ON MISSIONARIES: A PERSONAL VIEW (13)

Joice and I spent two of our summers in New Zealand at Featherston, to the far south of the North Island. I was head of the school and taught grammar. Joice taught literacy and was responsible for student functions.

I have had pranks pulled on me while teaching but the NZ students, mainly led by a staff member whose name I will not mention, performed one of the best hoaxes that I will ever remember. I was teaching a grammar class to 12 or 15 students when the maintenance man walked into the classroom with a chainsaw. That was unusual and when he fired it up all attention turned his way. He calmly walked over to a desk where two girls were sitting and sawed the desktop in half. Or so I thought. It was an old door placed over some uprights to look like the desk. Sawdust flew everywhere, the girls acted distraught and upset and whipped out cigarettes as if they were going to smoke them. That too was a hoax—they didn’t smoke. The maintenance man then walked out, and I was left to somehow resume my grammar lesson in sawdust. I think I did, but it was an amazing incident.

Mike and Karol were engaged while we were at Kangaroo Ground and planned their wedding for August of 1994. We had been at KG for three years—our agreed upon time—and I had been asked to take up the role as Coordination of National Training, working out to Dallas. We returned to Dallas and over the next three years visited our SIL summer schools in North Dakota, Germany and England. We also visited Moody Bible Institute, Houghton, College and Biola University, where SIL members were teaching (full time) linguistics and anthropology.

In early 1997 I was asked to assume the role of Vice President of Academic Affairs (VPAA) for SIL International. I had been in various administrate positions for SIL, including Coordinator of Linguistics, Anthropology, and Training, so I was familiar with most aspects of our linguistics efforts. However, the VPAA position meant that I would be responsible for all the academic departments we had at the time: linguistics, translation, literacy, sociolinguistics, training, anthropology and community development.

The director of our SIL Dallas school was under criticism from some staff at the University of Texas at Arlington, with whom we had a mutual agreement such that our students could enlist in UTA graduate programs. This had worked well but certain staff members at UTA did like their secular institution having an agreement with a Christian one. 

David Ross, the director of our Texas school, realized that the relationship with UTA was precarious, and he discussed the problem with me. We came up with an audacious suggestion, which we took to the Board of Directors of SIL International. We proposed starting an independent school, not under the direction of SIL, with its own board of directors. We suggested that it be called the Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics (GIAL).

After considerable discussion and debate our proposal was accepted, and in 1997, the GIAL formally began. We wanted the school to be accredited by the agency responsible for colleges in the southwest, but we did not know how to begin. In God’s providence Dr Bill Adrian called in at the school one day. He was a retired professor and provost from Pepperdine University and knew all about the accreditation process. He also became one of the GIAL board of directors and worked with David on the accreditation process.

Seven years later the school was fully accredited to provide master’s level degrees in several linguistic-related subjects. I had been chairman of the board for part of that time.

As one would hope and expect, the school has continued to develop and change. It now has an undergraduate program, grants PhDs in ethnomusicology, and GIAL is but one part of what is now the Dallas International University (diu.edu). 

Although “my dream” for the school, which I presented at early (1997 and 1998) faculty retreats, was somewhat different than the present scope of DIU, I am thankful that God has continued to direct the board of directors, the staff, and the faculty and that I was there when it all started.

Sometime in early 2000, when Joice and I were involved with GIAL, I found a package on my desk that was from PNG. It had been sent by a lay pastor from the village in Kewa where we once lived and it contained several notebooks of Kewa materials. The pastor, Wopa Eka, and a committee he had formed, were attempting to revise the West Kewa New Testament. They asked if we could come back to PNG and help them.

I took the request to Joice, who was 70 at the time, and she was not enthusiastic about the idea. She loved her job (student coordinator for GIAL), we were now relatively near our family in Waco, and she felt she was “too old.” The excuses crumbled, one by one.

First, the GIAL administration found someone to take Joice’s place; next our Waco family decided to work as missionaries in Ecuador for 4 years; and finally, Joice realized she was not too old (my secretary at the time was 80 and assured Joice that she had years of service ahead).

Joice said later that the return to PNG (we had three stints from 2002-2004) were some of the “best years of my life.”

Karl Franklin