TRANSCRIPT

NATHAN JONES

God's message of generosity and stewardship is not bound by time, geography, or culture – one of the amazing realities is scriptural truth. Hear this evidenced in my interview with Nydia Garcia-Schmidt, who serves as a consultant with Wycliffe Global Alliance, championing the timeless message of generosity and stewardship across geography and cultures. 

My name is Nathan Jones, and I want to thank you once again for joining me on this episode of the Inspiring Stewards podcast.

Nydia, thank you so much for taking the time to join me today. I’ve been looking forward to this time ever since I had a chance to read your bio and hear about what God has you involved in His kingdom today. We’ll get there, but give us a little bit of your story, where are you from, your family of origin, that sort of thing.

NYDIA GARCIA-SCHMIDT

Thank you, Nathan, for the invitation to be here. I'm very excited to share what God is doing. I was born in Mexico and my dad, he was working in the US at that time. And so, for the first ten years of my life, I grew up in Chicago. That is why or how I learned English.

When I went into first grade, I did not speak English, and so I learned it going into elementary school. And at some point, my mom, she decided she wanted to go back to Mexico. And so, I continued my elementary education from fourth grade in Mexico.

My mom is a teacher. She still is. And so, we grew up from her getting somewhat of a homeschool in Spanish from Mexican textbooks. And so, going back into Mexico, I felt I could blend in with Spanish and everything because of the education we had at home.

My mom, she was very Catholic, but then she became Protestant through a gospel tract. She actually wanted to be a nun. So, she has a lot of inclination for spiritual issues. And so, I grew up hearing her and somehow, I also became interested in spiritual things.

And so, from my early years, I was very sensitive to spiritual things, to God. And when I was 15, I felt I wanted to study in a Bible school. And the church that we were going to was acquainted or related to a Bible school and I became familiar with seminary students. I knew where the school was and so, I became interested in that and inquired about going into Bible school.

And I was accepted, even though the minimum age was 18, and I was 15. I was put on probation, probation in the sense of “try it and if you think it's too hard, come back when you're 18.” I didn't think it was too strict or too difficult and so I did complete the two years. And that's how I began my ministry journey. So, I can honestly say that from 15 I have been involved in theology and ministry. 

NATHAN

Wow. So, before we jump ahead, I'd love to hear what was it that drew you to that personal faith in Christ? And what impact that had, certainly, growing up in a home where your mom had created the environment that she had, but what was it inside of your own heart that drew you that direction?

NYDIA

For me, God has always existed. He was always there but I wasn't sure how to describe that spiritual environment that was drawing me to Him. 

But I remember – and I don't know if it was a dream or it was a thought – but it was very vivid in my mind: the fact that Jesus died. And so, to me, it was very true. I never questioned it. 

Something very intriguing about why He died, knowing that He had done it for me. That intrigued me and I always felt gratitude. And so, I thought, “Well, if Jesus did that for me, if he gave His life for me, well, here's my life.”

At 13 when I received this desire to serve Him, it was Bible camp. It was a Baptist youth camp in summer in Monterey. And I remember being very grateful for that. And so, in response, I felt I was going to give my life. And it was a very simple, naive giving of myself but walking in that direction of being grateful and just being open to how God would lead.

NATHAN

Yeah, that's a powerful exchange of His life for your life. It's a beautiful foundation for what I know we're going to dive into here later in the story. 

So, if we jump ahead to 2023, which is where we are today, give us an overview of how God has you involved in His kingdom today, both talking about professional ministry and work, as well as your unique opportunity to be studying where you are. I'd love to hear about all that.

NYDIA

I see this story of my life as a journey, a story that has been taken one step at a time. I have been serving with Wycliffe Bible Translators. With my husband, we joined Wycliffe Bible Translators in 1999. We both met in Bible school and after that, we served in the Philippines and Indonesia and in Mexico.

And we had to leave Indonesia abruptly. We had ten days to pack and sell our things because our visa was denied. But it was a series of events that unfolded. But we were the first family to be affected and later, other families lost their visas.

We came back and we took an assignment in Mexico, in Oaxaca. By that time, I wanted to serve. I was a full-time mom. We have three sons, beautiful sons. They're adults now: Andrew, Paul, and Joseph.

But I wanted to serve tied to this connection of being in ministry. I knew my first ministry was family, but on the side, if I had time, I would volunteer. And so, I was given an invitation to serve in the Americas, to help facilitate the sending of Latin Americans into Bible translation. And we're talking about 2003 at this point.

I didn't have any personnel experience or HR, but I my rationale at that point was: Well, I like people and I love ministry, so okay, why not? So, I've always been a very risk taker. I normally accept an invitation and then I think about it, and then I wonder if I have taken too much.

But I began learning so many things about Latin Americans getting involved in cross-cultural ministries worldwide. I learned about the missionary movement in Latin America that began through the birth of COMIBAM in 1985. 

So, I began learning, learning, learning and as I was learning about all these things in partnership through Wycliffe and the church, I began realizing that one of the greatest challenges that a Latin American would have was not so much his calling, but it would be finding the financial resources to support this missionary involvement in Bible translation.

And so, I began to be interested in learning why is it that they are having these challenges. And so that began that journey began all these questions of understanding why is it that they're having difficulties.

I knew from my personal experience in watching my own mother that she was very generous. She gave. She gave very generously as an individual to the church. And so, I grew up watching generosity around me through my mom, through my dad. And so, I was wondering what was the deeper issues.

NATHAN

So, that was what year again that you started asking those questions about the challenge you were observing?

NYDIA

That was 2000. By this time, it was maybe around 2008.

NATHAN

So, what have you learned? What have you observed are some of the challenges?

NYDIA

One thing that I began to be intrigued was the organizations that were involved or began to be involved in this vision to promote Bible translation in their churches these are the Latin American organizations’ leaders.

And so, I looked at that point through the organizational grid of nonprofits, mission organizations, how they’re structured. And I began to learn that not only the missionaries were having challenges as families, as individuals, but the Latin American organizations were also facing challenges in finding resources and so I began to see that it was a deeper issue.

And so, at this point, I was asked to consider being the Associate Area Director. So, leaving the HR role and taking on, you can say it was a bigger challenge, taking an Associate Area Director role because again, I'm still mom. I'm raising three teenagers. And I’ve been asked to take this role that would imply overseeing HR, communications, organizational development, partnership, etc, etc. It's a full-time responsibility. 

But again, the fact that I had surrendered and that my husband was supporting me, it was a step forward in saying, “Okay, God, I know this is too much but my husband is okay. I'm getting an invitation to do this.” So, all of this were steps of faith. And at the same time, it felt very overwhelming. But at the same time, it felt very inviting. And so, it's all those things combined.

My supervisors, I was surrounded by academics and missiologists. And they encouraged me to continue asking the questions. And so, it felt welcoming to be intrigued about the whole concept of why are we seeing these challenges.

So, I began with my team to develop some organizational diagnostics because I knew that if I was going to make my case, I needed to have data to support it. But I needed to create this data and I couldn't find enough data to support the context.

And what the data began showing is that: sure enough, the difficulties could be theological. They could be infrastructure. It could be governance with the board or with teams. And it's not that the church was not giving, but it wasn't necessarily giving to Bible translation or to missionaries. And so, that's where I completed an MA thesis on the topic of understanding what is it that’s creating this struggle.

And so, that led me to… we’re fast forwarding to 2023. In 2021, I enrolled in the PhD program to research generosity and stewardship in the UK. And this is where I currently am. But perhaps I can give you some other data that I have been collecting. 

I currently have gathered more data that will be part of my analysis for the next two years. But I do have some preliminary data that is currently not within the data that I've collected for the PhD program but something that fed my curiosity and knowledge about the context.

And I'll just give you some general data. 50% of the leaders – and we're talking about leaders that have experience, that have theological training, that have knowledge – 50% of the leaders that I interviewed said that there wasn't any relationship between generosity and stewardship.

And so, I became convinced that the leaders were expressing a deficiency in theological foundations because they couldn't quite see how the topic of generosity related to stewardship.

And then, 67% acknowledged that as leaders, they could not find theological resources to continue in their development and their growth. And 50% acknowledged that this was not a very popular topic, meaning generosity and stewardship. And so, I'm putting all that data together in my head and then realizing that, okay, this is giving me some some deeper information about the context.

Around the time when I began doing my thesis, I realized I wasn't grounded theologically, even though I had been to two seminars in Mexico and in Texas. And so, yeah, that's where I began studying the Bible for myself really to understand, not just to try to convince others to give, but it was the curiosity, “Okay, what does the Bible say?” If I am going to spend a big portion of my life studying generosity and stewardship, I felt I needed to master what the Bible said.

And I literally think that the Holy Spirit took me to Exodus to learn the story of the Tabernacle. I went into the story of how Moses invited Israel to give. Starting from Exodus 25 until chapter 35, you have ten chapters that are very rich in extracting biblical truths on generosity and stewardship.

And at this point, I'm very curious. And so then, I went into the next story, which is the building of the temple with David. And I began realizing, “Wow, there's a lot of richness in the Bible!” But at this point, I'm studying the Bible, not just to encourage someone to give but there's a lot of richness that I felt I was learning as an individual.

And so, as I began learning, I began teaching in the same way that Ezra. Because it was like, “Wow, this is so good! Look here, have some of it!” And so I began teaching it to my staff and I began seeing that they were also intrigued and learning.

During COVID, I taught my first seminar. It was online, of course. About 200 people showed up. After the seminar, I was convinced that there was in fact a deficiency in teaching in the Latin American movement.

And so once again, it's just an evolving story of how God was taking me one step at a time. But as I took those steps, each step took me further and further and further, deeper and deeper into my own experience. 

NATHAN

You've answered or begun to answer some of these final questions that I was going to ask around stewardship and how you're seeing God at work. But I guess, I would say you distinguish between generosity and stewardship and said that for many there wasn't alignment between the two. What would be a brief definition of stewardship and/or generosity that distinguishes those two from one another?

NYDIA

Stewardship would be an awareness of the responsibility and the opportunity that we have as believers to take responsibility in the sense that it doesn't feel geared to be stewards.

Because Latin Americans, when they hear the word steward which is mayordomo, I think the colonial system does have the legacy of stewardship to have a bad connotation. Because a mayordomo usually could be someone that's very evil, that's very authoritative, that is not just. 

And so, we have to, as a Latin American church, go back to the Bible and understand stewardship in the sense of the opposite: that it is beautiful to be a steward.

NATHAN

You know, that's powerful about that passage with the Israelites building the Tabernacle where transitions at the beginning of chapter 36, which I'm sure you've seen before where it says that Moses told the people to stop bringing more resources because there was more than enough that had been brought for building the tabernacle.  

And what a beautiful picture of the image of generosity as people brought things and served as the Lord stirred in their hearts that led to that conclusion of there being more than enough, which is just a powerful picture of generosity from that perspective. 

So, Nydia, as we're wrapping up here, I'd love to just kind of ask two questions at once is: Where do we go from here in leading Christian organizations in giving as givers? Where do we go? And then, any final thoughts you'd have for us as we wrap up?

NYDIA

Where do we go from here is to encourage every believer to love the Word, to study the Word, to practice the Word, but also to teach it.

I have the image of Ezra, studying the Word not just to say, “Okay, what can I gain from the Word?” because it was a desire to understand the Word, to see what needed to change. And that's what led the revival in the third story of the generosity and stewardship story that I teach. And so, I would encourage the study of the Word, the meditation of the Word, and then to take action. 

I feel excited about what God is doing in Latin America but there's a lot work. Each believer has to teach. We have to promote. We have to be one.

I feel that in this topic of generosity and stewardship, at least in Latin America, it's not a high priority. There seem to be other topics that take more of the agenda on missions. And so, I would like to have this topic be given greater priority in the missions movement, in the Bible translation movement. And so, that's where I'll stay and stop because I do hope that this can be brought to a higher priority. 

NATHAN

Well, praise the Lord, and may it be so. Nydia, thank you so much for your time today. This has been wonderful.

NYDIA

Thank you, Nathan, for the opportunity.