Whether you’ve been aware of Wycliffe for six months or more than 60 years, you’ve probably heard about Vision 2025. It was a bold decision made in 1999 by Wycliffe and SIL International (our primary partner) to adopt a God-sized vision that a translation program would be in progress in every language still needing one by the year 2025.

At the time, it was believed that this would require 3,000 translations to start over the next 25 years.

This felt huge and very likely overwhelming for many people. How could the pace of new language engagements increase that significantly? The highest total number of new language engagements to that point had been 25 per year in 1992. But that’s why it was a bold decision made in faith and confidence that this could only be achieved through God’s hand at work in and among His Church.

In a Christianity Today article published in 2005, Freddy Boswell — then the international translation coordinator for SIL International — shared this: “Not long after Vision 2025 was adopted, I was meeting with one of our partner organizations. They said to me, ‘What’s the biggest need of Vision 2025?’ I said it was finding enough prayer partners. In fact, John Watters, our international executive director, has said, ‘Prayer is our greatest strategic response and our greatest resource.’ To see Vision 2025 happen is going to take a new host of people involved in prayer like we’ve never seen before and a lot of creative strategies.”

Because of this — a foundation of prayer and intentionally working in collaboration and partnership with other like-minded organizations — Bible translation has accelerated. From 1999-2003, there was an average of more than 64 new language engagements per year. In 2004, Wycliffe personnel were involved in starting 82 out of the 93 new projects — the highest in Bible translation history at that time!

For more than 80 years, Wycliffe, SIL and like-minded organizations have led efforts to advance Bible translation around the world. But that’s changing!

And they don’t want to wait for the work to start; they want to start it now.

Wycliffe desires to continue saying “yes” when churches ask us to partner with them. God is moving faster than we’ve ever seen before in the history of Bible translation! In 2018, Wycliffe was engaged with 336 languages; as of Jan. 1, 2024, we’re now engaged with 1,633.

All around the world, communities, countries and even entire regions are working together to ensure that all remaining languages are engaged with Scripture sooner rather than later. Over the last few years, we have seen a significant acceleration in new language engagements.

• May 2019 to May 2021: A new language was engaged every five days.


• May 2021 to May 2023: A new language was engaged every 30 hours.


• Today: On average, a new language is engaged every 17 hours!

What if we stepped out in bold faith once again and continued to passionately work toward the possibility that Vision 2025 could be achieved for all countries? Let’s continue to press in, asking God to pour out His Spirit and accelerate the work so that all people can encounter Jesus through Scripture in a language and format that speaks to their heart.