According to His Good Pleasure

“What is prayer?” “What is faith all about?” These are some of the questions the facilitators received as the translators worked through Luke 8:22-25 in a translation workshop I (Harold) helped with in the Solomon Islands.

Before I arrived at the workshop, I, perhaps naively, expected practical questions related to translation. Should we use this or that word? How do we communicate this or that theme? After all, the translators were professing Christians who were part of local church congregations. I didn’t expect fundamental questions about faith and prayer. However, one effect of not having a translation in one’s own language is that some of the basic concepts of Christianity are misunderstood.

One of the participants later stated, “In this story I started to know Jesus more fully.” This is the effect that we believe Bible translation can have on people.

“The disciples went and woke him, saying, ‘Master, Master, we’re going to drown!’

He got up and rebuked the wind and the raging waters; the storm subsided, and all was calm. ‘Where is your faith?’ he asked his disciples.

In fear and amazement they asked one another, ‘Who is this? He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him.’” Luke 8:24–25

In mid October, I, along with Rev. Nibo Taudili (UCPIR Translation Desk Coordinator) and a small team from other Bible translation organizations, helped to facilitate workshops in the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. These workshops were intended to help local church leaders consider how they might implement the Church Based Bible Translation (CBBT) model in their contexts. We went on from there to attend the South Pacific Bible Forum in Fiji, where different translation leaders and practitioners discussed challenges and opportunities for Bible translation in the region.

As I separated ways from Rev. Nibo in Fiji, I told him, “We are always excited when we hear news of what God is doing through the church in Bible translation. I now feel I understand what Paul meant in his letter to the Thessalonians when he said, ‘after we were separated from you for a little while (though our hearts never left you), we tried very hard to come back because of our intense longing to see you again. We wanted very much to come to you, and I, Paul, tried again and again, but Satan prevented us.’ (1 Thess. 2:17-18)” The more I have gotten to know the people of Alotau, the more my heart longs to be with them.

From Fiji, I flew on to a difficult-to-access country in South Asia to meet with my Convergence cohort. Part of our training as consultants involves doing consultant checks under the guidance of a senior translation consultant. For this session, we worked with a cluster of translations checking their final drafts of the pastoral epistles.

Thank you for your prayers and partnership.

Because many are still waiting, Harold, Justine, A’zalea, & Andrew

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“[I]t is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” Philippians 2:13

Update: In 2026, we transitioned from Wycliffe USA to Ripe for Harvest as our sending organization (see here). Because of this transition, we have updated the giving information in this newsletter, including references to our sending organization and our contact information. All other content remains as originally published.