Interview with Marsha Relyea Miles

By Brad Dupray

Marsha Relyea Miles”s credentials as president of the 2007 National Missionary Convention were established in the jungle of Papua New Guinea, where she worked with her husband, John, for more than 20 years on the translation of the Bible into the Aruamu language. With the completion of the translation, and John”s sudden death, in 2005, Marsha returned to the United States to continue her work as director of mobilization and development with Pioneer Bible Translators. Marsha is a graduate of Ozark Christian College, Joplin, Missouri, and the University of Texas at Arlington and is the proud mother of three: Heather, Brigette, and Bobby. She and her husband, Nathan Miles, reside in Dallas, Texas.

How did you feel about this year”s National Missionary Convention?

Full of praise. I was delighted with the ethnic worship and the vivid worship dances from around the world and the dramatic performances, they tied everything together in a wonderful way. We had fabulous speakers””six home runs in my opinion. There were deeply meaningful prayer times in every main session. A lot of people have mentioned that. It was thrilling to work with all of the people that helped make this happen.

How do you measure success for a Missionary Convention?

I guess I”ll leave the call to God as to whether it was a success or not. But I feel like it was. There was a raised awareness for the unreached of the world. There were 105 decisions for missionary service. That”s pretty incredible. The synergistic networking of people around the world””when people meet up in good ways””I don”t know how you track that. The seeds that are sown, the relationships built, and the decisions that are made have a ripple effect for all eternity.

What was your involvement with the National Missionary Convention in the past?

I was at the 2005 and 2006 conventions and I”ve been at every Missionary Convention for which we were stateside. I so love the Missionary Convention; for us missionaries the delightful thing is seeing everybody””the networking and the fresh ideas””with people that you only see there. It”s the one place you connect.

How did you react when they asked you to be president?

The possibility of being president was first introduced to me in 2001. Prior to that it never crossed my mind.  It was an idea I had to pray about and talk about with my husband and my home church elders.

Was it stressful?

It wasn”t stressful. It was like planning a really big party. I enjoyed it. And I was not the first female to have done it. The first woman was Isabelle Dittemore in 1951, so I guess every 56 years or so we think about having a woman!

How do you explain the growth of the NMC over the past few years?

It”s a God thing. I think that with every Missionary Convention you walk in on a huge group of people who are responsive to God”s heart to bring the nations to himself. I think God is blessing that. We become like his channel. At the Missionary Convention you find thousands of people with a deep commitment, a passion for Jesus, who are willing to follow him anywhere on the planet. God is lifted high in his midst, and I think he likes to show up at gatherings like that””where he is the center and people are willing to do what it takes to obey him.

What”s your perspective on the future of the Missionary Convention?

I predict further growth. We need to be flexible; it keeps us fresh. With the retirement of Walter Birney in 2009, we”re making a prayerful effort for a seamless, God-honoring transition. As things change we need to change with it. There will be changes that happen, but I think that the future of it is extremely bright. These are godly men, and they want to think big, and they want to do what the Lord wants to do with it.

Has being president of the convention changed your perspective on the future of the convention?

This year I got a behind-the-scenes look at how the Missionary Convention happens, how the teamwork and the networking aspects and the servant-hearted people who work in highly effective, committed ways bring it about each year. That gives me confidence in what I believe the Lord is going to do with the convention.

Why does someone leave her family and comfortable lifestyle to go to a faraway land to tell others about Jesus?

Frankly, for me it was obedience. When I was in high school and read the Great Commission where Jesus said, “Go into all the world,” I personally thought he meant me. I said, “Here I am, send me. I”m willing to go anywhere you want me to go.” I have a deep passion to know him and to make him known to other people. I have an adventuresome side, so when I say, “Lord I”ll follow you,” I”m waiting on the edge of my seat to see where he is going to lead me. I wasn”t worried about the comfortable lifestyle aspects, but you do have to count the cost.

Is there a time when a missionary in a resistant field has to just “shake the dust from his feet” and move on to more fertile ground?

I think so. Each situation is different. Each situation merits careful prayer and discernment. Seeds have to be planted before they can grow. Some of us have to go to entirely unreached places where the name of Jesus has never been known. Timing and strategy are very important. Some strategies are more effective than others and timing makes all the difference. So we really need to work with God on this and not just assume that we know. There”s not a pat answer; we have to walk with the Lord in every situation.

How can the church address the rapid growth of Islam, especially in the West?

It”s relatively easy to relate to Muslims here in the United States and Canada because your life is not on the line. Christians in America need to embrace that. There are strategic ways to reach into the Muslim world. There are also some parts of the Islamic world that have been taken over by jihad. For instance, a number of places in Africa were previously animistic cultures and they were forced to be Muslim. So they have a veneer of Islam on the top but they are less hard-core Muslims than the Arab Muslims. It makes sense to go to those places first, then they can reach into the more hard-core places.

Why did Bible translation appeal to you, as opposed to some other type of missionary work?

Bible translation is a way to reach people with the gospel of Jesus Christ. It”s not just the finished book you”re after, but the change in people”s lives and cultures. There”s nothing like using the mother tongue to reach a person”s heart. To establish a church that doesn”t have a mother tongue translation when you leave is not optimal. A church needs the Word to grow and be solidly established. William Cameron Townsend said, “The greatest missionary is the Bible in the mother tongue. It needs no furlough and is never considered a foreigner.”

But you as the missionary add a real, personal element.

The whole process of Bible translation is a tool for sharing with people about the Lord. The process of translation, all along the way, is important because when you”re spending time with people, soaking in the Scriptures, going over every key phrase, every word, people are exposed to the Scripture over and over. I”ve seen that long-term, life-changing impact happens as a result.

Would you consider translating the Bible into Aruamu your most significant accomplishment?

I”m grateful to the Lord that he enabled us to do that, but all along I had the concept that we”re not just doing a translation but we”re raising up warriors for the next generation. I was raising up three kids on the mission field. Someone else could have done the Aruamu translation but no one could have been Heather and Brigette and Bobby”s mom. So when I think of my accomplishments I could show you their picture and say, there you are.

After serving in Papua New Guinea for 22 years how have you made the adjustment to working stateside?

I did have a struggle on coming back to the U.S. I love working overseas, sitting in the dirt next to people, sharing with them about the Lord. Plugging into the Pioneer Bible Translators team in a different place is a big adjustment for me.

It”s a different place, but the same mission.

I read an illustration by Ralph Winter who said, if you see a roaring fire you can grab your bucket, run to the stream, then run to the fire and pour water on it””and you can do that repeatedly. Or you could wake 100 sleeping firemen. Missions mobilization is waking the 100 sleeping firemen. I”ve thought numerous times I can run to the stream with my bucket or I can wake 100 sleeping firemen to be involved. In the long run I don”t know what will be my most significant accomplishment, but it may be that mobilization will have more impact than doing one translation. And, there”s a side to it where it might be, from an eternal perspective, that the Missionary Convention year ends up with a greater eternal impact than translating the Scriptures into Aruamu.

On the mission field did you ever consider throwing in the towel?

When John died I was so numb. We had just completed the Aruamu New Testament, we were at the climax of more than two decades of work, and “Bam!” he died of a heart attack. It was so shocking. We had a lot of stressful things along the way. I don”t really remember thinking of throwing in the towel. I am an optimist by nature. John regularly had times when he would get discouraged, but we would always get back to several phrases. He would say: “Let”s inject some faith into this equation.” “God called us here to do this job, and we”re going to stay here and finish it until he calls us elsewhere.” And that”s really what happened. We finished it, and God called him home.

What would you say to encourage others from quitting?

I get back to the fact that God is in charge here. He knows what he is doing and he promised he would be with us when we take his message to the ends of the earth. That”s a promise. And I cash in on that promise.