A couple of years ago a reader of Words for the Day, Frank Morroco, asked me to translate my book Miracle on Luckie Street into Spanish. While I agreed that many Latino people would likely benefit enormously from it, I had so many other projects going that were sucking money out of my ministry I simply could not afford to hire someone to do it.
He told me he was a school teacher and asked if I would allow him to translate it. I told him I could not pay him anything, but if he wanted to take a stab at it to have at it. There could be no guarantees, but maybe I could pay him something when he finished it. I didn’t hear anything for quite some time and then he sent me the following e-mail:
“I haven’t been reading Words for the Day for the past few days because I have been busy translating the first chapter of your book There are so many more people you could be reaching; so many people that need to hear your story; you never know whose life you’re going to change.
I don’t know you, but I am glad as ‘hell’ I read your story. Whether you want to believe it or not, you have touched my life. I just happened to be going to New York City yesterday and I was reading my New Testament on the bus, and I got to thinking about whether or not I was backing up my faith with works. And I thought: maybe I should be visiting my county jail and bringing whatever consolation I can to those poor, incarcerated souls. You see, Bob Williamson, you are changing my life.
Thanks”
I received that e-mail over a year and a half ago. Last week I got another e-mail from Frank that reads in part:
“The book is finished.
It has taken me a long time, but it is indeed finished and it’ll live on for so many years to come touching people like it did me. The translation is excellent and it has been revised 4 times.
I have struggled with it and I have lived with it through many setbacks and disappointments. I hired people to help me finish it just to have them walk out on me or make excuses for not wanting to make some extra money. Who can figure people out? So in the end I pretty much translated the entire thing myself.
The revisions were done by me, a doctor from Bolivia, a teacher from Venezuela and an advanced ESL student from Colombia. They all did a good job picking at it and polishing it up.
Some of the people that have read the manuscript told me that it made them laugh and cry, and of course that they cannot wait to get their hands on the actual book. One of them told me that it did her good to read the manuscript, because she felt she had been getting away from God for a while.
All modesty aside, the translation is remarkable and how I wish you could understand Spanish so that you could judge my work for yourself. Translating is not just about translating words, but about conveying feelings; despair, humor, joy, etc. and I feel that I have succeeded in speaking for Bob Williamson in Spanish quite adequately. I have managed to make the pain, anger, fear, frustration, humor, violence and finally redemption of Bob Williamson come alive on the printed page . . .
I have often wondered what God’s purpose for my life is. I have frequently asked him to show me what to do . . . and I get no answers. Some people tell me that perhaps I am already doing God’s purpose. They see my teaching English as a way of helping and motivating people, and while I admit that I feel I was born to teach, I doubt that that is all God wants from me. And then I think, maybe translating this book is what he wanted me to do. Your story is very real and while I know that some people are offended by the brutal honesty of it, it doesn’t minimize its importance. Your book is, after all, a message for sinners, and not for saints.
And that’s that.
Hoping to see it in print soon. Please tell me how to proceed.”
Hmmm . . . I know how many times he felt like quitting and giving up, especially with his family and friends telling him he was crazy to perform all that work with no financial guarantees. I know how discouraging it was to face the setbacks and disappointments that he mentioned. I can envision him sitting by his computer night after night laboring over this project.
I also know the satisfaction of having accomplished something major for the Lord and knowing that his faith, perseverance, and patience would result in a harvest of lost and tortured souls, most of whom he will never meet this side of heaven. Be assured my friends that Frank’s reward will be great and in fact has already begun.
My budget is no better than it was two years ago, but rest assured I will find the money to get the book published and distributed and Frank’s dream of reaching Latino’s all over the world with this story will be realized. One day in heaven Jesus will allow Frank to see the full extent of all of those he reached for the kingdom through his faithful service to the Lord.
I urge you to think about this man today. He doesn’t know me and I don’t know him. Had it not been for his reaching out to me through this daily devotional, who knows when, if ever, this book might have ever been translated into Spanish. Had he not been willing to work tirelessly on weekends and after work, lost people would have not had the opportunity to find hope.
God created you for His purpose.
So why did God create you?
Jesus often used an analogy of a tree bearing fruit. A tree that does not bear fruit is pretty much useless and is better destroyed. Those trees that bear lovely fruit however are coveted. His use of the term “bearing fruit” refers to working towards adding others to the kingdom of God. Selah . . .
John 15:16
You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.
November 18, 2014 – Click here to listen