The grounds and facilities fall under my area of responsibility so as I was walking outside when one of the gardeners stopped to show me something that was really bothering him. As he was mowing the grass around a cement cover to one of the access points for our electrical and water systems he spotted a small piece of the cement was broken off and I thought he wanted me to get the maintenance shop to fix it so he wouldn’t scratch the lawn mower.

He said “See all the honey bees!” I asked him, “What’s wrong with the bees just get some Raid and kill them.” He said he couldn’t do that. I asked “Why?” He said, “I think you call these bees KILLER BEES?”  He said we would need to move them somewhere else. I guess unlike normally honey bees these bees attack as a group and will chase people up to a mile. But he didn’t want to kill them, and I wasn’t about to go grab the Raid can either.

I went inside to discuss this with my finance manager who is also a bee keeper. I asked him how he would kill the killer bees and he said he wouldn’t. I asked him why not, and he said bees do pollination and you need them. So he is going to capture all of them and take them out to the bush.

As I continued to walk around the grounds I realized how important all the different people are working are for Bible translation process just as God uses killer bees for pollination he uses each one of us for his purposes and to accomplish the work that he has given each one of us.

A quick walk around the campus this week reminded me of that. In one of our classrooms there was a computer course being taught to national translators on how to use Libre Office. In the Auditorium pastors, translators and numerous others from around Cameroon were having a scripture use course on how to engage the local communities with God’s Word. We also had CABTAL (Cameroon Association for Bible Translation and Literacy) holding a conference at the center.

Just like bees work together for pollination we all need to work together from the gardener that mows the grass to the computer guy who gets the computers ready to the administrators to make sure programs and processes are working for the translators out in the village to the financial and prayer partners that support all of the work.

“Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it”1 Corinthians 12:27 (NIV)