Transforming Translators

Translators from all over the world report that FIA increases their understanding of the Bible. When we asked 13 translation team leaders in Nepal why they use FIA, they told us that FIA allows their translators to truly understand Bible passages before translating them. One team leader explained, "[FIA] is very much helpful to make the passage clear." In Kenya, 13 oral Bible translation projects — and the consultants who check them — told us that FIA results in stronger first drafts of their translations. And translators from Papua New Guinea, the first teams to use FIA, told us that FIA increases their understanding of Scripture. Some Papua New Guinean pastors even use FIA in their personal devotions to deepen their own understanding of Scripture. Other pastors in Papua New Guinea incorporate FIA into their sermons, and use it to help their congregations "get into understanding the Word."

But FIA doesn't just increase translators' knowledge. Spending so much time deeply studying God's Word through FIA has begun to change translators' lives. One team leader in Papua New Guinea put it this way: "FIA is about getting into the Word and the Word getting into you."

We first heard a translator describe FIA as "transformative" on our very first visit to one of the first translation teams to use FIA, a translation team from a community spread across a remote region of a Papua New Guinean island. In 2023 the team invited FIA to one of their villages, high on a mountain in the Papuan jungle. Every weekend, team members hike into this central village to translate the Bible and ask their church for feedback on their translation drafts.

One member of the team, a young woman, lives far away from the central village. She sacrifices her free time to volunteer as a translator, and spends hours every week walking to and from the village. She met with us by the village river when we visited, and told us that working as a translator had changed her life. She said that engaging and deeply understanding Scripture on a weekly basis had "transformed" her and given her a new dream. She now wants to work as an evangelist and share the ways Scripture has changed her life with others.

A year later, and a new iteration of FIA later, another young woman echoed the words of her counterpart half a world away. She works with a Kenyan organization that uses FIA in 13 translation projects among both Christian and non-Christian communities. We sat with her under a mango tree when we visited her team to ask for their feedback on some new FIA materials. We asked this young woman why she wanted to work as a translator, and she answered that understanding Scripture had "transformed" her spiritual life and given her a passion to translate it. Though a mother with a young child at home, she works full time with the translation team to bring God's Word to her community in a language they can easily understand.