Before leaving for the mission field, Carla was a bilingual educator in Tucson, Arizona. Jim worked in television, film, and newspapers. In the 1980s, they began work among indigenous people with a unique assignment in the field of minority language scripture use/promotion. They pioneered the development and field-testing of oral communication methodology, launching an international training curriculum in the late 1990s. They are founders of Scriptures in Use (1987), an organization focused on global training for people groups of oral tradition.

Millions hear the oral gospel.
Building Bridges to Oral Cultures narrates with chronological and adventurous detail, an extraordinary journey that began for Jim and Carla Bowman in the early 80s with a passion to share the Good News with a handful of the least-reached, indigenous groups in Mexico. Over the course of thirty years, their travels led to breakthrough discoveries and innovation in remote communities of traditional oral learners around the world.
With time and God's guiding hand, a new comprehensive, oral communications model emerged. Effective bridges to oral cultures were developed and tested. Without eradicating cultures, speakers of the local languages are embracing the local oral arts to communicate God's Word and are reaching the lost for Him across the globe.