A man raised his hand, “We really appreciate these demonstrations in English, but what about doing it in our language?”
I replied, “That’s a great idea. You and who?”
*Everyone laughs*
A few moments later he and another man were in front of the room doing a demonstration of one of the translation testing methods I’d taught them that week, entirely in his mother tongue. After they completed and we discussed it, another pair got up to demo.
This time the woman leading didn’t just do a single method, she integrated several, including a practice I did not teach – coming up with content questions on the fly! (I had recommended the translation team either use and translate questions from existing translation resources or develop their own to give to the community testers.) I whispered to the coordinator – keep your eye on these two, they might be future trainers.
So went the last part (before all the speeches) of the last day of the workshop. I couldn’t have been happier. I had hoped and prayed that teaching, demonstrating, and having the participants practice the testing methods would give them confidence, and it seemed like they were ready to run.
Pray that the translated Word of God would run throughout this community and transform people as they understand God’s message to them better than they ever have before.