literacy work in Sierra Leone, West Africa. That’s lbt.org/givingtuesday or Lutheran Bible Translators on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter at any time of the year, even if you’re listening to this episode well after December 1. Thank you for listening to the Essentially Translatable podcast brought to you by Lutheran Bible Translators. 

37:40
Rich Rudowske
Look for past episodes of the podcast lbt.org/podcast or find us and leave us a good rating on any of the podcast platforms out there. Apple, Google, iHeartRadio, Spotify. Wherever you listen to podcasts, follow Lutheran Bible Translators social media channels on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. Or go to lbt.org to find out how you can get involved in the Bible translation movement and put God’s Word in their hands. The Essentially Translatable podcast is edited and produced by Andrew Olson and distributed by Sarah Lyons. Our Executive Producer is Amy Gertz. That fabulous podcast artwork was designed by Caleb Rodewald. Music written and performed by the one and only Rob Veith. I’m Rich Rudowske. So long for now.