What is your consulting philosophy? A significant part of my role as a translation consultant is to help the team identify where the translation may be weak and ask the relevant questions so they can think through how they can make their translation stronger. Sometimes they just need more information. Sometimes a bit of spoken language influence creeps in. Sometimes we identify areas where they need more training. Sometimes they simply overlook something. Through this on-going dialogue with the team, the translation becomes progressively better. Sometimes our dialogue helps identify good questions to ask the community during the community check. By the time we reach the “final” draft, it is now something we together feel good about. It becomes less about me “approving” something and more about our collaborative assessment of the quality of the product. My desire is to support a quality process where each of our contributions leads to a “final” product they can defend well. 

What translation resources do you really value? For resources, I mostly look at the UBS Handbooks, SIL Translator’s Notes, Word Biblical Commentary, Keil & Delitzsch, AT Robertson’s commentary, and notes from the NET Bible. If these lack information, then I will search the Translator’s Workplace or my Accordance resources to see what I can find. I invested in various visual resources available through Accordance to help with explaining visual information. I probably don’t use some of the newer online resources as well as I should, so I hope to improve in that area.

How do you continue to grow as a consultant? (What helps you continue to grow as a consultant?) I use Obsidian to document all of my findings about various passages that translation teams are working on. This helps me to remember all that I find. It does sometimes feel like it makes things take longer, but the act of processing the information for myself as I document it tends to help me when I am actually discussing it with the team. Sometimes there are words or concepts that I have not yet run across. So that also gives me opportunities to investigate those concepts for myself so I can better explain them to the team. When the opportunity arises, I appreciate workshops and other training opportunities, but it often depends on the availability of interpreters. This is an area that I want to continue to work on.

How do you share your translation discoveries with others? (blog, BT list, translation conferences, etc) I haven’t done much to publicize things I discover. Most of the time I just document them in my notes. I don’t usually feel that I have found anything that isn’t already known by most consultants. If I find new resources, I have a Google Sites page that I maintain to document things I would likely want to share with fellow consultants from my internet searches or what I receive via email. This helps me to keep all of that information in one place so I don’t have to comb my emails to find the information.  

Can you share about a time when you realized you were wrong and what you learned from it? One of the temptations in offering feedback is relying on one’s memory. Sometimes what I think I remember and what I ought to remember are not the same thing. I remember one time when I was commenting on the passage about the eye of the needle. Somehow the claim stuck in my head that this was some kind of small gate (probably from a pastoral illustration I had seen at one time). Someone confronted me on that observation and so I researched it again and realized that I was wrong. I admitted that I was wrong and explained what I had found in researching it. That and other experiences where I explained something just from my memory have taught me the value of documenting information on a passage and then referring to that documentation when explaining. I am less prone to providing bad feedback when I am more careful in the feedback I provide.

I would also add that when consultants are exalted too much, it can be harder to admit when one is wrong … especially when you may be afraid it will cause people to question the fruit of your other work. But we are human and we make mistakes and no translation is ever perfect. We just continue to do our jobs to offer the best feedback we can.

What are your top tips for someone starting on a career path in Bible translation?

(1) Technical skills like linguistics, exegesis, competency in original languages, competency in LWC, etc. are certainly necessary, but are usually easier to develop compared to interpersonal skills and a vital relationship with God and His people.

(2) Accept that you will not be perfect in all the areas of Bible translation. You should strive to learn as much as you can, but don’t expect yourself to be “Super Consultant”. 

(3) If for whatever reason you decide being a consultant is not the best fit, there are many different ways to be involved in Bible translation that still help the teams to make progress in their translation work.

(4) Invest some time in learning skills in the area of personal knowledge management/ Second Brain/ Zettelkasten/ etc. Learning from these various approaches to knowledge management can help you avoid feeling overwhelmed by the amount of content.

(5) If you are not careful, it is far too easy to become burned out or overwhelmed as a consultant. Make sure you have healthy life practices that can protect you from this. (The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer has been helpful.) Don’t assume that it can’t happen to you. Assume that it can and take proactive steps to ensure that it doesn’t.

Share something that you learned from a mentor or from a mentee? It can be so easy to lose ourselves in our academics (because that can be easier to do) and forget our relationship with God and fellow believers (because that takes time and can be somewhat messy). We need to make time for that. And in the consultant space, time is a precious resource that we may struggle to give. We may be tempted to give performative time to our relationship with God and fellow believers in order to save our time for other activities we feel pressed to complete. But authentic relationships may be lacking. When we need those relationships most, they will not be there. I say this as someone who finds it easier to be in the academics, and acknowledging my need to continue to grow in this area.

What do you see as the place of the church in Bible translation? I wonder if there is a false dichotomy between “the church” and “the Bible translation movement”. We do what we do in Bible translation because we are members of the Church, the one Body of Christ. In reality, there is no separate entity that is doing Bible translation apart from the Church. Yes, there may be multiple NGOs involved in the work, but all of the people in that NGO should be people who are members of the Church. Yes, there may be multiple expressions of the Church involved in the work, but all of those expressions of the Church share the same Lord and the same Head. That said, admittedly, the Body can do better in communication and collaboration.  If we did better at communication (including listening) and collaboration, we can learn how to do this work together as the Church. After all, when this is all said and done, we will be spending eternity together so why not find ways to learn to do that now? 

So, yes, I believe the Church has a vital role in Bible translation. I personally believe Bible translation is a process that will not end until Jesus returns and so we are wiser to set up long-term sustainable processes that utilize all the gifts of the worldwide Body to see quality translations become available in every language.

What would you say to young/aspiring translators? When I first was interested in translation, I was told by seasoned translators that I could not be involved in Bible translation because I couldn’t hear. It would just be too hard to hear the sounds of the languages. I had no argument with that, but I had to grieve that dream. (Of course, at that time, sign language translation was barely on the radar.) Later, when I became involved in Bible translation for sign languages, I was told that I could not do the signing because I am not as native as people would probably want. I had no argument with that, but I had to grieve that dream. But God didn’t give up on me because I couldn’t do this and couldn’t do that. He had something else in mind that I knew nothing about … consulting. And I’m thankful for the opportunity that God has given me as a consultant. 

So my encouragement is this: discover how God has created you and invest in the gifts He has given you. Don’t be fixated on any one role in Bible translation. Be open to seeing other perspectives about how you can contribute. Don’t despair if the work you do in translation doesn’t look the same as someone else’s contribution. Just be faithful to do the work that matches the gifts and skills that God gives you.