Missionary

Chuck and Barb Micheals

Description Of Work Additional Photos Prayer Requests How to Contact Us

Description of Work

Barb & I live in Orlando, Florida and are missionaries with Wycliffe Bible Translators (22 years now). We spent 15 years (1985 - 2000) with Wycliffe in Papua New Guinea (PNG) where I operated a supply store for Wycliffe which served the missionaries serving with Wycliffe in the remote location where we had our mission center (Ukarumpa, PNG). We raised our four kids in PNG and so Barb spent our first years there being a stay at home mom. As our kids grew up, Barb eventually worked in the high school library at Ukarumpa.

Barb & I grew up in Kalamazoo. Barb attended Second CRC and I grew up at Milwood CRC. I also worked in and also eventually managed several grocery stores in the Kalamazoo/Plainwell area. In 1982 we began to learn about Wycliffe and started supporting Barb's sister and her husband and family who were serving with Wycliffe in Peru as teachers. Eventually that support led us to consider getting involved ourselves and so in 1985 we decided to join Wycliffe and move to PNG where they needed a manager to supervise the mission store at Ukarumpa. The store supplied the needs of over 1200 Wycliffe missionaries and nationals who were involved in over 200 Bible translation projects.

Milwood began supporting us from the very beginning of our work and this support has continued for almost 22 years. We are very thankful for this continued support since Wycliffe missionaries do not receive a salary or wages from Wycliffe. As we did during the years we were in PNG and even today with our work with Wycliffe, we live solely off the gifts of individual churches and individuals who send support in earmarked for us. We never know from month to month what our support will be. However, God has proven to be faithful to us and in all these 22 years, all of our needs have been met. God has provided for us through churches like Milwood and others who stand with us in this Bible translation ministry.

Chuck and Barb Micheals

When we arrived in PNG in 1985, there were 25 New Testaments completed there and a further 185 Bible translation projects underway in PNG. When we left PNG in 2000, there were 125 New Testaments completed with a total of 285 projects begun there. The latest count as of August 2006 is 157 PNG New Testaments completed and one complete Bible. There are over 350 Bible translation projects that need to be started yet in PNG and over 2500 languages worldwide with no Bible. Wycliffe goal is to see that every language in the world receive the Bible in their own language. Our most recent goal is to see every language project started by the year 2025.

Coming Back To The USA

We came home to the USA in 2000 when our youngest daughter graduated from Ukarumpa high school. Our other children had previously graduated from there and were attending colleges in the USA while we finished our term of service in PNG. We came home to help our four kids get fully adjusted to life in the States and to care for aging parents.

Since we wanted to stay serving with Wycliffe and be near our families who needed our help, we both took up jobs with Wycliffe in Chicago, IL where Wycliffe has a regional office. We spent the next five years doing recruiting for Wycliffe in the nine states around Chicago. I headed up that regional work (I had a team of 15 other recruiters in this area I supervised) and Barb worked with me also in doing recruiting. Our goal was to recruit people to join Wycliffe. In our five years we were there, our regional recruitment team averaged about 100 people a year who started applying to Wycliffe from these nine states.

In 2004 we began to consider going back to PNG and we intended to return there in 2005 where I was slotted to take up the role as the Island's Regional Area Director, supervising the translation projects going on in the smaller islands off the coast of the PNG mainland. Our children began to be settled and so we felt it was time to return overseas. Barb's parents both passed away in 2002 & 2003 and my mom is still doing well and just turned 86 years old. My dad passed away in 1996 (both of my parents worship for many years at Milwood).

Our Family

Our oldest son Isaac served with the CRC mission board as a missionary in Port-au-Prince, Haiti as a teacher for several years (he currently is a teacher in Hamilton, MI). Our oldest daughter Maria married a missionary (Josh Mishler) and they joined Wycliffe and are serving with Wycliffe in Germany. Milwood CRC supports this work. They have two children (Ryan and Kody). Our middle daughter Rachel graduated from Dordt College and married Chris Wassenaar and they live in Omaha, NE and have one child (Hannah). Chris is a CPA and Rachel is a stay at home mom. Our youngest daughter graduated from the Reformed Bible College (now Kyper College) and also attended the Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, FL. She lives with us and is currently serving with Wycliffe part time in Orlando as a receptionist and as the Children's Director for Covenant Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Oviedo, FL where we also attend. She also attended college in Cape Town, South Africa for a short while and is interested in mission work.

New Direction

At this time, Wycliffe began to ask if I would consider moving to Orlando to serve as Wycliffe's Vice President for Recruitment Ministries, being responsible for all of Wycliffe's recruitment work in the USA. We sought the Lord's direction in prayer and also asked our main sending church (Second CRC, Kalamazoo, MI) if they would pray and advise us since we were willing to serve as needed. They church counsel met and unanimously decided we should take up the VP job believing that recruiting more people to go was better than us going and no one heading up the recruiting work. So, we moved to Orlando where Wycliffe has their USA headquarters in Februray 2005. Barb works with me and helps set up some of our short term mission trips that Wycliffe offers.

Our Work

I direct a team of 160+ Wycliffe recruiters spread throughout the USA and our goal is to help recruit 7000 new missionaries to Wycliffe in the USA by 2014. We do that developing and building relationships with people and challenging them to consider service in Bible translation. We operate many recruitment program and events. If you'd like to see these events, here are the web links:

We realize that God leads people to this work and our role is to assist people God is moving to join us. Worldwide, we estimate that 25,000 new missionaries will need to join in the Bible translation work by 2025 in order to see every language in the world that needs a Bible translation project started. We believe that the Church in the USA will need to provide 7000 of these missionaries and they need to be in place by 2014. Our goal is to therefore recruit these 7000 new workers to join Wycliffe.

We believe that this effort must start with prayer since the Lord in Matthew 9: 37, 38 remind us to pray to the Lord of the Harvest to send workers into the fields. So, we pray and ask that Milwood CRC join us in that prayer.

Again, please check our web site at http://www.cbmicheals.com/pages/. We thank for Lord for what Milwood continues to do on our behalf by their faithful prayers and support. We appreciate each prayer, letter and gift.

Additional Photos (return to top)

Prayer Requests (return to top)

Please pray for success in our recruitment work with Wycliffe this year so that we can send hundreds more workers into the Bible translation work.

How to Contact Us (return to top)

For Prayer Support / Our Home Address:
Chuck & Barb Micheals
5167 Poinsetta Ave
Winter Park, FL 32792
(407) 671-2817 (home)
(407) 852-3715 (office)
(321) 278-2225 (cell)

For Financial Support
Wycliffe Bible Translators
P.O. Box 628200
Orlando, FL 32862-8200
Marked for 'Chuck & Barb Micheals'

Email: Chuck_Micheals@wycliffe.org, Barb_Micheals@wycliffe.org
Web: http://www.cbmicheals.com