How It All Began 
 

I first heard of Wycliffe Bible Translators during a skit at a Vacation Bible School the summer before I turned 9.  I can't remember the skit at all, but it triggered something in me, and I told my parents when I went home that I was going to be a Bible translator when I grew up.

When I got older, I wasn't so sure about this Bible translator thing.  It wasn't like I knew any Bible translators.  Was this really God's plan for my life?  How would I know?

As a high-schooler, I had the opportunity to take both French and Spanish.  I discovered that languages were pretty fun to learn and that I seemed to have an easier time picking them up and figuring them out than some of my peers.

When it came time to choose a college, I decided that I wanted to go to a Christian college (after years of public school, I thought it might be a nice change!) and more specifically, one that offered a linguistics major.  I knew after reading some Wycliffe literature that Bible translators had to take linguistic classes, so I decided that just in case God really was calling me into translation, that I should go to a school that could give me training in both Bible and linguistics.

At Seattle Pacific University, I took my first linguistic course in the winter quarter of my freshman year....and I loved it!  I became a linguistics major with a Biblical studies minor.  As graduation approached, I started thinking about what I should do next.  Was God really calling me into Bible translation?  How would I know?

In the middle of my junior year of college, I had the opportunity to visit Urbana.  Once there, I went by the Wycliffe booth and picked up a bunch of literature.  One brochure talked about a short-term missions opportunity called the Discovery Program, which gave college-age young people a chance to "discover" if Bible translation (and Wycliffe) was where God wanted them.  Perfect! 

So in the summer of 1993, I visited Papua New Guinea with the Discovery Program.  I participated in an orientation course to the people, their culture and their languages, and I then spent 5 weeks living with and helping a single woman translator.  I quickly discovered that things that I had thought would be challenging were not so hard after all, while other issues which had never dawned on me were really difficult!  However, I ended the summer feeling like yes, Bible translation was do-able, and that God really was calling me into Wycliffe.

And so the adventure began.  For more, see A Summer Well Spent.

 
My teammate Malia, our host Keiko, and me in Papua New Guinea