The Task of Putting Together a Team for Quality Oral Bible Translation - BiLTA Experience

Putting together a translation team for quality Bible translation work, given our inexperience and without any basic resources can cause such a vibrant and award-winning journey to get dumped and buried. Bible and Literature translation Association, passed through such a dilemma but by the grace of God we emerged victorious.

This paper is aimed at sharing the experience that caused great success in forming a team for quality translation with the view of encouraging others who might be going through similar experiences thereby reducing unnecessary mistakes in setting up translation projects.

For purposes of this paper, I have set nine (9) aspects which BiLTA is using in setting teams for OBT and they have worked out very well in the Zambian context which might also be true for many African communities sharing similar community setups.

In our community, it is always important to have community awareness before undertaking any project. I have looked at the issues of community awareness with specific targeted organs being the church, traditional leaders and local government leadership. Thereafter, we embark on the actual recruitment, training and translation works.

Continuous monitoring and evaluation is an important aspect of quality team management leading to quality translation work.

Every dark cloud has a silver lining. Our failures in starting translation works helped us to build up our faith to depend on God’s timing.

The result was a reinforced and diligent team which produced quality oral Bible translation, leading to community acceptance of the translation and life transformation of the people.