The ABC’s of Bible Translation

00:01
Dr. Becky Grossman
When you’re translating, you want to make sure that you’re using the features that are natural in their language. 

00:17
Rich Rudowske
Welcome to the Essentially Translatable podcast, brought to you by Lutheran Bible Translators. I’m Rich Rudowske. 

00:22
Emily Wilson
And I’m Emily Wilson. 

00:24
Rich Rudowske
Before we get into today’s episode, we want to announce that the Essentially Translatable podcast is now available in Audible. So if you use that app for your audiobooks and like that interface, you can search for Essentially Translatable there and subscribe in that environment. And every time a new episode comes out, it’ll be right there with all your audiobooks. I think that also means that you can tell Alexa to play Essentially Translatable. And she will, though I haven’t tried that one out yet. So if some of you at home want to give that a try and let us know, we’d appreciate that. 

00:55
Emily Wilson
We’re also on Apple’s podcast platform, so if you use that, we encourage you to subscribe there. And if you do, please leave us a rating and a comment. That would be great. We are told it uses algorithms to help find the podcast easier. 

01:10
Rich Rudowske
Those algorithms, they are mysterious, but somehow they work, or at least we are told so. So if you can test that theory out, also leaving a rating there, that’d be awesome. We’re also on the Google podcast platform. So if you say, hey, Google, like they do at my house and tell it to play Essentially Translatable, it will do that. My wife likes to listen to iHeartRadio, and we’re also there, as you can find and mark and subscribe to essentially translatable on iHeartRadio. So we encourage you to subscribe wherever you get your podcast content and share it with your friends. We’re having a lot of fun with the interviews and the content we’re able to put together in the Essentially Translatable podcast. And if you like it, we hope you share it with your friends. 

01:51
Emily Wilson
Absolutely. So, on today’s podcast, we chatted with Dr. Becky Grossman, and she honored us with sharing about her experiences in Bible translation ministry in Liberia, West Africa, and a little bit of what she’s headed into next. But also, we learned a little bit about the impact of small words like ‘then’ in Bible translation ministry and what brings joy intercultural ministry around the world and how it impacts the growth of the global church. Listen in, sit back, relax, enjoy the ride. 

02:28
Rich Rudowske
Okay, we are talking to Dr. Becky Grossman today, who is coming to us from Michigan. And Becky is a translation consultant with several languages in Liberia. Thanks for being on the podcast today, Becky. 

02:41
Dr. Becky Grossman
Thank you, Rich. It’s great to be here. 

02:43
Emily Wilson
We’re excited to have you. 

02:45
Dr. Becky Grossman
Yeah. 

02:46
Emily Wilson
So I wanted to talk to you a little bit, Becky, because I was really excited in your recent, having your doctoral program completed and then some recent publications, and really excited to introduce you to our listeners. So could you share a little bit about how you got involved in Bible translation work, and what were you doing before, and how did God lead you to serve with LBT? 

03:12
Dr. Becky Grossman
Well, God actually put his call in my life at a very early age of five or six. My mom introduced me to two missionary friends of hers. One was in Bolivia, Karen Merkel with World Mission Prayer League, and one in Papua New Guinea, Helen Martin. She was one of LBT’s first missionaries. So we would pray for these ladies regularly, and I was particularly interested in what Helen was doing, and it really shocked me that people did not have know, how could people come to learn about Jesus, my best friend, if they didn’t have bibles? So I felt I needed to do something about that, like what Helen was doing. And that’s really how I started out in LBT. 

03:54
Dr. Becky Grossman
And so then anytime LBT missionaries would come through, or the executive directors or whoever, I would always go and make sure that I got to their program. And Dale and Alfina Federwitz came to our church when I was in junior high, and they mentored me along the way. They were there in Liberia when I was there, and Dale was the director when I was assigned to work with the Bondi project. So, yeah, it was a long process to actually become a missionary with LBT, but God just kept that calling very strong in my heart. 

04:28
Emily Wilson
That’s pretty incredible, seeing how God was working in and through those people, working in and through your mom to make those introductions, and. Pretty cool. I mean, how many people can say that they met their mentors in junior high and to be able to be their colleagues someday? Pretty cool. 

04:49
Rich Rudowske
So you worked on the Bandi New Testament project. Now, how far did you go in that project in your time there, that kind of first go around with LBT? 

04:59
Dr. Becky Grossman
Well, the project had already been started by previous missionaries. Don and Dini Kovac were there most recently before I was in the project, and I actually was doing kind of an assessment or a survey with the team when I realized what they needed. They had 80% of the New Testament drafted when I went up to first visit the team in my role at that time, I was working with the language programs manager, and they needed someone to help them bring it to completion. So that’s basically what I did. I jumped in kind of in the middle and helped train a few more team members, and then we took it through to the end. 

05:42
Rich Rudowske
Okay. Yeah. Some of our listeners may know that the infamous Dr. Rodewald also had some part in the Bandi program. Was he still around at that time, too? 

05:51
Dr. Becky Grossman
He was not. He was in the states, and he was determined to pursue Cindy for his wife, so he couldn’t rush that. So, no, we never actually had the privilege of working together. But, of course, his work with the orthography and building up the community relationships, that’s all very much an important process, and I benefited from all of that. 

06:18
Rich Rudowske
Good. So then finished work there with the Bondi New Testament. Walk us through what happened next. 

06:24
Dr. Becky Grossman
Well, we actually extended our term so that we could finish. And so then we left Liberia after the New Testament was turned into the consultant, who at that time was Larry Johnson. Liberia was in the midst of a civil war, so after we left, a lot of things happened and our missionaries were evacuated, and it didn’t make sense for us to go back right then and with our small children and just other assignment issues, we didn’t go back at that time. 

06:55
Emily Wilson
So how is it that you came back to LBT then? 

06:59
Dr. Becky Grossman
Well, in 2002, my husband took a different job, and so we left LBT. But that calling that God had placed on my life was always there. And I was always wondering, well, how can God still use my skills? Could that short time I spent in Liberia, that it? And so as my children got older, new technologies were coming out, and of course, they were older, and some of them had even left home. And I’d heard about Jonathan Burmeister working with teams while he was in the states using the Internet to help him do checking. And that really piqued my interest, because I thought, well, if he can do it, maybe I could do that as well, because at that time, it was still not conducive for our family to pick up and move somewhere again. 

07:44
Dr. Becky Grossman
And so I started inquiring if that was even possible. And at that same time, LBT was looking for someone, as a volunteer missionary to just go for three, four weeks to Liberia to do some survey work to see the viability of a couple of language groups that were requesting translations of the Old Testament. And so it was kind of a trial run for me to see how I would do, how my family would do. My previous experience in Liberia was helpful because we were traveling all over in the country, and I kind of knew the language and I knew some people. So that was kind of the kickstart or the jump off point. So then I completed applying and that’s how I got back in, I guess. 

08:33
Rich Rudowske
And that’s back in about ten years ago now already. 

08:37
Dr. Becky Grossman
Is that close? 2013 was when I was officially accepted back into service. 

08:45
Emily Wilson
All right, so I’m a little curious, Becky, how has internet changed over the past few years and how has that impacted your work with your colleagues in Liberia? 

08:58
Dr. Becky Grossman
Well, we’ve always. It’s been my prayer for the entire time I’ve been in. Pray for my Internet, pray for their internet. When we were here just prior to my coming onto LBT, we were still using dial up where I live and so we still struggle. We use mostly cell towers here and that’s what they use in Liberia as well. Sure, but there are a lot more cell towers. Everybody has cell phones there now. And just recently we were able to test some modems in the interior that actually worked fairly well. As long as the whole Internet system was working, we were able to do checking. We could hear each other well and were able to share our program so that we could do the checking. And they were always amazed. You’re 5000 miles away and able to do this and it’s like, yeah, it’s pretty incredible. 

09:53
Rich Rudowske
Yeah. A very real way, a little bit ahead of time. I mean, this is now becoming a very normal thing to try to find these remote ways to. 

10:02
Emily Wilson
So you’re ahead of the curve, Becky. 

10:05
Dr. Becky Grossman
Well, other people were ahead of it before I got involved, but yeah, trying to make it continue to work. 

10:12
Rich Rudowske
So you recently received a doctorate from Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary. Wanted to talk a little bit about that. So the doctoral program in general is a Bible translation focus, correct? 

10:27
Dr. Becky Grossman
Right. The particular track that I took was focusing on Bible translation. 

10:33
Rich Rudowske
What are kind of some of the things covered, just out of curiosity, in a Bible Translation program? 

10:37
Dr. Becky Grossman
Well, we looked at programs. Yeah, we looked at the history of just exegetical, interpreting the scriptures, how that works. We talked about meaning. Where does meaning really lie? Does it lie in your source text or does it lie when people hear it and how they interpret it? So we had a lot of discussion about that. We talked a lot about different ways translation principles have changed or evolved over the years and what’s important and how do we do that and looking more at context and not just the grammar, but the whole context of who’s hearing it and where did it come from and how is it going to impact the community? So many different aspects of the entire translation process. 

11:27
Rich Rudowske
And then as part of that work. Of course, you had a capstone paper thesis, and you recently published content from that in the Bible Translator journal, an article entitled assessment of a discourse workshop design, implementation, and outcomes. So, briefly, how would we explain this to a layperson in terms of what does all that even mean? 

11:51
Dr. Becky Grossman
Well, it was quite a long title. Just to cover what we were doing back in July 2017, we had a workshop with the three teams that we were working with there, and Carla Barsch from SIL came. She has written material on using natural narrative discourse, or even, like, okay, if you’re studying poetry or whatever you’re studying, using it with the indigenous teams not focused so much at the linguists, but at the mother tongue translators, so that they could discover features of their own language. So we wanted to discover. We were focused on the narrative text. We wanted to discover what the features were that they have in their stories so that we could make our translations more natural. So, my article describes that process and the results of that workshop. 

12:44
Dr. Becky Grossman
So we wanted to evaluate both the process of helping the translators discover the features and then seeing how these discoveries could change their translation. So we did comparisons of the natural text and then of their translated text to see if or how they used the features they discovered to make their translations better. And then we also wanted to see how we could increase the capacity of the translators themselves, giving them more tools to use as they translated larger sections of scripture. And, of course, the focus for this workshop was just more the narrative text. 

13:20
Emily Wilson
So, talking about discourse, can you share a little bit about, what does that look like, especially as you’re talking about looking at stories in their local context, what does that look like? 

13:33
Dr. Becky Grossman
Okay, well, discourse can mean a lot of different things. Our conversation here this morning is a discourse. Telling a story is a discourse, a poem, a letter. Those things can all be a discourse. And, of course, how we talked to each other this morning is very much different than how I might write a story about how we talked. And so every language has ways that they do that. So that’s why in the workshop, we just chose to focus on how you tell a story, how you tell a true story, because that’s different. Of course, we know then how you might tell a fable or how you might tell a fairy tale. And if you tried to do too many different kinds of discourses, then, of course, our workshop would have been very much longer. So we need to focus, and that’s narrative. 

14:21
Dr. Becky Grossman
Discourse is usually one of the easier types of discourse to study initially, especially for people who are just learning how to discover discourse features. So that’s why we use narrative. 

14:34
Rich Rudowske
Yeah. So what you’re really talking about doing is having people stop and examine something that you do without really thinking about it, and then to think about it and say, okay, so if you do it this way, what does that look like for the translation? So, yeah, talk about, kind of, the importance of why that’s an important thing to try to step back and focus on. 

14:57
Dr. Becky Grossman
Right. So in a discourse or a whole chunk of language, there are actually, kind of, rules or practices or common features that are used over and over again with the different types of discourses. And sometimes we refer to these different types of genres. And so when you’re translating, you want to make sure that you’re using the features that are natural in their language. So how do you begin a story? When and how do you use a story? How do you introduce a new character to a story and keep track of them in your text? How do you create the excitement or the tension or how do you end a story? And so all these features are important because, of course, that helps the reader understand the message better, but it also gives a translation credibility because the language sounds good. 

15:47
Dr. Becky Grossman
You don’t want to hear a story about Jesus that’s told badly because then it’s like, well, if they can’t even talk my language, right, how can I believe that Jesus is real? Right? So there’s some serious ramifications to making that translation effective and natural sounding and normal. 

16:09
Rich Rudowske
Yeah. So give us a couple examples in English how this might look. 

16:14
Dr. Becky Grossman
Okay, so if I was going to tell you a story about Jesus, I wouldn’t begin it with once upon a time. We know that’s a common phrase we use when we are telling a fairy tale. And so another example in English, sometimes when people read through the New Testament, it’s a little confusing with Paul’s letters because in English, we talk, we say, “Dear so and so”, and then we have our letter, and then we say, “Love or Sincerely, Becky Grossman.” Whereas in Paul’s letters, he begins, know, here’s who I am and here’s all my credentials. And so it’s a little backwards for us. So some of those things can cause confusion if we’re not paying attention.  

16:57
Rich Rudowske
And of course, the English translations of the Bible, they leave Paul’s letters, how they are in the translations. You work like, okay, let’s just use the English example. Might you do something that’s the equivalent of moving it to the end, or would you keep it at the beginning and just kind of, how might you decide which way to handle that. 

17:16
Dr. Becky Grossman
Well, in my experience, we’ve kept some of that structure, how they did it. For one thing, it’s cultural. So you teach people that cultural thing. Other times you’re looking at, okay, then verse one, you’re going to find at the end of the book. And that’s going to be maybe confusing, especially in places where they maybe already have a translation in a language of wider communication. And so they’re going to be comparing. Excuse me, or also just following along. And so credibility there, too, is, hey, you’ve got to translate this how it looks in the source text. So there’s always this balance of figuring out how much of the features do we retain and what can we change? And it doesn’t really distort the message to have Paul introduce himself at the beginning. It’s not really a, you know, readers can figure that out. 

18:10
Dr. Becky Grossman
So there’s always this balance with balancing clarity and naturalness with the accuracy and whatnot. 

18:18
Rich Rudowske
Yeah, for sure. It very much kind of reflects that the task of Bible translation is at the same time very context specific and incarnational, but at the same time universal in terms of the whole Christian faith. And so nothing happens in a vacuum. And like you mentioned, comparing other translations or now the verses, it’s just fascinating all the things to wrestle with in a translation. 

18:42
Emily Wilson
And you’ve hinted at it, Becky, of like that we have this ABCs of Bible translation and accurate, beautiful, and clear, and how important it is for a language community to find the translation to be these things and to match the linguistic standards of how they would speak and in those discourse markers. So I’m wondering if you could share how discourse markers tie in to make a translation more accurate, beautiful, and clear. 

19:16
Dr. Becky Grossman
Right. So when we’re talking about discourse markers, that can be a number of different things. It could be connectors. It could be things like a very short sentence where things got exciting. It could be who gets to speak, or it could be who gets a name in the story. Your more important characters are probably going to get a name, but there’s also cultural values that come into play as well. So I have a couple examples, and one of them I wrote about in my paper was from studying Bondi and from studying some of their texts, we realized they don’t use a lot of connectors in their natural stories and in their text. And so, as I was working with one language and I saw these connectors always being used, I was really suspicious. 

20:01
Dr. Becky Grossman
So I was very thankful when we had the workshop because it confirmed my suspicions. The translators had always put in a connector that they would tell meant ‘then’ every place it was in one of our more literal English translations, translating the Greek word, “chi”, which can mean a lot of different things, but they use it more often. And in English, we tend to do that in a story. Well, then this happened, and then this happened. And so they just felt bound to also have something in their translation. And I ask them, how does this sound? And they’re kind of like, well, but we have to have it, don’t we? And so when I pointed out to them how in their stories, that connector was only used maybe once, maybe twice in a story, and it was where the problem was solved in the storyline. 

20:54
Dr. Becky Grossman
And so when I gave them, quote unquote “permission”, just let them say, “Hey, you don’t use this in your language that way. You don’t have to use it in your translation in this different sort of way.” And so when they had that “permission”, they just started cutting out all the extra ‘thens’ and all the extra’ ands’, and then we talked about, okay, in the Bible text, here’s where the problem got solved. How about if we put it there? And they’re like, yes, that sounds good. And I don’t know that we were able to find all those places, but we did find a lot of them, and it helped. They were much more happy with their work, and they felt it was much clearer in the presentation of the story. 

21:36
Rich Rudowske
Yeah, that’s an excellent sort of illustration of a question you raised earlier in terms of where does the meaning lie? If it’s in the words, then only the words, then this word ‘chi’ in Greek, you would have to be looking for some word every single time. But this really illustrates that even in the Greek language, that’s serving a certain function just because it’s a word. And so you would find that in the languages you had in mind there, that they cover that connecting feature just in a different way. It’s not vocalized somehow, at least at the word level. And that’s really fascinating. You had another example you shared with us. We were prepping here about context and cultural values that came out during the workshop. Tell us a little bit about that. 

22:19
Dr. Becky Grossman
Right. So one of the stories that came out in the workshop, and I had these stories before we actually conducted the workshop. So Carla and I were trying to come up with some analysis that we could make sense of prior. And one of the stories was about two young women, and they had gone to the farm, and on their way home, somehow the rice got lost, or certain baskets of the rice got lost. And so they were at odds with one another. And from my cultural perspective, the problem was solved when the rice was found, right? But the discourse markers weren’t matching with those storyline features, the connectors, or as you saw, the little changes. So we knew those were marking something, but it didn’t make sense. And in this story, there was a wise uncle who was mediating between these two women. 

23:07
Dr. Becky Grossman
And it turns out that the interrogation was more important to the storyline than the story of going to the farm and coming back without rice and his advice for reconciliation was more important than finding the rice. And so this was the resolution of the story, where he told them to just forget about it, which in liberian culture is telling you to forgive the other person. And so that whole thing of relationships are far more important than the task is so cultural. So restoring the relationship between those two young women was more important than finding the lost rice, even though they did find it. So I missed the storyline and I missed how the markers were being used. And so, relating this to translation, then we see how the culture affects the climax, it affects the resolution. 

24:02
Dr. Becky Grossman
Only the most important people were allowed to have the direct quotations. And so that influences how we translate Gospel stories. Who gets to speak, who doesn’t, what connectors do we use when there is resolution? And putting those in the right places in that storyline is going to make a big difference in how people understand the message and then also giving the skills to the translators so they know how to do this. That’s going to make their translations more accurate, beautiful and clear. 

24:33
Rich Rudowske
That’s really great. And musing on what you said in this story here, the relationships were more important than the lost rice, and the story of fixing the relationship was important. And we didn’t ask you this before, so I’m not going to put you on the spot that you have to know the answer, but I just wonder how that will speak to, as the translation goes along, just the concept of forgiveness in general and how God positions himself with humanity and then encourages humanity to interact with each other. There’s some possible fascinating new ways of understanding that could come from this. 

25:06
Dr. Becky Grossman
And, you know, that also goes with their culture. God is already prepared in their culture, things that the, you know, as Americans, we maybe miss because we are so task oriented, and this culture is already relationship oriented. So seeing God, Jesus, as our mediator, that’s a really great point. And the forgiveness that He’s given us, but that then we extend to others. 

25:31
Rich Rudowske
Yeah, it’s just one of the great gifts of, again, the contextualization of the Gospel message has the opportunity to inform the universal Christian church as well. 

25:43
Dr. Becky Grossman
Absolutely. 

25:44
Emily Wilson
How we can sharpen one another based off of where we come from and approaching posturing to read Scripture, hear Scripture, and how informed we can become as we hear it from different perspectives. And like you said, like a discourse marker, sharing where the resolution is and the conflict, reaching a point that it’s just like, oh, well, that brings things into a new perspective as the church. As Christians, we come together and we talk about these things, and it’s just a beautiful story in the global church. 

26:22
Rich Rudowske
Yeah. Now, we can’t really, in these times, record an episode without having to mention Covid-19. So a year ago at this time, or getting close to a year ago, you attended the dedication of the Gola New Testament in Liberia, right before everything shut down with COVID. So talk to us a little bit about what happens at a New Testament dedication, the context of the program, who was there with you and just what that meant for you? 

26:47
Dr. Becky Grossman
Right. Well, every dedication is different because usually the local churches are going to plan it, and so they bring in their own culture and ways of making, honoring something, or celebrating. And so this program was held in Tubmanburg, which is one of the major cities in the Gola region, and it was finding a place where all church bodies would be welcome to attend. And so pastors and dignitaries and local celebrities were invited, along with, of course, anybody who was able to come and celebrate. So I basically just showed up at the dedication. I didn’t really have any role to play as far as planning for it. That was all on the local level. So they had dancers and singers and speeches, of course, that’s always important. And acknowledgments of anybody and everybody that was involved in the whole process. 

27:43
Dr. Becky Grossman
So they gave the translation team certificates and their copy of the scriptures, and then, of course, the scriptures were there, available for people to purchase. 

27:55
Rich Rudowske
So these events are an opportunity to sort of stop and reflect. They’re kind of a milestone in the life of the christian community there. When you think about what you saw there and your involvement, what inspired you in that process and your relationships with the community? 

28:13
Dr. Becky Grossman
Well, the people I worked mostly with was just the teams themselves. And just seeing their dedication, they often sacrificed their time, their other employment opportunities, working on their farms. They were very dedicated to the job. And one of the local churches, the Catholic Church in that area, donated housing for me. They donated workspace. And so you saw this desire to have that Word of God in a format that they could understand. And these guys also, they were also the literacy teachers in many areas. So they were working both on the translation as well as teaching other people to read and write their language. 

28:59
Emily Wilson
So what was your biggest takeaway from the dedication event, Becky? 

29:04
Dr. Becky Grossman
So I think my biggest takeaway was just the celebration. It was such a celebration service, starting with one of their local gals who came in and sang several numbers. People were celebrating the Word of God. They brought the Word of God in. They were dancing. They had all the women bringing it in. They wrapped it up like a gift, and they were celebrating. And that is sometimes we take that for granted. Having God’s Word is something truly to celebrate. 

29:35
Rich Rudowske
Definitely is. Yeah. Even if just one Sunday in the year at church, we all gave a standing ovation when they opened that Bible just to remind ourselves how awesome it is that God has spoken to us and we can interact with His Word freely. 

29:50
Emily Wilson
I do find the dedications, how powerful it is of the imagery. Like you said, they wrapped it up as a gift, and I’ve heard before how it’s been presented along with the local grain, as that this is the sustenance or bringing in the boxes of the New Testaments on a cart drawn by oxen. That’s what you would do. Exactly how much beauty there is in that symbolism and enriching for the community, but again, enriching for that global church. Pretty awesome. So what do you think as a church in the west that we can learn from our ministry colleagues around the world, specifically in Liberia? 

30:40
Dr. Becky Grossman
Well, I think one thing we’ve already talked about how relationship is so important and restoring that relationship. I also think in these places where the church is where they haven’t had it in their own language, they realize how important it is. It is truth. It’s not to be taken lightly. It’s not something to be taken for granted. And I think another thing, too, is they have a very deep, clear perception of the spiritual world. It’s very real to them. It’s not mythological, as it has become in the west. And so actually, their worldview is quite a bit closer to the worldview that we see in the Scriptures. 

31:17
Rich Rudowske
Yeah. And in your time, in cross cultural, or what they now call intercultural ministry. And that’s one of the hardest types of work to do. What’s been some of the most important things you’ve learned over the number of years that you’ve been involved in different ways intercultural missionary service? 

31:33
Dr. Becky Grossman
Well, for one thing, we don’t know it all coming from our culture and our perspective. So there’s this constantly… this learning process and sometimes relearning. Sometimes you think you know something and then something else happens, and so you learn more. And I think coming to that grip on relationships being so important, so it’s hard to pick out just one thing, witnessing that strong bond. I have the privilege of working with Christians in Liberia. And so that fellowship that we have in Christ, no matter what the culture, we have the same holy spirit and the love that comes from that can grow despite any differences that we might have. And I guess, too, I’ve also been always amazed and kind of in awe as we look at God’s mission and how he plans and how he places people. 

32:28
Dr. Becky Grossman
So just God’s timing on various people when they’re there with their talents and gifts is really important. He provides the right people at the right time, whether they are linguists, whether they’re exegetes, mother tongue translators, administrative staff, or people who are praying for and supporting the work that we do, each one of them is needed just at the time that God calls them to that service. 

32:53
Emily Wilson
So what advice would you have for individuals who are considering intercultural missionary service? 

33:00
Dr. Becky Grossman
Well, from my perspective, God calling me when I was young through prayer; it’s listen to God’s voice. If God puts a particular aspect of His mission on your heart, follow it. He will lead you through those things that seem impossible. When I was considering coming back into LBT, it just didn’t seem possible because you weren’t able to pick up and go somewhere. And it was my pastor who actually said, if God’s leading you that way, you need to pursue it. Yeah, just looking for those doors to open and walking through them. 

33:38
Rich Rudowske
That’s so true. And Bible translation work, and even folks that don’t work in Bible translation, but maybe that work with the scriptures, kind of in a technical role in some aspect of it, is service. There’s a purpose and an interface that you have with that. But for you, what’s the role of your faith and the Bible in your everyday life as a Christian? 

34:01
Dr. Becky Grossman
Right. Well, I grew up in the faith, so there’s not a time that I remember not having Jesus in my life and going to Sunday school and reading Scripture at Sunday school and also at home. So Jesus has always been my best friend and my Savior. And I knew that we learned about him in the Bible. And so it was important to me that others have the Bible too, to learn about Jesus as we know those of us that study the Scripture. It seems like every time we read a verse, even if we’ve read it 100 times, we learn, we continue to learn. The Bible is just rich in wisdom and teaching, which benefits us, benefits me personally on a daily basis. 

34:44
Rich Rudowske
True. Such a privilege to be able to have a role where you’re pointed back to scripture, and then I think it’s really great perspective you bring that. I’m not just doing this as a technical thing. The Bible speaks to me every time I engage it. 

34:57
Dr. Becky Grossman
Yeah, right. And in fact, when I do study for translation, it’s very different than when I do study for what’s God saying to me? There’s just a very different focus as we’re listening for what he’s trying to tell us. 

35:13
Rich Rudowske
So in your work, what gives you the most joy? What do you love about what you do? 

35:17
Dr. Becky Grossman
Well, there are a lot of things that give me joy in my work. One of the big things is just knowing that I’m doing what God has called me to do, and then, of course, doing something that has eternal benefits. So I don’t always get to see what God’s Word does in people’s lives, but we know from His Word that it goes out and it does not come back void. And people need to learn about who Jesus is and their Savior, and we know that has an eternal result. So also working with people who have such a dedication to their faith, both people that I work with here at LBT, but also then, of course, the mother tongue translators and the other staff that are in Liberia, they have very unwavering faith. 

36:04
Dr. Becky Grossman
Some of the challenges in paying attention to the details and the puzzles as we figure out. Okay, how should we translate this and what would be the best way to make it clear? I also enjoy traveling and just meeting all the interesting people both here and over there. So lots of different things. 

36:22
Rich Rudowske
So in your work with LBT in the recent past have hit several milestones. You finished your doctorate. The goal of New Testament was dedicated. There has, of course, been an unexpected wrench thrown in the works with COVID But as you look to the future, what are you looking forward to and what’s on the horizon? What’s next for you and your work with LBT and with our colleagues in Liberia? 

36:43
Dr. Becky Grossman
Well, I’m looking forward to just continuing on with some of the things that we’ve been doing. The two projects that were there that I’ve been working on over the past seven or so years, we’re getting close to finishing their old testaments and either revising or redoing their New Testament. So we’re looking forward to that in the next couple of years to finishing that, another thing was to get more of the Internet checking working, and we’ve been forced to do that with the pandemic and not being able to travel. So we’ve just been improving on that whole process. So while we still need to make the in-person visits, we can supplement the time and the checking time by doing the checking over the Internet. And then also possibly I’m looking forward to the new project that we’ve got going. 

37:31
Dr. Becky Grossman
The Bandi Old Testament now is a project that has begun and then also possibly helping out with some translations in Cameroon. So lots of things to look forward to, and I’m hoping, yeah, I would really love to get back there. It’s been almost a year, so, yeah. 

37:50
Rich Rudowske
So how can we pray for your ministry and for your colleagues in Liberia and maybe new colleagues in Cameroon? 

37:58
Dr. Becky Grossman
The very basic things of just good health, praying for as they travel-the roads are not always real good, and just the safety of vehicles is something we take for granted here, but that’s always very real there. Praying for just, you know, things get really tedious when you’re trying to make sure things are consistent and paying attention to the details. And maybe you’re coming up with a struggle between, well, do I keep this looking more like my source text or do I need to make it readjust the structures so that it will sound good to my culture? And then, of course, just relationships. You’re working a lot on very close things. 

38:39
Dr. Becky Grossman
People have put a lot of time and effort into something, and then if you’ve ever been on a translation team and you come back together, you’re doing a lot of picking apart and saying, well, maybe we should make this better. So relationships are always an important aspect of our work. So just all of those kinds of things praying for, we appreciate very much. 

39:02
Rich Rudowske
That’s great. 

39:02
Emily Wilson
Absolutely. Well, Becky, we are so thankful that you took some time out of your morning to join us and to share a little bit about your ministry and how people might be able to get involved. It’s following you on our website and signing up for your prayer letter, and we’ll be continuing to keep you in prayer as you work with partners in West Africa. 

39:28
Dr. Becky Grossman
Thank you. Thank you so much. It was good to be here and talk with you and share a little more specifically some of these aspects as well. 

39:40
Rich Rudowske
Thank you for listening to the Essentially Translatable podcast brought to you by Lutheran Bible Translators. Look for past episodes of the podcast lbt.org/podcast, or subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, follow Lutheran Bible Translators social media channels on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter or go to lbt.org to find out how you can get involved in the Bible translation movement and put God’s Word in their hands. The Essentially Translatable podcast is edited and produced by Andrew Olson and distributed by Sarah Lyons. Technical support for this episode was provided by Caleb Rodewald. The lovely and talented Emily Wilson was our co- host today, and our executive producer is Amy Gertz. Artwork for the podcast is designed by Caleb Rodewald. Music was written and performed by Rob Veith. I’m Rich Rudowske. So long for now.