James Wesley Fultz (MA '69) TEDS 2001 Alumnus of the Year

Teacher, composer, minister of music, exegetical theologian, bicyclist, and language learning enthusiast. How does a guy with multifaceted talent and an obsession for being in God’s perfect will find the ultimate ministry of impact and fulfillment? The search for his service niche has taken Jim Fultz on a 45-year, international journey of intrigue, both globally and spiritually.

The Call

That journey began when he was ten, at Free Church Bible camp in Minnesota where sensitivity to world missions was fostered by visiting missionaries like Dorothy Blakeway, Elizabeth Anderson, and Blanche Becker Ford. There he committed his life to God. As he grew in faith, he also grew as a musician, expert pianist, and budding composer. He majored in music at the University of Minnesota, intending to teach.

Knowing of Jim’s interest in missions, his brother-in-law, David Scherling, challenged him to join him at TEDS in the fall of 1967. “You never know how the Lord will lead,” David said. That was an understatement! A few years after completing his MA in Biblical Studies in 1969, Jim volunteered to teach at the American School in Brasilia near where his sister and brother-in-law had begun mission work with Wycliffe Bible Translators in Brazil.

Upon his return to America, Jackie Bell, from Trinity’s undergraduate school of music, encouraged Jim to go on for his masters in music composition at the prestigious American Conservatory of Chicago. This training led Jim into the music ministry at his home church back in Minnesota, Crystal Evangelical Free. “My years in church ministry were fulfilling spiritually, professionally and emotionally. But I was caught off guard by the Lord one day in 1981.”

“I was daydreaming about missions. I was at the Day of Judgment. One of the two and a half billion “hidden peoples” came up to me, looked me right in the eye, and said, ‘You mean you knew this message and didn’t come and tell us?’ I argued with God for thirty minutes. The Lord gently said to me, ‘Well, you would be willing to just give my Word to people, wouldn’t you?’”

The Cause

“The rest is history,” Jim says. “I gathered my monthly financial support from 40 individuals and families and from two churches. Crystal Evangelical Free Church and the Village Church of Barrington have both continued to pray and support my mission work since I set out. I did graduate studies in linguistics at SIL and French study in Switzerland to become a translator with Wycliffe Bible Translators. I asked for an assignment in former Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo) to minister to the ‘unreached people groups’ to which EFCA was ministering.”

Unreached is the operative word! In 1986, Jim began working among the 300,000–500,000 Mbandja people and settled into one of their small villages on the Ubangui River. This village was a body-pounding day’s drive to the nearest town with a phone and email hook up. That town with a phone is a three-day journey and a sixteen-hour plane ride to the nearest Big Mac or Starbucks. In preparation, Jim had also attended the rigorous Wycliffe African orientation course and completed a linguistic survey with British colleague, David Morgan, documenting languages in the northwest portion of DRC

Over the course of the next 12 years, Jim plunged into the Mbandja language project with a team of local Christians to translate the Mbandja New Testament. He developed a close working and worship relationship with the Church in Northwest DRC. While observing and enjoying the various music and rhythms, culture, and worship styles in the region, he began to use his musical background as well as his seminary and linguistic knowledge.

Church Music, Worship, and the Word

“God has consistently used my musical training and experience to open doors to the African community. I’ve taught theory and music reading to choir directors, taught piano skills, composed songs in Lingala (the trade language) and Mbandja, sung with African friends, and learned to worship our Lord in dance.”

While Jim would never call himself an ethnomusicologist, he has allowed his music appreciation to grow through his years in Africa and has allowed those changes to affect how he expresses himself in composition. “What I have composed is neither American nor African. It’s Fultz with a bit of African seasoning!” As he gained cultural insights and as he translated the biblical verses for exact meaning, he was able to compose scripture songs, which helped the churches understand the truth of the Word. The Mbandja church now has its own songbook for worship.

The Cost: Danger and Delay

Jim did love the work, but life was not easy. For nearly ten years, political trouble has plagued the country and several military coups turned normal life upside-down in the capital and other strategic areas of the country. Even the isolated Mbandja communities are affected because the long-standing dictator, Mobutu, was from the northwest area. Militants have been in and out of the area seeking revenge and retribution in the president’s hometown nearby.

In 1991, Jim and the other missionaries in the area were ordered to leave by the American and British Embassies, and the cooperating missions—Wycliffe, EFCA, and Evangelical Covenant agreed. Mission planes from Kenya swooped in to make dramatic rescues of missionaries in the eastern part of the country. But for Jim and the other missionaries, an overland escape was needed. They quietly loaded the children from the mission school into the twelve vehicles available. Under cover of fervent prayer and darkness, they caravanned through the rainy night and the next day crossed the border into the relative safety of Central African Republic.  Jim had to put the translation project on hold for an entire year.

The Continuing Studies

The work began again in 1992, and despite the political upheaval and uncertainty, the Lord allowed the team to complete the New Testament in 1996. Jim returned to the U.S. for a normal furlough, but during his absence, the civil war broke out again and reached the Mbandja area. All the missionaries evacuated again; major looting took place. The rebel Kabila took power in the capital. Jim lost everything he owned in Africa.

Because of the situation, Jim decided to get more training before attempting a return to DRC. In 1997, Jim returned to TEDS to study Hebrew and Old Testament. Jim validated for himself the principle that Wycliffe operates on: we experience God deepest through our heart language and in the context of our own culture. Jim describes that year at TEDS as an academic honeymoon. “I loved every minute of it. I was able to handpick the courses that would better qualify me as a translation consultant and coordinator. I was awarded a T-shirt for being the oldest ‘new’ student! My relationship with fellow students was a real boost to my recommitment to my work in Africa. And the worship times, chapel, prayer days, and personal time with a buddy, Craig Jenkins, were literally, Divine!”

The Church’s Commitment, Challenge, and Tenacity

No theological class at TEDS could have prepared Jim for the heartbreak and challenge that awaited him when he returned to DRC in 1998. He got special permission to return alone since none of the missions had reopened their work or sent the missionaries back in yet.

All his possessions had been looted, so he set up a makeshift dwelling with a borrowed bed and resumed the work. Still, Jim had great expectations because the translation was finished and the literacy program was taking off so the Mbandja people were increasingly able to read their heart language. The whole community awaited the delivery of the published New Testaments.

One week after Jim’s return, civil war broke out again. The awaited shipment of New Testaments was lost near the capital city where the missionary aviation system crumbled when personnel had to evacuate the country. There was no way to get the printed New Testaments up north into the interior. Jim had no choice but to exit the country with the help of an African friend who drove him to the border. He left the vehicle and all the project money he brought in the hands of the translation team.

Like a nightmare, the Mbandja villages, far from the capital, were hit hard by the coup. The new president was being overthrown. The Mbandja villages and their isolated, simple lives were soon overrun by avenging rebels, mercenaries, and the president’s own army. The church scattered into the rain forest to hide from the pillaging rebels and aerial bombing. Leaving their own belongings behind, they carried the literacy books and portions of Scriptures into the jungle with them and buried them so the rebels would not destroy them. Days turned into weeks and months. It was still not safe to return to their villages.

The Church in exile decided to become proactive. They dug up the books and began to resume literacy classes, Bible Studies, and worship in small groups throughout the forest. Soon the non-Christians joined them, first out of boredom and fear, then as new believers. Many were saved, and the Church grew while in hiding. Pastor Goma, one of the translation team members, continued translating and worked on portions of the Old Testament sitting under a tree in hiding. God protected them from assault and murder even though the rebels took everything they owned and destroyed their homes. This increased their faith and their number.

While waiting in Bangui, Jim was put to work doing translation checking on the scripture in the Gbeya language. Over and over he had to give his ministry and the Mbandja people to God’s care. That was a turning point for Jim. He was asked to serve as a translation consultant to various projects going on around him. This led to more opportunities to travel across the central part of Africa to assist other translators as a consultant and coordinator.

Jim made a trip back to the Mbandja people to encourage them and to check the progress of the translation work. Solutions were found so the work could continue despite the interruptions. In August 2000 the project director, Pastor Goma, moved for awhile with his family to Bangui, the capital of Central African Republic, to get away from the bombings and to work in peace! Another translator, Pastor Abulu, moved his family from a refugee camp in a neighboring country to Zongo, a DRC town across the river from Bangui. Jim looks back on this as an exciting breakthrough for the Mbandja Church to take on the responsibility for their own Bible translation work. And, miraculously, the lost Mbandja Scriptures—like Jim and the Mbandja Church—had been protected. They had sat unnoticed for nearly two years in Matadi, a port city far away, and arrived in April 2000. Through the help of Missionary Aviation Fellowship, the published New Testaments arrived a few boxes at a time but all undamaged and totally intact. Jim is making plans to attend the grand, official dedication of the New Testament this November.

The Power of the Word as It Confronts Cultures and Individuals

With enough natural talent and education to take him anywhere he fancied, why did Jim Fultz commit to a life of missionary service through language work and Bible translation? Why has he tenaciously carried on in a dangerous, uncertain place that few Americans even know about? Jim asserts: “First of all, the Mbandja team that the Lord put together are the unsung heroes who’ve continued with nothing and couldn’t escape or go and study at Trinity during the wars like I have. It’s an honor to work with that kind of dedication and calling.”

“Speaking for myself, I’d say that the essence of my fulfillment in the role of translation consultant is having the experience and privilege of ‘bringing out of the storeroom new treasures as well as old.’ (Matthew 1:52). Checking translations for exegetical accuracy has frequently made God’s Word sparkle for me in new ways. It has affirmed for me the power inherent in God’s Word as it confronts cultures and individuals. It has given my interest in problem solving a real workout; helping a translation team work towards a solution in a difficult passage is great.”

“This is what I’d say to present TEDS students: stay intimately connected to your Lord. He alone is the Lord of the harvest. He chooses where, when, what for each of us in the work of his harvest.”

The TEDS Alumni Board, on behalf of the Trinity Alumni Association, salutes James Wesley Fultz’s life of service to the Lord and enthusiastically and gratefully extends to him the Alumnus of the Year Award for 2001.

(Story based on an anonymous nomination and interviews.)