Translating the Bible for the Unreached — Ep. 071

Lesson Transcript

Hello everybody and welcome back to another episode of Anabaptist Perspectives. Thanks for tuning in. Today I'm here in State College, Pennsylvania, at All Nations Bible Translation, and I'm here today with Marvin, who is a translator who's preparing to head to Asia as a translator, and just want to talk to him a bit about his experience here at ABT, as well as exploring some of the work he's going to be doing here in the future. Marvin, becoming a translator obviously isn't something that happens overnight.

You don't wake up one morning and decide, you know, I'm going to head overseas and start translating the Bible. So just tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got to this point and just how you got interested in doing work like this. Yeah, that's a good question. So there are two events in my life that, as I think back across how God has worked in my life and the life of my family, that come to mind.

The first is when I was 16, a sophomore in high school, our class went on a—our Spanish class went on a trip to Central America, and it was there that I first started cultivating an interest for culture, for language, for sharing God's love to people outside of my community and outside of the States. The next one was just a couple of years ago in 2012. My wife and I were newly married, and we had Joel Martin from All Nations Bible Translation come through the community and give a presentation at our church.

And it was there that God spoke pretty clearly to me, saying, "This is what you should be doing." And so from there, it's been six years now, so God has been having us on a journey, of course. But those are the two incidences that I think of that specifically took us to where we are today. This has been a journey, and what have been some of the preparations that you've made? You have been working since 2012, at least.

You've been working quite diligently at a number of different things, spending some time with different organizations. Can you tell us a little bit about what some of your preparations up to this point have been? In 2014, we went overseas to a Bible college in Asia and spent four months there. And then from there, we went to Mennonite Anabaptist two-year college. Those were some of the best years of our life.

And then from there, we went back to Kansas, and I finished out my undergraduate degree at a local Christian college. And so a lot of—there's, you know, a lot of Bible classes, a lot of some Greek and Hebrew. We recently finished our second summer at SIL in North Dakota, doing linguistics training. That was really helpful.

And of course, along the way, we've had a lot of good interactions with people from our home church, community, a lot of life-giving relationships that have been as helpful as, you know, a lot of the formal training has. Sure. So some of those local interactions, are you saying some of those would be people who have been to other contexts and have come back that have given you some insight, or just the support of a local body that's been helpful? Well, I think both.

So there have been some interactions that I've had with those who have been overseas and who really bring a fresh perspective and, I think, a realistic perspective to where we're going. And but also just a lot of people who have invested in our lives, who have walked along beside us. We have a support group of three other families, and they've, for the past year or two, they've been walking alongside us, helping us through major decisions and, in general, giving a lot of emotional support.

And then, of course, our families have been very supportive, and so that's been a huge blessing. And then also the local ministry at our church, the ministers, the church leaders have been a huge blessing to us. So then as you head overseas, what does that support structure look like? How's that going to change as you're over there? Are they still going to—is your home church still heavily involved in supporting you? Are you hoping to be more self-sufficient? What does that look like in the context you're going to?

So it's hard to tell exactly how all these things will work out, you know. But in general, our church is, you know, taking charge of financial things and a lot of emotional support areas, logistical stuff, some perhaps as well. And of course, long-distance relationships are very different than face-to-face, and so there will be that challenge of maintaining these relationships, even with people we know well. That's going to be a challenge.

And so exactly how that looks, we're not sure, but we definitely have the support. We have, I think, the built-in relationships that are necessary to take that step and go overseas. And I think that's one of the big benefits that we have as Anabaptist people that we take for granted unless we're doing something like this, is just the massive amount of support structure that's ingrained into the communities that we're a part of. And I think that's just a huge blessing when we're doing something like this.

So you've been on the journey of learning and preparing to go to another context to translate. Of the 7,000 languages or so in the world, there's about 1,600 that don't have any Bible translation at all. How do you go about—what was the decision process in determining what group to go to and what was some of the journey there? Because it's a big undertaking. It's not something you do for a few months and then you go to another language. And this is a long-term endeavor.

Yeah, so for a number of years, my wife and I had been thinking, processing, you know, where does God want us to go long-term? You know, Bible translation, yes, but where? We didn't really know. And so through a number of events, we were actually invited to join the team by the team leader, and then we're also encouraged to do so by All Nations Bible Translation.

So we had somebody coming to us, you know, asking, "Would you consider that possibility?" And then we also had our support group who was very much involved in that process and providing direction, providing support. So those were a couple of the steps that were pretty key in our decision. So then in preparing for this particular group, you've obviously been studying the language and studying some about the culture and the area you're going to.

What does it feel like a really big responsibility to try to accurately convey, you know, the scriptures into something that's understood well? Do you sense a really big sense of responsibility in getting that right? Yeah, I think so. In a lot of ways, it's a huge responsibility because God's word is sacred. It's something that's profound. It's, you know, it's how we grow in Christ. Part of the way we people grow in Christ is through reading His word.

On the other hand, God's word is translatable, and it's not reliant on a perfect translation. And so, you know, I rest in the fact that God's word can cross language boundaries. It can cross cultural boundaries. And because of that, I look forward to seeing how God will work. Yeah, yeah. And now you mentioned a moment ago about the team leader. And so this is obviously a team effort. You're not there alone. You're filling slightly different roles within that team.

What does your involvement in the team entail as you're there? You've studied Hebrew and you're focusing a lot on Old Testament translation, I believe, for the time being. What does the team, the team dynamic look like over there? Yeah, that's a good question. So that partly remains to be seen, I think, just because it's hard to know exactly what we'll encounter there. But we do have somewhat defined roles. So I will be working with translation.

Of course, we'll be learning the language and culture, church planting, discipling, and all of those are really, really important aspects. In fact, a lot of those at the same time will occupy the team leader as well. And so it's not like I'm just doing Bible translation and he's just planting churches. No, we're working together on this. You mentioned the team leader and you mentioned yourself. What's the size of the team that's going to be on the ground there in Asia where you're at?

Yeah, so we hope eventually to have probably about four families on the ground there, probably slightly different areas, perhaps, but hopefully working with the same people group. What would you say in working with ABT, what's been some of the highlights for you and what do you sense as a vision for them and how has this experience helped facilitate what you're planning to do?

So ABT is really interested in taking both Bible translation and church planting and taking those two together and reaching the unreached, believing that one without the other is incomplete, especially in Bible-less peoples. So this thought of merging church planting and Bible translation, has that been a new thought to you? Has that been a vision that you see now sort of as a result of working with ABT, or has that been enhanced in any way? Certainly has been enhanced in a lot of ways since joining ABT.

You know, years ago, I kind of knew that Bible translation was a thing and that people planted churches, but it was a pretty foggy idea. I didn't have a whole lot of, of course, no experience and little knowledge about either, really. So in a lot of ways, joining ABT has enlightened me in regarding translation, church planting, and the incredible needs that there are for Christ's word and for His presence to reach unreached people groups.

As you're on the ground there and you're working at learning language, learning culture, you're working at, you know, translating into their heart language. What—how do you see an end goal or how do you go about measuring progress in an endeavor like that that's so big? Yeah, excellent question.

So, you know, the end goal is that this people group would have the scripture in their heart language, that they would have an indigenous church that is able to reproduce, to produce other churches, and that there would be a movement to Christ among this people group. So that's really where it comes down to. Everything comes to the desire that I have that these people know Jesus Christ. So you mentioned indigenous church, and that seems to be important to you. What does that look like?

Are there things that you're doing, steps you're taking to be intentional about that, or do you see that as more of a natural growth of, okay, 10, 15 years down the road? I mean, timelines are all fluid. We don't know how the work will progress. But is that something you see as being very intentional now in leading toward them being self-supported, or do you see that as more of a natural progression as a church is established?

Planting indigenous churches is something that I think will take a lot of intentionality, and it's not something that we just go over there and assume that these indigenous churches will just spring out of nowhere. I don't know of anywhere that that has happened. And so it requires a lot of focus, I think, a lot of planning. And of course, all plans are fluid.

We don't know the future, but we trust God that His will is that local leaders are trained and equipped to minister to their own people, to plant churches on their own so that when, you know, in the next 10, 15 years, when our work is done, they aren't reliant on us as expats. Was there anything else that you wanted to cover or mention to our audience here today?

So one of the things that has been impressed on me throughout our journey is the importance of church leaders being intentional about encouraging singles or young families who have an interest in ministry, whether that's overseas or local, and being intentional about singling those people out and saying, "Hey, brother or sister, you have this special gift, and I think you could use it in this sort of capacity." And I just think it's really important that church leaders, not just church leaders, but older brothers

and sisters in the church, come alongside younger people, youth, young families, and help guide them.

And we felt a lot of that in our journey and have benefited greatly from that. And so it doesn't feel to us like this is—we're just jumping out on a limb because we have our church behind us. We have individuals who are especially invested, who have especially invested in our lives. And in a lot of ways, it feels like we're going as a team in some ways, even though it's just our family leaving. So that has been a huge blessing. Yeah, that is a huge blessing. And that's an interesting thought to me.

A lot of times, and I know it's not this way all the time, but different times you see someone who feels a calling to go, and yeah, the church gets behind them to a certain extent, but you're talking about more intentional seeking out by those who are seeing, have a vision for other people that are around them in their congregation going out. And the local church and the brothers and sisters around you being part of the voice of God and the will of God in your life. That's incredible. It really is.

And you said you sense that you didn't choose a particular people group, but there were other influences that directed you to that. And, you know, now here in a few months, you're looking to head to Asia and start the work there. So that's really great. That's really great. Well, thank you, everybody, for tuning into this episode. We hope you enjoyed it. If you have any questions, feel free to leave us a comment or get in touch with us over at our website, anabaptistperspectives.org. Thanks for tuning in.

We'll hope to see you next time.