Love Is More Than Grammar

Dr. Tim Hatcher and Lynley Hatcher have served with Wycliffe Bible translators for 25 years. Hatcher shares the profound impact of translating the Bible into a language that people can understand. He discusses the importance of language in understanding God's love, the challenges of working with different languages, and the role of artificial intelligence in the translation process. Hatcher also talks about the ongoing need for Bible translators, with 1,216 languages still without a single verse of the Bible.

Transcript

Love Is More Than Grammar
Guest: Dr. Tim Hatcher
Season 3, Episode 20

Ric Shields (00:00):

<Silence> Welcome to the DoorWays® Ministry Network podcast. Thank you for joining us on this episode. I'm Ric Shields, and I serve as your host and as the director of the DoorWays® Ministry Network. I'm speaking today with my friend Tim Hatcher. For the past 25 years, Tim and his wife Lynley have served with Wycliffe Bible Translators. Hey, Tim, thanks for joining us. Tell me, how does a guy from a small town in Oklahoma end up working in Bible translation?

Tim Hatcher (00:34):

<Laugh>. Well, thanks, Ric. Good to be with you. Great to be on your podcast. And yeah, I am from a small town in Oklahoma. I'm from Nowata. And yes, we have water there. We always get that question. 

Ric Shields (00:47):

Hard to believe. Nowata. I do that all the time. 

Tim Hatcher (00:49):

You’ve never heard that joke before. Right?

Ric Shields (00:50):

Right. Never, never.

Tim Hatcher (00:53):

But yeah, you know, there was a there was a Wycliffe training event in Tulsa back in the late nineties, and they were doing the they actually had a play version of the Jim Elliot story told from the perspective of the Waodani Indians that he was trying to reach. And then later his wife and Rachel Saint, who was a translator did reach.

(01:18):

But during that, during that play, during the intermission, I went out and there was a map of the world, and it had every language in the world represented on it. It had green lights for every language in the world that had the Bible in their language and red lights for every group in the world that didn't have the Bible in their language. And a recruiter lady asked me, she saw me staring at the map and she said, “Tell me what you're thinking.” And I said, “I'm thinking, why have I never thought about this before?” And that was kind of the start. That's how a got a guy from a small Oklahoma town get started in Bible translation.

Ric Shields (02:03):

Were you in high school at the time? College?

Tim Hatcher (02:06):

No, I'd graduated from ORU and teaching. I had done an English education degree so I can do TESOL overseas, and I was paying down some school debts, working. So, I just went to this event in Tulsa, and yeah, it was life changing.

Ric Shields (02:23):

Hey, working with other languages is pretty complicated. How does that work? Why is it important to work with other languages?

Tim Hatcher (02:30):

Well, you know, God speaks in so clearly in the language of our hearts and in the language we can understand. You know, Dongwa Pierre is a guy from the Hdi language in Cameroon, and Dongwa Pierre was actually part of the translation team there that was led by our Wycliffe lead guy there, Lee Bramlett.

(02:53):

And so, one day Lee came to Dongwa Pierre and said, “You know, I want us to go back and look at the word for love again.” And Dongwa was like, “Well, we've already covered that, and we've got thousands of words to cover. I mean, there are thousands of words in the Bible, so it's like, <laugh>, we've got a lot of words to work through.” (Lee Bramlett said) “It's like, yeah, I just, you know, I want to do it.” (Dongwa Pierre) “It's like, okay.”

So, in the Hadi language, you have a different grammar structure. I'm going to take you to grammar school. If you liked grammar in high school, you'll…

Ric Shields (03:25):

I did not.

Tim Hatcher (03:26):

You'll enjoy this anyway. <laugh>

Ric Shields (03:28):

Okay. I'm a little older now, so maybe that helps you, right?

Tim Hatcher (03:32):

Yeah, it does. So, for verbs, they have one of three endings, “i” and “a” or “u.” And it changes the meaning of the word, depending on what vowel you have at the end. Dongwa was sat down with Lee, and they started going through the word for love, and he's like, “Okay, so let's look at the word for love. Let's start with “dvi” a word for love. Let's do this in context. Could you “dvi”, could you “dvi” your wife?” And Dongwa was like, “Yes, yes, of course you could “dvi” your wife. That means you used to love her and you don't love her anymore.”

 Kind of like a country song, right?

Ric Shields (04:11):

<Laugh> Kind of. Yeah,

Tim Hatcher (04:12):

That's right. <Laugh>. He is like,

Ric Shields (04:13):

Okay, but there's no dog, you know, they haven't lost a dog or anything.

Tim Hatcher (04:16):

They haven't lost their dog or, or their truck <laugh>.

Ric Shields (04:18):

That's right.

Tim Hatcher (04:20):

And so, Lee's taking notes and he asked him, “Okay, well, how about “dva?” Could you “dva” your wife? And Dongwa Pierre and the other men they were like, “Yes, yes, of course that means you, you take care of your wife and she takes care of you and you love each other, and it's a good relationship. And yeah, it, it works.”

And he (Lee Bramlett) is like, “Okay, great.” And he's taking notes.

(04:42):

He is like, “Could you “dvu” your wife? And Dongwa LaPierre and all the other men, they just busted out laughing. And they're like, “No, no, no, no, no, you couldn't, no, you couldn't “dvu” your wife. And he (Lee Bramlett) is like, “Well, what would that mean??

(04:56):

And he (Dongwa Pierre) said, “Now, first of all, we've never used that word. We've never used that word. It's grammatically correct, but no one has ever said that word.”

(05:06):

And he (Lee Bramlett) is like, “Okay, so nobody ever says it, but could you “dvu” your wife?” And they're (Hdi group) like, “No, no, no.” He's (Lee Bramlett) like, “What would that mean?” He (Dongwa Pierre) said, “That means you would love your wife even if she didn't bring you water, or if she didn't cook for you, or if she stopped talking to you, if she left you and married another man, that you would continue to love your wife. No.”

Ric Shields (05:30):

Well, that sounds kind of like an Old Testament minor prophet there, doesn't it?

Tim Hatcher (05:35):

It does sound similar, doesn't it? So, he is like, you know, “No, you can't, you couldn't “dvu” your wife.”

(05:41):

So, Lee sat there for a little while, and then he then he said, “Could God “dvu” people?”

And the room fell silent for four full minutes, no one could say word. After four minutes, tears started coming out the eyes of Dongwa Pierre, and he said, “That would mean that century after century, millennia after millennia, that God had loved us, even though we are the most sinful people on earth, that God has loved us.”

(06:22):

And Lee Bramlett leaned in and he said, “God “dvus” the Hdi people.”

And that word blew open that entire language group. They, everybody heard God dvus us, and it actually led to a full revival among the Hdi people. It was absolutely transformative.

Ric Shields (06:45):

That's pretty important to be able to understand those things. And it really is. And, and it's complicated, no doubt.

Tim, I, I'm looking back at some of the correspondence we've had over the years, probably this took place before I knew you, you and Lynley actually began your career in Eastern Europe, is that correct?

Tim Hatcher (07:05):

Yeah. So pre Wycliffe, we served with a Christian school in Sophia Bulgaria for a year. And then in ‘99 we joined Wycliffe and moved to St. Petersburg, Russia.

Ric Shields (07:17):

It's a beautiful city.

Tim Hatcher (07:18):

Yes, yes, it is. And people ask, “What is Russia like?” It's cold. That's what it's like, <laugh>. They don't close schools for snow in Russia. Can I say that?

Ric Shields (07:28):

That's right. That's right. <Laugh>. It's, it's beautiful, but it’s cold. Yeah, it is cold. You have to take in the beauty to warm your heart, otherwise, yeah, it's, it's tough. <Laugh>,

Tim Hatcher (07:40):

We lived in St. Petersburg for two years and worked with the Russian and Central Asia branch for total of 10 years. People say Russia, you know, I thought they spoke Russian there. Yes, Russians speak Russian. But there are 150 different languages in the borders of the old Soviet Union. So, we worked with those minority languages groups like Uzbek and Azerbaijani, and Nenet, and important language groups. If you speak those languages, you

Ric Shields (08:09):

Know, and you bet I've been to the Udmurt Republic and Yeah, that's a great, that's a fun place to go, but I'm, yeah, <laugh>, it's colder too. It's a great place…

Tim Hatcher (08:18):

To visit when <laugh>,

Ric Shields (08:19):

It's, it's a great place to visit. You're absolutely right. That and, and out in Siberia in Irkutsk. Oh, my word. That place gets cold. 

Yeah. So, what's your current role with Wycliffe?

Tim Hatcher (08:32):

Yeah, so we are in a multiplication role. We train new Bible translators, and we've trained hundreds of new Bible translators. Right now, I'm training some young people that are going, one's going to India, another Vanuatu, another to Cameroon, a few are working with displaced Bible translation project. And so, training new Bible translators is a big part of what we do.

(08:57):

We also do acceptability checks on Bible translations. Every single Bible translation that Wycliffe does, we check them to make sure they're clear, accurate, natural, and acceptable. So, we do acceptability checks on Bible translations. Lynley was just in Ethiopia a couple of months ago. I'm heading to Malaysia in a couple months, and that's during an itineration year. So, you know, that's a…

Ric Shields (09:23):

<Laugh>. Oh, wow. You say that this is the business period of Bible translation in the history. What do you mean by that?

Tim Hatcher (09:29):

Oh, yeah. You know, you look at the history of the church, there've been a few small, small explosions of Bible translation, small ones. Right at the beginning, there were a lot of languages; Latin, Persian, Armenian, Coptic, you know, all these languages early on. And it kind of felt silent for centuries, for a millennia. Then you have, then you have the reformation, and you have English and German and Dutch and French, and all these languages. Then it, it falls off again, just a, a few languages there in Europe.

(09:58):

In just the past few decades, we have seen the greatest increase in Bible translation. More languages have just received the Word of God in their language, or about to receive the word of God, than at any point in history. At Wycliffe, we've just completed a thousand translations. We are currently working in 3000 languages that are in process right now. This is the busiest moment in Bible translation in the history of the world. We are on pace to seeing in your lifetime, in my lifetime, we'll see the last group on earth that's waiting for the Word of God receive it in their language in our lifetime.

(10:41):

So, you know, big picture, you're zooming out a little bit, what is God up to? That he's waited to this moment in history to make sure that every language on the planet has the Word of God in it. He's up to something, you know.

Ric Shields (10:53):

One would think yes, <laugh>. Well, and I want to point out, learning a little bit about Ai, that's pretty helpful in this translation process as well.

Tim Hatcher (11:03):

Yeah. We've actually developed a whole series of Ai tools to assist in the translation process. We don't yet have robots that can go out and sit down with the tribe, make friends with them, learn their language, and translate the, you know, Hebrew and Greek into their language. You know, we don't have robots that can do that yet, but…

Ric Shields (11:24):

Well, the good thing is they wouldn't have to go and eat the meal that is served to them, you know, <laugh>.

Tim Hatcher (11:29):

Their gastrointestinal problems are not,

Ric Shields (11:31):

Not <crosstalk> <laugh>, yeah, that would be really helpful.

(11:35):

You're listening to the DoorWays® Ministry Network podcast. My name is Ric Shields. I'm joined on this episode of my friend Dr. Tim Hatcher. Tim and his wife Lynley, serve with Wycliffe Bible translators. 

Tim, I know that in May of 2018, you received your PhD in intercultural studies, which is a, it's a huge accomplishment. I should probably be referring to you as Dr. Hatcher, but old habits die hard. Looking back over the past 25 years, in addition to your education, what have you accomplished in 25 years?

Tim Hatcher (12:07):

Yeah, that's a, that's a great question. And in addition to growing a lot, because I mean, missions work will help you to grow, I can assure you. It will in the sense that it will challenge all of your, all of your weaknesses. It will help you surface those and take them to the Lord, you know? Yeah.

(12:28):

So, you know, I was talking earlier about multiplication in this part of our ministry. And in the early days we worked with the Tartar translation and Lezgi and Azerbaijani and Tajik and worked with those in Russia. But since that time, we have trained dozens, hundreds of new Bible translators that are going to the field. And we realize, you know, there are, there are still languages waiting, I told you about, it's being the busiest period in Bible translation history. There are still 1,216 languages that still don't have one verse of the Bible.

(13:08):

And that's, that's a lot, you know how are we going to get to those remaining 1,216 languages It’s going to, we're going to need a whole lot more Bible translators. So, we're multiplying ourselves by training people in the Wycliffe training school in Dallas and in Lima, Peru, and Thailand and elsewhere. Training new Bible translators to, to do this work, and also those acceptability checks I was talking about. We've worked on 300 different Bible translations. We don't know <laugh>, we don't know 300 languages. We know three, but we we've worked in 300 different Bible translation programs doing the checking process with them. And it’s just amazing to be able to work with so many different beautiful groups. I mean, people that need the Bible and their language.

Ric Shields (14:03):

You know, we have so many translations of the English Bible. There's the King James Version, there's the New International Version, the English Standard Version, the New Living Translation, and dozens more. Does Wycliffe develop additional Bible translations for language groups who've already have a Bible in their own language?

Tim Hatcher (14:23):

You know, there are, there are dozens, there are hundreds actually about between four and 500 translations into English.

Ric Shields (14:30):

I was afraid if I gave a number, I'd be wrong. 

Tim Hatcher (14:34):

It's, yeah, there's a lot. The thing of us duplicating Bible translations in a language that already has it, that's extremely, extremely rare. One hundred-fifty languages in former Soviet Union, we had one occasion of that. What we do is we look for those language groups that don't have any translation. How serious are we about that? We, we started a new website just a couple years ago called Progress.Bible, and if you go out to it, you're like, “Oh, this has a lot of really great statistics about Bible translation.” And it does, it's a great clearinghouse for those kinds of stats.

(15:14):

But the real point of that division in Wycliffe called Progress.Bible, is they are constantly interfacing with other Bible translation agencies all over the world, making sure that we don't duplicate work. So that if Pioneer Bible Translators or United Bible Societies or, you know, anyone else is starting a Bible translation somewhere, we say, “Praise God, you guys go for it and we'll go someplace where there's not one.” Because the job is to get the task completed, to get the word of God, the understandable word of God to people who need it.

Ric Shields (15:49):

So, what's it like; people receive the word of God in their language for the first time? What, what happens?

Tim Hatcher (15:55):

Ooh, I wish I could get everybody on a plane and take them to a Bible dedication ceremony where people shut down everything in their village or their city and do nothing but celebrate the word of God coming to them in their language.

(16:13):

The first time, the Ambonese Malay Bible translation, it was just dedicated in Indonesia, and we trained the translation team there. John and Stephanie Richards were a couple of our students, good friends to this day. That dedication service was so beautiful. They had parades going through the town, you know, and children playing flutes and the church service there singing new songs that they’d composed just for the occasion. They're dancing, they're banquets. Everybody's there. The mayor's there. The mayor's there saying, “Yes, this is a good thing.”

The church that was sponsoring it said, “Let's, let's give a copy of this Bible to everybody who came to this.” And so, there were these I have this wonderful photo of these teenage girls who were holding the Bibles, and they were just like, just hugging them and, you know, tears in their eyes, seeing the Word of God in the Ambonese Malay language, in their language. And it's transformational.

(17:20):

I, I wish everybody, I wish every Christian in America could go and see a New Testament or full Bible dedication. That’s just an amazing experience.

Ric Shields (17:30):

You recently started a podcast called “The Five Minute Scripture Engagement Podcast.” I listened to it and I thought you did a great job. Tell us about your target audience for your podcast. What do you hope to accomplish through it?

Tim Hatcher (17:42):

Yeah, the “Five Minute Scripture Engagement Podcast,” is aimed at primarily leaders, but you know, anybody can benefit from this.

(17:49):

We have a biblical illiteracy crisis in America. There was a sketch on Jay Leno years ago where they would go out in the street and ask people questions like, you know, “What is one of the 10 commandments?” And people couldn't, you know, we come up with bizarre answers and stuff. The sketch was really funny. They had a lot of, you know, funny responses to that. They actually had to discontinue the sketch because people couldn't, the audience couldn't figure out why they were funny. The biblical illiteracy was so low that they're like, “Well, yeah, you know, Noah was married to Joan of Arc,” that kind of stuff. <Laugh>

Ric Shields (18:27):

Yeah, of course.

Tim Hatcher (18:28):

They, they discontinued that. That was, that was in the ‘90’s! Okay. It’s gotten worse. Statistically, if you listen to the podcast, you'll hear that. And so, the point of the podcast is really to address this. Working in Bible translation globally, we know why. There are people in the United States who have Bibles sitting on their shelves, apps on their phones, Bibles, they never pick up off the shelf. Apps they never opened. We know why that is, and we know solutions to it. Sometimes solutions are, I mean, sometimes the problems are spiritual, but sometimes they're just life issues, different things that are easily solvable.

(19:09):

And this is our wheelhouse. I mean, we look at this all over the world and recognize there are challenges and solutions. So, it's a fantastic thing. We're trying to promote engagement with the word of God. because That's a life-changing process.

Ric Shields (19:24):

Dr. Hatcher, I'd like you to lead us in prayer. Pray for those who are about to receive a translation of the Bible in, in their own language and for those who are still waiting to receive a translation. And also pray for those who may feel as if God is calling them to consider becoming Bible translators.

Tim Hatcher (19:45):

I will, thanks, Ric.

(19:46):

Lord, I just thank you for all of the translations that are going on right now. The ones that are near completion. Lord, you know very well the amount of spiritual warfare that happens when Bibles are nearing publication. Computers break down, people get sick. Problems with visas show up. There are so many things that happen trying to disrupt these things. Lord, I just pray that you would protect the translations that are in process right now, the dozen or so that are about to have dedications just in the next couple of months. Pray that you'd protect those translators, protect those people.

(20:27):

Draw people to your Word, dear God., Lord, I just pray for the ones that don't have translation going, Lord, these are some of the most unreached people groups on the planet. They haven't started there for a reason, because they're, they're so difficult to reach. Lord, I just pray for these people that have never heard your name, that are, don't know their right hand from their left. I pray God, that you would raise up more people to be involved in Bible translation so these people can be reached so they can understand that you have never stopped thinking about them, that you think about them every single day, and that you have sent somebody to them so they can have the word of God, that you can speak to them in their language.

(21:16):

Lord, I just thank you for Ric and for DoorWays® and for their ministry. I just pray for your blessings on them. Thank you so much for everything they're doing for the kingdom, and we just praise you.

(21:30):

Thank you for letting us be a part of what you're doing in the world. In Jesus' name. Amen.

Ric Shields (21:39):

I'm glad you joined us today. Thanks so much for investing your time with us. If you found it to be helpful, please pass the link along to a friend.

(21:48):

You know, I'm always happy to hear from you, too. Drop me a note at info@doorways.cc and let me know if we're providing content that's beneficial to you.

(21:59):

My prayer for you is the same as the Apostle Paul offered for the church in Ephesus. We find it in the book of Ephesians, chapter three verses 20 and 21. "Now, to him, who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen."