Six Years in Sierra Leone

00:00
Amy Formella
So when they read the Bible, they’re like, “Okay, this is Themne.” And I understand it and I understand what God is telling me. 

00:16
Rich Rudowske
Welcome to the Essentially Translatable Podcast brought to you by Lutheran Bible Translators. I’m Rich Rudowske. 

00:21
Emily Wilson
And I’m Emily Wilson. And I want to encourage you all to subscribe to receive the podcast notifications so you can subscribe via Google Podcasts, Apple podcasts, iHeartRadio, Spotify, all of the places where you listen to your podcasts. Hitting that subscribe button will give you a notification anytime we launch a new podcast. So that is every other week and that drops Friday mornings, very early in the morning unless you are across the pond. So I want to encourage you to subscribe and you can get more awesome content right on your phone, notifying you as soon as it drops. 

01:01
Rich Rudowske
Yep. And this week we’ve been recording several interviews during the week of Concordia Mission Institute’s summer conference. And so you may hear some little voices in the background as the childcare program let out during the interview here. But we got to talk with Amy Formella, one of our missionaries to Sierra Leone and talking with her about her life there and her work with the Mende and Temne language communities. 

01:23
Emily Wilson
Enjoy the podcast. 

01:28
Rich Rudowske
We are here in the studio today with Amy Formella, missionary to Sierra Leone. Great to have you with us today. 

01:33
Emily Wilson
Welcome to the podcast. 

01:34
Amy Formella
Thank you. It’s great to be here. 

01:36
Emily Wilson
So anytime we have a new guest on our podcast, we want to introduce you to our listeners. So can you share a little bit about your background, where it is that you studied and what you studied? 

01:49
Amy Formella
Yeah. So I was born and raised in Nina, Wisconsin, and there are a couple important things about that town. One, we make manhole covers. So if you look down most of the United States, you will find a manhole cover. So you are welcome for that. And we also. Yeah, Kimberly-Clark originated in Nina, so Kleenex, diapers, those sorts of things. 

02:13
Emily Wilson
Nice. 

02:13
Amy Formella
Also serve this world. So that’s our claim to fame. 

02:17
Emily Wilson
And then just general Wisconsin cheese curds. 

02:20
Amy Formella
Yes, things like. So I went to Concordia University, Wisconsin, and got my degree in Lay Ministry, which is now the Director of Christian (Church) Ministries and theology and theological languages. So Greek, Hebrew, and a little bit of Latin. 

02:39
Rich Rudowske
Nice. 

02:39
Amy Formella
And then by that time, my senior year of high school, I was introduced, or reintroduced, to Lutheran Bible Translators, as in, technically I should have known it existed because my church supported a missionary for a really long time. 

02:54
Emily Wilson
But I didn’t know either. 

02:56
Amy Formella
It never really entered my brain what he did or what Lutheran Bible Translators did. So the missions professor at Concordia, Dr. Freitag, told me about Lutheran Bible Translators. So that’s when I decided that was what I was going to do, because that’s what missions and biblical languages mixed, where they mixed, and I didn’t know much about either of them, but that’s what I wanted to do. So then I talked to the recruiters and hung out with LBT people as much as. So after Concordia, then I went to graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics, which is now Dallas International University, and did my linguistics certificate before traveling around to different churches and moving to… 

03:49
Rich Rudowske
All right, so, yeah. And then backing up a little bit there before coming on board officially with Lutheran Bible Translators, you came and visited me and my family in Botswana. That was between your junior and senior year, right? So talk a little bit. We called those trips crossroads back in the day. Talk a little bit about your participation on crossroads in that experience and how that helped your decision-making process. 

04:10
Amy Formella
Yeah. So, for me, I already kind of knew that I wanted to join Lutheran Bible Translators. There’s not a lot of options for people interested in missions and biblical languages like it is, like Bible translation. Take note if. And I was interested in it, but it’s kind of hard to imagine and picture Bible translation in America because the people who are translating the Bible are Ph.Ds somewhere. Somewhere. But I don’t, so like, to imagine what Bible translation actually looks like. And when I first heard about Lutheran Bible Translators, I was like, “Oh, I’m going to be translating the Bible into different languages.” And thank God that’s not true. But then I learned it’s more of supporting people who are translating the Bible into their own language. 

05:00
Amy Formella
And so seeing what that looks like was helpful and seeing the different stages and the different environments where people translate the Bible, whether you have to take a boat to the office or you’re in a smaller village or the desert or in a bigger city, an office built for translation or one a part of a know. It was just helpful to see all of them. 

05:27
Rich Rudowske
Excellent. 

05:28
Emily Wilson
So when you were in Botswana, you were able to actually visit multiple language programs and see the different contexts and what was similar and what was different. You mentioned the one taking the boat to the office. Can you share a little bit about the language communities that you met along the way with crossroads? 

05:49
Amy Formella
Yes. 

05:50
Rich Rudowske
Or maybe some of the activities you did as well, like nine years now. 

05:55
Amy Formella
But we did visit three, Shieyei, Shekgalagari, and Khwedam, and all of them were very different because Shieyei was in a town, the translation project was in a town called Maun, and it was in a very small office in a very big church building. And the Khwedam translation was farther. Is that the one that we had to take the boat? 

06:24
Rich Rudowske
Yes. 

06:25
Amy Formella
So that one was like, we took a boat, which was really cool. We just visited the office and talked to the translators, and then I don’t remember going to the office for the Shekgalagari, but we did go to church, and then I think that’s the one. We went to a review session outside, and for someone from Wisconsin, I thought I could deal with the cold. And, ha, Southern Africa cold was no big deal. I was not prepared because it was actually cold, not as cold as Wisconsin, but I didn’t prepare myself like they told me to. So were always cold in the mornings and the so. But that was actually something that I always think back on is the review session that they did. 

07:06
Amy Formella
And I don’t know if that’s the term they use for that project, but they read the portion of scripture in Shekgalagari. That’s the name of the language. Okay. And then they asked questions of the people listening to it about what they heard. And that is something that we’re working towards in our projects in Sierra Leone. And there’s so much to go into Bible translation and making sure it is understandable, not just okay, is this good Mende, but asking the right questions to make sure that people are understanding it in the way that you think they’re going to understand it. And so that’s something we’re keeping in mind. And that one particular part in the Shekgalagari area is something that I still remember that we should do also for our projects in Sierra Leone. 

08:02
Rich Rudowske
So then, after going through the process, more training, partnership development sent to Sierra Leone. So tell us a little bit about your role in Sierra Leone, the context there. How long you been there? 

08:15
Amy Formella
I moved to Sierra Leone over six years ago. It was May 2017 when I first got there. I lived in a town called McKinney for two months with the Wagner family, who are working with the Themne translation projects. They were orienting me to Sierra Leone and making sure I could use a phone and talk about security and just be connected to different people and learn about the culture from different people and slowly start learning the language. But their language project was different than mine, and there weren’t as many Mende speakers. So that was just a taste of learning language. 

08:58
Amy Formella
And then within that time, in the middle of it, I was living in a medium sized village in an apartment where a Peace Corps worker would usually stay at a school with someone who worked with the Mende Bible translation project, and it was mostly hanging around the school. But then we took a couple of trips to some of the students’ families, villages, and so I got to have more interaction with the Mende language and culture and people and that the person still considers himself my Mende father. And I still see him at work three times a week, and he still scolds me when I don’t go and visit the village enough. And then I went back to McKinney and then finally moved to Bo, where I live, which is a second city in Sierra Leone. It’s the second largest city. 

09:54
Amy Formella
It’s about 250,000 people, and the main language is Mende. But because it’s a city, there are a lot of different languages. 

10:07
Emily Wilson
Yeah, there’s a lot to unpack with Sierra Leone. And I know that a lot of our listeners may have heard it at some point, like Sierra Leone, like, oh, Ruthie Wagner shared that she used to work in Sierra Leone, but could you dive into a little bit of what’s happening in the country? There’s a lot that has changed in the last decade. For example, we think about the Ebola crisis back in 2014, but also with COVID and technology. So what is it that has changed in the last decade for Sierra Leoneans? 

10:43
Amy Formella
So Sierra Leone for the last 20 years or 30 is where a lot of the change happened, because the civil war ended in 2020, and that lasted for about a decade. So that’s where a lot of major personal and cultural shifts happen, from what I’ve heard people talk about, because anytime you have a major conflict, people tend to go towards the cities. Families change, they get separated and reunited, education gets disrupted, and politics change, coups happen and multiple happen. And then eventually someone gets elected. And then even going back to the independence in 1961. And so all over since then, everything has been, it seems to me, from what I’ve heard people talk about and how they talk about Sierra Leone at different times, that’s when things shifted for the last 40 years. 

11:41
Amy Formella
So then it was like independence, dealing with the political shifts and coups and then political parties and then the civil war, and then Ebola, which happened in 2013 to 2015, and it was officially declared Ebola freely in 2015. So that changed. And then Covid hit, and then Russia invaded the Ukraine, which had a huge impact on the economy. And then I think the dollar strengthened compared to other currencies. So, like Covid, Russia, the dollar, all of the prices of stuff that gets imported increased like crazy. And so like a few years ago, it was ten Leones for $1, and now it’s 20 Leones for $1. So there’s been a lot of changes everywhere. Economy wise, it’s been really hard for people. Health wise. 

12:41
Amy Formella
Ebola and Covid have probably had a mix of good and bad impacts, things shutting down, but also more medical care in the country, like more focused medical care. And there are some projects that have happened because of that, but also, anytime things happen, it impacts education and politics. 

13:04
Rich Rudowske
So tell us a little bit about the partnerships there. Who are we working with and Bible translation? 

13:09
Amy Formella
Primarily, we work with the Bible Society of Sierra Leone, the Institute for Sierra Leonean languages, and we also have some work with the Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church of Sierra Leone. But a lot of people are connected to either both or all three of those organizations. But for me, I primarily work with the Bible Society of Sierra Leone because my work is in translation. 

13:35
Emily Wilson
So what’s the language diversity like in country? Do you know how many languages are spoken in Sierra Leone? 

13:40
Amy Formella
Yeah, there’s probably an exact number, but usually I just say there are about 20 languages because you have Creole, which is a language of wider communication. It’s a creole language that most people can speak, but most of the time it’s someone’s second language. And then Mende and Themne are the next largest languages, but then there’s a bunch of smaller languages, but some of them are shared with Guinea and Liberia. So some of them might have more people in Guinea and Liberia, but they’re still represented in Sierra Leone. 

14:14
Emily Wilson
So thinking about all of the challenges that have existed in the past few decades of civil war and just also the displacement that kind of happens from that Ebola, Covid, and the like, what is it that with technology? Because you actually work with two programs now you’re working with the Mende, but you’re also helping with the Temne. Has there been more connectivity in the country with technology, or do you still find yourself traveling back and forth between the two programs quite a bit? 

14:50
Amy Formella
Yeah. So it’s definitely a mix of the two. Personally, I work better wherever I am, so I can connect to people in the Themne project, but when I’m at the Mende office or in Bo, it’s hard for me sometimes to be like, okay, I’m going to work online today when I have the Mende translators right next to me who are like, I can help in person with the translation software issues or team check with them in person. So I do choose to travel occasionally because I know I’m going to better in person. Even if I can do things online. 

15:29
Amy Formella
And I don’t know Themne as well, I can’t read it as much because I started with the project the same time I started my masters, and I don’t live where Themne is spoken, so I haven’t been able to reach the same language skills for reading Themne as I do for Mende. So there are also like practical barriers to being able to interact with them. But with the Mende team, when we have to work, like during COVID we had to figure out how to work online with the consultant. And that kick started us to being able to work just as a team, online for team checking. So since that helped us learn how to interact with each other better online, and then through WhatsApp or other Internet communication programs, we’ve been able to find ways to stay connected. 

16:18
Amy Formella
And it’s been easier because we already know each other really well. We know our strengths and weaknesses as individuals and as a team. Balance it out easier with the Themne team where I’m still trying to figure out where I can help best. And I don’t know the language as well, so I can’t read through it and be like, well, it looks like you missed this. I always have to ask for a back translation, which is harder because it adds more time over when you’re ready, dealing with Internet issues and stuff like that. 

16:52
Rich Rudowske
So with the Mende program, I’ll kind of dig into them, each a little separately. So what’s the goal or the scope of that project? And tell us a little bit about the community, maybe what makes them unique. 

17:03
Amy Formella
Yeah, so the Mende Bible translation project is Old Testament and New Testament. So for the Monday we are done with drafting, team checking and community review for the Old Testament. We just have to continue working with the consultant for most of the Old Testament to be started and then for the New Testament by the end of the year or even by the end of this third quarter, they will be done drafting and then team checking, reviewing and consulting also have yet to be done, but Matthew will begin. They’ll start team checking Matthew this month. 

17:42
Emily Wilson
That’s amazing progress. I know. So Mende, did they have a previous translation, like years ago? 

17:48
Amy Formella
Yeah, they have a full Bible translation from 1959. But even the guys who can read Mende really well, there’s an organization from Ghana who wanted to do Old Testament audio recordings and they were like, well, you guys have an Old Testament already? And some of the really smart guys, they started reading and they’re like, I don’t know, guys. So we’re like, well, can we actually do the one that we’re working on and use it both as a tool for getting the Old Testament translation out there and get feedback? So we’re kind of in the process. 

18:22
Amy Formella
But it kind of confirmed for me after all of this work that this is actually really important, because if someone who has a master’s, if he would prefer a newer translation, then younger people with less education, people with less language experience and training, are going to benefit a lot more from a modern translation. So we also have a New Testament that came out in 2002, but that’s just the New Testament. And there are some things that need to be updated because they have some letters that aren’t in the Monday Alphabet, and the base text changed from the New Testament translation for 2002 and this project. So in 2002 it came from the good news translation as the base text. 

19:12
Rich Rudowske
Okay. 

19:12
Amy Formella
And this current one is from the new Revised Standard Version, which is similar to the ESV. So those are massive differences for how you translate and what needs to be translated, because now we have more verses, essentially, and more stuff in each verse. And then anytime you do an Old Testament, you have to update the New Testament. So everything is cohesive in some way. 

19:42
Rich Rudowske
Yeah. So then listeners hearing that may say, okay, so what’s the role of Greek and Hebrew language then and there? If an RSV is a base text, what does that mean? And how does the biblical language factor in those processes? 

19:59
Amy Formella
Yeah, so one of the reasons that I’m a part of the project is because I have Greek and Hebrew training, and I’m continuing to train more for now in New Testament Greek, and then maybe in the future more in Hebrew. But it’s part of the challenge with trying to get the Bible in every single language is not every single language has people who have the time and availability of resources to learn Greek and Hebrew well enough to translate the Bible from Greek and Hebrew. 

20:30
Amy Formella
Like, I’ve been studying Greek for altogether maybe like four years worth of undergraduate and graduate credits, and I would not want to translate the New Testament into English for anybody to read as their Bible, because it just takes a lot of understanding, not just of what the words mean and the grammar means, but also the culture and how the language should be understood. And so that’s what people who have all of that training to a much higher degree, PhDs and research and everything, they’ve already made these really good translations for us, but they also made it for another culture in another language. So part of what I do is help us look at the different resources, but also go back to the Greek and Hebrew when we’re struggling with the English. 

21:24
Amy Formella
Because sometimes Greek and Hebrew connects closer to Mende or Themne than going from Greek and Hebrew to English to Mende. Most of the times we don’t have a problem because people have already figured out the challenges for us. And Mende actually connects fairly well with how the English is translated. A lot of it is more dealing with idioms, cultural actions, and word order and that kind of thing. But there are times when the English has to translate something one way because Americans or people from England can’t understand the literal Hebrew translation. So those are times when we have to be careful not to translate the English way of interpreting the Greek and Hebrew if it’s different from how a Mende person would need to do it, because then you’re, I don’t know, like, interpreting American culture. Right, biblical culture. 

22:22
Amy Formella
So sometimes it stays the same. Mende and English tend to rely on the heart for a lot of things, feelings, and not so much like the inner organs, like some other languages. So some things we don’t have a problem with. But other times we do have to be careful, especially with gestures, like in what they mean. Sometimes they can be different or reactions. 

22:47
Rich Rudowske
Just a couple more things on Monday that just listening to the scope of everything that’s been translated and coming up for checking how many other folks are working on this with you. 

22:56
Amy Formella
There are four translators, three full time translators, one part time translator, linguist, and we also have another member of the team who started out as a keyboarder, and she’s also the secretary for the office in Bo. But really, she would be kind of like a translation assistant because she’s there with us every day during team checking and reviewing, and she’s continuing to learn and ask questions, and she can use the translation software, but she just has to take more classes and stuff. So there’s four full time translators, but there’s five Sierra Leoneans a part of the team, and then I’m the translation advisor, technical advisor. 

23:36
Emily Wilson
That’s awesome. So the second language community that you’re working alongside is the Themne. So similar question. What’s the goal for that particular program and the scope? What’s the team like there? 

23:51
Amy Formella
Yeah. So for now, as far as I know, what’s been decided so far is Old Testament and New Testament, but so far, only the Old Testament has been started, but the Old Testament has been fully revised, drafted. So the New Testament is, like, on the horizon. We just haven’t officially talked about when we’re going to start, but the team is mostly part time, so their ability to draft is actually quite high because they spend less time in the office and more time at home or working at other jobs. So when they have a half an hour or an hour, they can draft. So they finished doing their drafting and revising work in the Old Testament and they’re nearing the end of the team checking, I think within the next year or two. 

24:41
Amy Formella
And again, reviewing tends to quickly follow the end of team checking as long as things go well. And then the consultant checking is, we’re always like bottlenecking, but that’s a normal problem, but that’s also a problem in Sierra Leone. So I don’t know when they’ll finish the Old Testament consultant wise, but for the teamwork that we can do without the consultant and the community work, it’ll be probably within the next two years that the Old Testament will be done for what the team can do. And then I would guess the New Testament will start in the next year and it won’t take them long to draft because they’ve already drafted the whole Old Testament. They already have more training. 

25:26
Amy Formella
One of them has gotten his master’s in linguistics in the time that he’s been a part of the team and they’ve been a team together working. So the drafting will be fairly quick because Monday finished within two. 

25:41
Emily Wilson
Like, I know that there’s a lot of different cultures kind of blending. In Sierra Leone, you have people who maybe practice Islam, people who are Christians, people who are maybe a blend or a practicing traditional religion. So translating the Old Testament, what does that kind of do for all of those blending cultures? 

26:06
Amy Formella
For me, the things that I can anticipate at helping. And then I’ve heard from missionaries who do work with the audio Bible in person as their evangelistic tool. And the Old Testament is a connection for Muslims and Christians because we have the same religious, I guess, fathers, Abraham, Isaac, or at least Abraham is like a common person, Adam. And like, we’re actually having a challenge of deciding how to say Adam and Eve in the Mende translation because most people want to say bainba, adama and mamahawa, but other people are like, well, that’s the Muslim way of saying it. But the Muslims and the Christians both most times recognize those people as the first two people who were created. So it’s one of those things where the connection helps us sometimes in translation to have those words already exist. 

27:04
Amy Formella
So it’ll be nice to have the whole history of the Old Testament that way, to have that connecting point, but also the longer we just finished consultant checking the pentateuch. And you really see a lot of the things that Jesus fulfills even more than you realize when you have to suffer translating every single word and every single part of the tabernacle and every single law and trying to wade through Leviticus. And, and so there’s a lot in the Old Testament that it’s okay, well, does this mean we have to do it? No, but why don’t we have to do it? 

27:43
Amy Formella
And seeing how Jesus fulfills all of those places, and then it’s also helpful for Christians who more pay attention to the New Testament in understanding not just that Jesus exists, but why he did what he did and why he had to, and also the years, the generations and generations that led up to it. And when we’re translating, sometimes it’s like, okay, well, that’s kind of strange what’s happening, or this law or that thing. But looking at the big picture, it is kind of crazy how Jesus perfectly fits within what was expected of the sacrifice and all of the parts of the tabernacle and everything. So it’ll probably be different for each denomination in person and for the traditional religion. 

28:38
Amy Formella
There is a lot of traditional religion in the Old Testament, and seeing the challenge that people have in the Old Testament, it probably verifies people’s challenge in dealing with it in real life, but also redirecting them to the fact that Yahweh always was like, it’s me, only me, because I’m the one with the power and these guys don’t have it. 

29:03
Rich Rudowske
That’s awesome. I love that. That’s really great. You mentioned a little bit ago also that you started master’s program and that Biola University. Tell us a little bit about what you’re studying and how that fits into your work that you’re doing now and maybe what you may be doing in the future. 

29:18
Amy Formella
Yeah. So it took a while for me to land on a program because I was looking at finishing the program in Texas, at the linguistics school that we all, well, not anymore, but a lot of us go to, have gone to. But at that point, they didn’t have really many online classes. And synchronous classes aren’t always ideal because internet can be reliable, but it’s not always reliable. So I started looking around at other universities, seminaries that had master’s programs that are more focused in exegesis, which it was not an easy thing to find because a lot of those programs aren’t necessarily big enough for them to have an online program, because you have most seminaries, their main people are in MDivs, masters of divinity, and then people who work in churches but aren’t pastors. And more people focus ministry masters. 

30:22
Amy Formella
And so the people who are focusing in Greek and Hebrew, they’re not necessarily a lot of us, and because pastors already have it as a part of their degree, but they don’t necessarily have to take the extra classes. So finally, I was visiting a friend at Biola and I was like, well, she has to work and I have to do something. So I’ll just look at the majors page or the master’s page and see what they got going on. Not expecting anything because I’ve been searching for a long time for a fully online program, and they had a fully online masters of New Testament and Old Testament, so I didn’t know which one to pick. And so my boss was just like, well, other people have a bit more Old Testament, so you can be a bit more New Testament. 

31:04
Amy Formella
I’m like, okay, but I’m probably going to do both. 

31:08
Rich Rudowske
Why choose when you can have both? 

31:10
Amy Formella
But for now, I started with the New Testament because a lot of the projects now are in the Old Testament. But when you do the Old Testament, then you have to revise the New Testament, so it’s kind of impossible to choose. So my program is fully online. It is focused in New Testament. So that’s Greek exegesis, New Testament exegesis, New Testament history, and the world of the New Testament. But because it’s at a seminary, I also took theology classes and hermeneutics classes and stuff like that. So I don’t know how many credits I’ve done. I don’t know how many I have left. I haven’t looked in a while because I started with two classes a semester, and then I went down to one. 

31:51
Rich Rudowske
So one day you’ll just show up, try to register, and they’ll be like, no, you can’t register. You’re already done. 

31:56
Amy Formella
But also I want to start your Old Testament. 

31:57
Rich Rudowske
Okay. 

31:59
Amy Formella
All right, just keep going. We’ll see you in seven years. 

32:03
Emily Wilson
I mean, it really does feel like back in high school they would call them God moments of just how very clearly you had been searching for so long. And then it was just in not even expecting to find anything that the Lord was like, here it is. Here’s this program. And so when you’re going through these courses, how have you seen it impacting your career so far? And what is the hope, the trajectory moving forward. 

32:35
Amy Formella
Yeah. So because we’re so mostly in the Old Testament, once I get to Sierra Leone, we will be team checking the New Testament. So I think that’s where it’s going to start helping a lot, especially with the world of the New Testament and then the stuff that I’ve learned in the exegesis classes to do my assignments and looking into the culture and the religious practices and the political environment and all of that. But it’s helped, I don’t know, refocusing sometimes on like, okay, we have to think of all of these things while we’re translating because we are the ones who have to translate the Bible for everybody else. 

33:18
Amy Formella
So we have to understand it the best that we can, so that people who don’t have the same resources and time and education and even the people there are people who are only going to ever listen to it on the proclaimer on their phone. And so we have a big responsibility. 

33:35
Amy Formella
And so taking this class just reminded me how much I don’t know and much like we need to think about for every single verse in every single chapter, which is why doing an Old Testament masters would beneficial also because there’s so much in each testament to try and understand what’s going on, but also it gives you access and knowledge of resources and where to find resources and the process of going from reading the verse or chapter to understanding what’s going on behind the words and behind the scenes and the culture that people are interacting with and the realities they’re interacting with. 

34:15
Emily Wilson
I’ve heard your joy in the middle of all this, and I’ve also heard the challenge, but could you name some for the listeners of why is it that you are still here? There is sometimes, when I was a recruiter and talking to people about the work of Bible translation ministry and the fact that it is long and it is hard and it really requires all of you. What are some of those joys and challenges that you face? 

34:48
Amy Formella
Yeah, I don’t know. It’s just kind of like, one of the weird things about being a missionary is like, it’s just kind of your life, but it’s also like, “Hey, you’re a missionary and do these things.” So sometimes it’s hard to pick out things because it’s just life now, especially now that it’s been six years. So it’s more of a day to day, just reality kind of thing. And it’s kind of hard to explain because whenever people are like, well, how long are you going to be in Sierra Leone? I usually tell them. I don’t know. But being in the US would be great because that’s where my family is, my parents, my siblings, and their kids. But as far as right now, there’s no reason in Sierra Leone to leave Sierra Leone, and there’s no reason to leave Bible translation. 

35:36
Amy Formella
And I still feel like it’s my call and my vocation. And when I think about what I would do if I didn’t have Bible translation, my call to Bible translation is clear enough that I can’t imagine doing anything else. And I feel comfortable in that, in being in translation for as long as I can see into the future, which is, like, the next 5 seconds. And it’s just like, every day there’s something. There’s good, there’s bad. And I think the longer I’m there, the more it’s just becoming normal. And my life outside of Bible translation isn’t too crazy. There’s good things, there’s bad things, but I don’t have an extra crazy life. That adds pressure, a lot of pressure to the translation work and the master’s work, so that helps. 

36:29
Amy Formella
But every day we have conversations that I’m just like, I have no idea what you guys are talking about anymore. Like, you guys are speaking my language, but you’re speaking about things that I don’t know. And I’ve been here for six years, and I’m like, wow, I really need to learn more. Or they’re speaking Creole, and my Creo is getting better, but it could better, and I don’t understand enough of it. I’m like, okay, well, have I really lived here for last six years? But then there are other times when I switch into Creo because I was saying something in a way that was just too American. And sometimes it helps me refocus my brain to explaining things in a way that fits the Sierra Leone context better, and then people understand what I’m talking about. I’m like, okay, I’m not a complete fairy. 

37:16
Amy Formella
I can do this. And in the translation work, sometimes it’s like there’s no possible way to translate this verse in the best way possible. We just have to do our best and hope for the best, and it’s just. We don’t know. We don’t know exactly what it means or the Mende is really hard to match with the Hebrew and the English and the structure, and it’s almost like we would want to change five verses. And there are other times where one of the translators walks up to the projector screen and rearranges the whole verse in a way that just makes everything sound better, and it’s like, okay, we’re doing this well, and you can see when we’re changing the translation in a way that’s still accurate but more mundane. 

38:10
Amy Formella
I don’t know if relief is the right word, but, oh, yeah, that’s the way it needs to be. And so those times when our patience pays off is really nice. And when the reviewers come and they don’t have a lot of suggestions and we don’t have a lot of major arguments, it’s like, okay, hopefully that means we’ve been doing, and especially after we’ve been working on a book that we tried really hard on and we gave a lot of attention to, and it’s like, okay, I think we actually did a good job. It wasn’t just like went through all of that pain for nothing. And so it’s just kind of a mix of everything. 

38:49
Rich Rudowske
So how can we be praying for you and the folks listening as they think about you and your ministry? What would you like prayer for? 

38:57
Amy Formella
Definitely the master’s program is helpful because I am a procrastinator. 

39:01
Rich Rudowske
Okay. 

39:02
Amy Formella
And that impacts how I interact with my school programs. I’m the type of person where I get my schedule from the syllabus, and it says when the paper is due and I know I’m not sleeping the night before. And also just like, balancing school and the Mende project and the Themne project, sometimes I get it right, and sometimes I don’t get it right. And then for the projects themselves, a lot of things disrupt the translation process, and some of them are because we’re people and we’re not perfect, and some of them are just because life happens, and life happens more to the translators than it does to me because they’re where they grew up. So it’s not just their health, their safety in traveling to and from the office. 

39:54
Amy Formella
It’s also their family, their community, their churches, the kids that they’re taking care of for another family member, for someone else who’s in the community, or just things that I wouldn’t expect ever. And they have to deal with all of that and somehow have a normal 8:30 to 4:30 job. And I have things that impact me sometimes, but it’s like malaria sometimes, or sometimes my dog will have puppies and I’m going to leave work early because I need to go check on their puppies. And they’re like, they’re dogs. They can take care of their own puppies, or I have to travel for one project and leave another project behind or take a day or a week to focus on school. 

40:40
Amy Formella
But for them, because they live in a community-oriented community more than the US, they just have more people to be around, more people to take care of, more people to visit in the hospital or go to funerals for, and there’s just more likely chance of getting sick or getting in a traffic accident from motorbikes or vehicles or whatever. So health, traveling safety, or every day when we pray, it’s always traveling mercies and also just like perseverance and energy and wisdom for the project itself. Because there are times when we’re just doing the job and I’m like, we’re translating the Bible. Sometimes we always know we’re translating the Bible, but sometimes we forget we’re translating the Bible and it’s like, guys, we’re so tired, we need to go to work or we just need to go home. We’re like, man, this is really hard. 

41:41
Amy Formella
And it’s easy to just think of it as a job, and it is a job, but at the same time we’re translating the Word of God. So just like perspective, wisdom and perseverance to make sure that we continue to do this and learn from the scriptures that we’re reading and letting it impact us, but also doing the best that we can for the Mende people and the Themne peoples. So when they read the Bible, they’re like, okay, this is Themne and I understand it and I understand what God is telling me. 

42:13
Emily Wilson
Well, we want to thank you for being on the podcast, and we will definitely be lifting you up in prayer with the Mende and the Themne translation teams and their community. And so thank you for joining the podcast. 

42:25
Amy Formella
Thank you too. 

42:31
Rich Rudowske
One thing I appreciated is, as were talking with Amy, she was a little nervous, of course, before we got started, but she clearly just loves every aspect of her work and life there and just the smile on her face the whole time she was talking. And I think in a way that is actually healthy and balanced. She is all in on Bible translation and it’s her life and she loves it and can’t imagine it any other way. 

42:59
Emily Wilson
Yeah, it was really inspiring to be able to hear about how this is impacting the community and the choices that they are making and those aha. Moments of rearranging sentence structure and the like, so that it is a more beautiful and clear translation and still accurate. And her desire to sharpen her skills as a translation advisor and just leaning into her vocation, that this is most certainly a calling from the Lord and that he will provide and he will make known the next steps in her career. So want to encourage you all, if you are feeling called, to support the ministry of Bible translation. The Themne and the Mende programs are all part of the More Than Words comprehensive campaign for scripture impact. 

43:55
Emily Wilson
We have a goal by the end of 2024 of $43.9 million for programs like the Mende and the Themne for literacy, for translation, for capacity. And you see that with the Mende and Themne, as literacy classes are happening, as people are raising them up in the community ministry entrepreneurs to be able to not only translate for their own language communities, but also for others, right? 

44:25
Rich Rudowske
So that they can have God’s Word in this generation and continue to unfold that impact both in the Mende and Themne communities and then into other places in Sierra Leone, too. So check out the More Than Words campaign for scripture impact at lbt.org.

Thank you for listening to the Essentially translatable podcast brought to you by Lutheran Bible translators. You can find past episodes of the podcast at lbt.org/podcast or subscribe on audible, Apple podcasts, Spotify or 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’sword in their hands.

The Essentially Translatable podcast is produced and edited by Andrew Olson. Our executive producer is Emily Wilson. Podcast artwork was designed by Caleb Rodewald and Sarah Rodowske. 
Music written and performed by Rob Veith. I’m Rich Rudowske. So long for now.