At Concordia, I met a lifelong friend, David Federwitz, who grew up as a missionary kid in Liberia. His parents were missionaries with Lutheran Bible Translators (LBT). A few years later, I married Sarah. The two of us took a trip to West Africa, organized by David’s mom, Alvina Federwitz. On that trip, we got a taste of a number of approaches to Christian mission. We were especially impressed with the ministry of Jonathan and Nancy Burmeister among the Anyi in Cote d’Ivoire and the ministry of the Liberian Bible Translation and Literacy Organization, which Dale and Alvina Federwitz mentored in Monrovia. After that trip, both Sarah and I became more interested in LBT and Bible translation work. A few years later, we joined LBT and were assigned to Ghana with David and Valerie Federwitz! Now I work with Seed Company as the Coordinator for Strategic Alliances with an MoU with LBT regarding my role mobilizing mainline churches in Bible translation (BT).

What gets you excited when you work with others in Bible translation? I am most excited when people struggle with Scripture. How do we interpret it? How do we translate it in our context? How do we apply it in the situations we are facing? How is God at work through this biblical story so that people experience life and life more abundantly? Most frequently, I experience this “energy” when I facilitate a process called Contextual Bible Study.

What is your consulting philosophy? Usually, I work with teams that have formed a translation brief. What are the “givens” for this team and this assignment? How can I help them improve their processes, given their starting points? How can they improve their translation and quality assurance skills along the way?

I encourage teams to consider their audiences. Because I work in Africa,  I approach translation as an exercise in “African Biblical Studies.” I want translators to take their audience’s context and questions seriously. They should be excellent communicators, using more than one modality: writing, oral performance, and visual media. I want them to be good facilitators and good collaborators, sharing what they know and learning from others in their churches and communities.

I equip teams to engage in literary analysis: characters, setting, plot, conflict, etc. In other genres, I help them use rhetorical analysis. Their goal as translators is to help their audiences imagine and engage with the biblical story/genre in life-giving ways.

What translation resources do you really value? I read African biblical scholarship. These resources are not found in standard translation helps. I use the biblical language tools built into Paratext for basic searches, the lexicons, etc. I consult the UBS handbooks. I especially like literary analysis, such as is found in the Berit Olam commentary series. I value resources that highlight the agricultural and social background of the ancient Near East. I also appreciate resources that explore indigenous worldviews and how those worldviews unpack biblical narratives.

How do you continue to grow as a consultant? I have been learning a lot about Seed Company’s Oral Bible Storytelling methodology and pedagogy in Tanzania. I continue to read in the areas of translation studies and biblical studies. I keep experimenting with Contextual Bible Study experiences and their relevance to Bible translation in Papua New Guinea, Tanzania, and the United States.

How do you share your translation discoveries with others? I present papers at the biennial BT conference. I published a book last year. I contributed articles in two other books. Currently, I am the chair of a new consultation at the Society of Biblical Literature’s Annual Meeting, called “Global Bible Translation Studies.” I make use of the MAP site and the BT discussion list.

Can you share about a time when you realized you were wrong and what you learned from it? See the following link for my story about translating Luke 13 and the portion about Herod as a “fox.”

What are your top tips for someone starting on a career path in Bible translation? Follow what energizes you and motivates you to be involved in this work. But at the same time, open yourself up to other people’s perspectives. Engage in critical but caring self-reflection with the help of trusted guides.

Share something that you learned from a mentor or from a mentee? I was mentored by Dr. Fabian Dapila, formerly of UBS and Seed Company. Dr. Dapila passed away a year or so ago. When he was checking a passage where John the Baptist said, “…the ax is at the root of the tree,” Dr. Dapila asked if their community had ever cleared trees to farm an area. What do they do at the end of the day, when they have finished today’s work, but need to carry on tomorrow? What do they do with the ax? The translators answered that they take the ax and hit the tree that they will cut down tomorrow, leaving the ax there for the next day. There was a specific verb for this that otherwise would not have been in the translation. Dr. Dapila was always having the team imagine the stories in their contexts, eliciting words and images that the team would not have used if they were only translating the words of the source text.

What do you see as the place of the church in Bible translation? The church is central to the BT task. For a long time, BT agencies have been at the center of BT activities with the churches revolving around them, but this is changing. The church is moving back into the center with BT agencies taking a step back. This calls for more intense sharing of knowledge between churches and global Bible translation networks, so that we can further equip each other in life-giving ways, as God continues to transform us in this ever-changing world.

What would you say to young/aspiring translators? Remember why you got into this work. If you are like me, it was because the Bible was a pathway to personal and collective transformation. The translation/interpretation of the Bible is supposed to be energizing and life-giving. When you start getting bogged down, take a break and evaluate your activities by going back to your “why,” so you don’t lose the forest for the trees!