Stories from the Field: His Word for My Neighbor - Oral Scripture Translations in Dialect

Speaker: Evelyn

If you are a ‘banana’ that only speaks English, can you do translation in other languages? How might people respond to oral Scripture translations? How might God prepare a person to handle all this? Evelyn is a self-professed ‘banana’, but has worked with 42 languages in 20 years. Join us as she shares her stories about three Min Nan* oral translation projects!

Evelyn shares her journey towards missions and her experiences working with translation teams in places that are geographically near and also those that are culturally near. Doing missions is no longer going to far away places; working cross-culturally can be within your own city, just across a bridge or an hour's flight away. Growing up in multi ethnic and multilingual places means an early start to missions training.

*Min Nan is a larger language family that includes Hokkien.

About the speaker:

Evelyn who was born and bred in Malacca, had never really left her hometown until she went to university. She had never gone on a mission trip before joining Wycliffe Malaysia in 2003 together with her husband, Timothy, and two daughters. She heard her calling to Scripture translation during her uni days but only answered the call 13 years later. 

Evelyn currently serves as a Scripture translation consultant and supports translation partnerships. She enjoys helping translation teams through training, checking, and developing resources. Grateful for the opportunity to serve, she strives to walk alongside others in their journey while balancing ministry, family, and accountability to those who support her.