Lost—and found—in translation

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NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, January 14th.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Pulpit partners.

If you’ve ever visited a country where English is not the dominant language, you know the importance of a good interpreter—especially when you have an urgent message.

WORLD’s Myrna Brown has the story from Uganda.

AUDIO: [Applause] Pastor Brian!

MYRNA BROWN: With a firm grip around his Bible, Brian Pipping meets Elijah Sepuya at the front of the church. They’re both mic'd and ready. Once behind the wooden podium, Pipping seats the congregation and the tag-team preaching begins.

PIPPING FROM PULPIT: I don’t know what God is doing in your life right now….

SEPUYA: Interprets in Luganda language

61-year-old Pipping says he can’t imagine being in a foreign country without someone like Sepuya by his side.

PIPPING: This relationship is really about God putting the message in one person’s heart and have it come out the mouth of another person. And that’s quite an affair. But when it works, there’s nothing like it. It feels great. It’s the only time I get to do preaching as a team sport. 

37–year-old Sepuya says game on! He’s been waiting more than half his life for this day.

SEPUYA: I first saw Pastor Brian, he came here with a team, and they brought a very wonderful conference then.

That was in 2008. Sepuya was in his early twenties—a new believer who had recently left the Muslim faith and barely escaped with his life.

SEPUYA: Because the Muslims say, "you left our religion. We have to kill you."

Safe and free of Islam, Sepuya was still unsure of how God would use him until he heard Pipping preach a sermon on Nehemiah. He heard about the Jewish exiles rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem.

SEPUYA: That’s when I realized that all these challenges that I had been going through, they are not compared to what these people went through, as long as you have a vision. So my life was put on a foundation.

AUDIO: [Sepuya interpreting]

That’s when Sepuya began serving this church as an interpreter. English is the official language in Uganda, but many in this congregation still speak Luganda, the most widely spoken indigenous language. Sepuya is fluent in both and is training other young men to follow in his footsteps. But today he gets to serve alongside the man who planted the seed all those years ago.

PIPPING: I am reminded that without them, in a foreign culture I’m a clanging gong, you know, just a noisy cymbal that doesn’t make any sense. The interpreter has the assignment of taking a message from another tongue and communicating it with the same depth and the same passion. They have to be better than I am at what I do to be able to do what I do in another language.

So, what makes a good interpreter? Sepuya says it’s not about education.

SEPUYA: It’s a gift. Maybe it's also a calling. But usually good interpreters are good pastors, good preachers. So a good interpreter has to be a good prayer person, too. So I have to prepare before God and pray that there will be flow, because I’m going to be using my mind very quick. I did not prepare the message, I do not know what Pastor Brian is going to talk about. But yet, I have to do it in an instant.

Back in the pulpit, Pipping moves from one side of the podium to the other, gesturing with his hands to make his points. Sepuya follows him…matching Pippin’s rhythm…

PIPPING: And when the Holy Spirit produces in us….

[Interpretation]

… his pacing…

PIPPING: His fruit.

[Interpretation]

..and his timing.

PIPPING: The fruit of evangelism, the fruit of the spirit, love, joy, peace, patience.

[Interpretation]

PIPPING: You know in the first two minutes. If they’re with you, you know how fast you can go, you know if they’re going to be able to understand. If they are struggling to find the words, that tells me I need to simplify my language because not every word in English has an equivalent in their language.

And not all Western conventions are transferable. Take alliteration for instance.

PIPPING: That you start every point with the same letter; that doesn’t translate. You can’t use humor, because by the time you say it and they interpret it, it’s just lost.

And then there are the cultural differences.

AUDIO: Somebody shout Hallelujah….

SEPUYA: The African culture and the way we speak is a little bit animated. But also we speak in figures, we speak in idioms. We are a little bit louder here, we love loud stuff, to jump, scream, shout. Now when it comes to Pastor Brian here, he is soft a little bit.

But those differences are minor compared to what the two men have in common: their mission of sharing the Gospel to the people here.

AUDIO: [Preaching] When I am discouraged, I love to read the Psalms from King David….

[Interpretation]

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Myrna Brown in Kawempe, Uganda.

AUDIO: In Psalm 42 David says…why am I so discouraged….

[Interpretation]

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