Ministry

Serving with Wycliffe Bible Translators

We are part of an exciting ministry with Wycliffe, one we never would have dreamed of when we first started out. You see, God motivated us each independently to "stand in the gap" for a people group with no way to encounter the gospel message of salvation in a language and format they clearly understand. Our motivation was not one of pity, but one of love for our Creator and the desire to see His name praised by people from every nation and language, just as we are promised in Revelation:

After this I saw a vast crowd, too great to count, from every nation and tribe and people and language, standing in front of the throne and before the Lamb. They were clothed in white robes and held palm branches in their hands. And they were shouting with a great roar, “Salvation comes from our God who sits on the throne and from the Lamb!”
--Revelation 7:9-10 (NLT)

God would bring people from those many lesser-known languages, some not yet written down, and we felt His calling to use us. Many years later we were at the typesetter, publishing the New Testament in the Fulfulde language for the Fulani people in Mali, West Africa – the work of a translation team drawn from several mission organizations, ours among them. The Lord was preparing us all along, however, for the next phase of ministry, stated in our motto:

Harnessing technology to expedite the translation of God's Word for all people

Doug

Today, God has taken Doug's love for technology and combined it with his years in Bible translation to shape a new kind of ministry. Doug now trains and equips language technology consultants around the world, so that field teams everywhere have the skills and tools to translate Scripture into other languages more efficiently. Wycliffe partners in translation projects in over 3,000 languages (wycliffe.org/progress as of 8/26), and while the number of known remaining languages that still need Bible translation to start for the first time has dropped significantly in recent years, there are still communities waiting for that work to begin.

This technology helps ensure that language development and Bible translation work is done efficiently, and that the data behind it stays safe, with backups stored in more than one location. Doug's team maintains a number of websites where translators and consultants can learn about the best technology for language learning, linguistic analysis, translation and the many other tasks involved in bringing Scripture to the communities they serve.

Priscilla

After many years of homeschooling, Priscilla stayed involved in their boys' education, by serving in the administration of the schools they attended in Burkina Faso and Germany. When they were in college, she found a new avenue for her detailed eye and retrained as an electronic publication designer. She is now Manager of Academic Production, taking the books and translation resources written by SIL colleagues and republishing them as ebooks that readers can download almost anywhere in the world. She now also cares for SIL's content in the Digital Bible Library, the shared library that Bible agencies and app publishers draw from. When a translation team finishes its work, Priscilla is one of the people who checks it, files it and releases it, so that partners like the Bible App can carry Scripture to people in a language that speaks to their hearts. Most days she works from their home office in Michigan, and she travels with Doug to translation training events around the world.