Right Through to the Heart

It’s the Word that cuts 
right through to the quick 
to the heart of the matter 
through tough scar tissue 
and cataract blindness 

so that

suddenly the light shines in
healing abscessed recesses
waking somnolent brain cells
pouring nourishment into the soul

and then

exclamations of awe
recognition of truth
delight in the intricate plan
with its certainty of rescue

when heard

for the very first time
in your own heart language
the one your mother spoke
and suddenly you see

Did you know that today, September 30, is officially International Translation Day? In 2017 the United Nations honored language professionals for their devotion to helping connect nations and to pave the way to better mutual understanding and development.  It is also recognized by many as World Bible Translation Day ever since the founder of Wycliffe, William Cameron Townsend, and his friend Oklahoma Senator Fred Harris proposed that the House and Senate pass a resolution asking the president to designate September 30 as Bible Translation Day. It never officially passed, but many of those involved in this key facet of translation have been honoring it annually.

September 30^th was chosen because it is the “feast of St.Jerome,” the priest who tranlsated most of the Bible into Latin, based on the Greek and Hebrew manuscripts—back in the 400s![1]

Most of you know that the Lord led me into this work of translating his Word into the Nyarafolo language, a ministry I had not expected. I was unaware of the way he was preparing me for this challenge as I grew up, but looking back I see his fingerprints!

One of the earliest preps was my early childhood in Congo, where Kingwana (the “up-country” dialect of Swahili) became not only my second language but my daily language. And my first Bible was a Swahili Bible!

Then my family was evacuated from serious turmoil and we went to Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast). There the multiple languages spoken in our town of Ferkessédougou, and a surprising lack of local friends (they were afraid of Whites after the colonial experience) made language learning rough. I turned to French. But I was intrigued by the different greetings we needed to learn when meeting different people. And when I was in 8^th grade, I began accompanying my parents every other Sunday evening to a Nyarafolo village as they helped disciple the first believers in that ethnic group—but they were always using a translator.

Today, September 30, was my mother’s birthday. She has moved to joy in heaven, but this date triggers many memories. And one of them is the way her love for the Bible impacted my own heart. In 7^th grade I had made a mature decision to follow Jesus with “no turning back!” Mom was delving into a New Testament translation by J.B. Phillips, and passed one on to me. It was exciting to understand the text and feel it speak to me! I went to boarding school for 8^th grade, and my dormparents, Don and Glenna Bigelow, were also sharing that translation with us in devotions. Its English was so clear, so refreshing to my ears!

I realized in college that I was a “word nerd” and majored in journalism, with a cognate in linguistics. My husband and I felt a mutual calling to serve the Lord somewhere overseas, and were appointed by the mission now called WorldVenture in 1977. When they told us that they wanted to send us to Ferkessédougou, where I had spent so many years growing up, I was startled! I would be a “foreign” missionary going back home! The destination was chosen because my husband, a medical technologist, was really needed there to develop a lab for the hospital my parents had helped set up! But the Nyarafolo had been put on my heart, and we chose that language to learn for ministry there.

They were the subsistence farmers living all around the town. The language had never been analyzed linguistically and put in written form. Our Lord led us to relationships in a village where two men were already looking for Jesus, and we began discipling like my parents had: through a translator. I kept studying the language while Glenn was becoming more involved at the hospital, so as I understood more and more what the young man was saying as he tried to translate into Nyarafolo when Glenn preached in French, I realized he had no idea how to communicate key terms in that language about truths they had never heard before, and about places far away that were unknown.

So in addition to plowing through the fascinating linguistic study of the language with help from SIL (Wycliffe) partners Dave and Karen DeGraaf, I eventually plunged into this work we celebrate today: Bible translation!  Dave had been instrumental in getting Mark translated, working with young Abdoulaye Ouattara before we then sent him off for training. Convinced that at least the Pentateuch was needed to give the essential background for understanding the Good News of salvation through Jesus, I began translating that with Moise Kone and eventually added the Psalms. We helped Abdoulaye finish the New Testament, and in 2021 we were able to give the Nyarafolo all those sections in print: New Testament, Genesis-Deuteronomy and Psalms.

Working in association with SIL, we were required to test all our drafts in the Nyarafolo community, and then a trained consultant would check our work. That is when “Right Through to the Heart,” the poem above, poured out onto paper. When they heard Luke in their langauge for the first time, the Nyarafolos at the table were astounded, blown away by the messages!  And that reaction is constantly ongoing as Moise and I work now on the major prophets. He takes the drafts out to read to people, many of them still locked in traditional worship of other gods—even sacrificing on the “high places” like the people the Lord castigates in his Word. There are many who respond in fear: how does God know about their practices? Believers are astonished that these things are in the Bible, now so very meaningful to them. The Most High God knows all about their practices, yet he is reaching out in love and rescue!

What a blessing that we English-speakers have so much access to the Word! We need to be acknowledging that, digesting the bounty constantly. In addition, we need to support all the active attempts to take the Word to every nation! Pray for the Word to be meaningfully translated and made available to every people group!

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[1] https://www.wycliffe.org/blog/posts/celebrate-bible-translation-day