August 01, 1986 by Bill Dickson

Some First Fruits of Inter Agency Collaboration

The Peoples File II Index a 300 (plus) page publication (of which a few snip are reproduced here) will be the first published output from the Global Map. ping Ftnject's Global Research Database. It represenis a new level of research cooperation  between agencies.

To be published this fall, the Pen, plesFile is a carefully cross referenced index to the three most comprehensive listings of peoples and last  Recording languages in use by mission strategists today: Wycliffe Bible Translators' Ethnologue: World Vision's Missions Advanced Research and Communication Center's Unreached Peoples files; and Gospel Recordings' Language and Dialect lists. The exciting stories of the missionaries and researchers who penetrated deserts and jungles, cities and villages, and who traveled vast distances to search out die 8,500 groups, 12,000 primary languages, and' 52, primary and alternate name listings could fill volumes.

But there is another kind of story behind the compilation of all this research  a story of patient, behind the scenes work, of high technology, of painstaking hand checking of data, and of people and organizations giving up minnow, selfinterest in the face of the compelling challenge of identifying the world's peopies in order that all might be reached.

There is the story of Joe and ttarhara Grimes of Wycliffe who have been patiently collecting and comparing information on the languages of the earth in order to be as certain as humanly possible that no group cxi earth will lack Scriptures in a language they can understand.

There is the story of Allan Starling and his patient language experts a Gospel Recordings who have hand checked 52.000 entries in order in pair alternate names with their primary language and group names.

There is the story of John Raymond and the Lake Avenue Congregational Church, who cooperated with the U S. Center for World Mission's Computer Center to purchase the database computers which allow the data to be quickly searched, cross checked, and compared.Them is the story of Bob Waymire who moved his family to Pasedena to found the Global Mapping Project. He has worked patiently behind the scenes for years developing the relationships of trust etween mission researchers that permit them to confidently share their hard won findings.

There are the stories of Ed Dayton, Sam Wilson, and all of the staff at MARC who have travelled the earth lam studying the lines along which the IEtO4M"   Mt peoples of the earth distinguish themselves from one another. There is the story of Hal Lindstrom and Art Nicolaysen of Dataserve who have burned the midnight oil, puzzling through database architectures, query formulations, and page definition langages to produce the precise and readable output you see.

These are stories you might hear if you were around the tJ,S. Center for World Mission for a while and weren't too involved in your own behind thescenes work There are many more such stories stories of behind the scenes workers, and of sending churches, supporters, donors, and prayer warriors who make their work possible, We will never know the half of it this side of heaven. Are you playing a part?