Reflections from Kemp & Anne Pallesen

When we had the Central Sinama New Testament ready for publication, we put down our translation tools and went into pastoral work.  Twenty years later and retired, we got invitations to go back and help the believers translate the Old Testament.  We checked things out and found that a lot had happened in 25 years.  But it was true; the people did want to have the Book of Former Times, and the New Testament also needed revision.  The heroes in the Wycliffe NZ office helped reactivate our membership and we headed off.

Arriving home by canoe, 1968

A manual typewriter and carbon copies were the “high tech” equipment of the day for writing and rewriting draft translations, dictionaries and technical papers – all vulnerable to the ravages of termites and cockroaches.  When our talented radio man sent us a pack of 24 “C” batteries to replace the Briggs and Stratton generator we felt we had made a great leap forward.  But a great deal more has changed since then.  Getting back into translation in 2004 proved exhilarating, with laptop, sophisticated translation software, reference works and the vital Sama-English dictionary – all were available at the touch of a button.  And people back in NZ only a click away via e-mail and Skype.

Kemp & Anne Pallesen with Linda, Gillian, and Frances, 1972

From 1977 to 1983 Kemp served as Area Director for Wycliffe and SIL in the Pacific and had the privilege and excitement of seeing work begun in countries where governments told us that the churches were the natural partners of translator-linguists.  This ran counter to the traditional strategy of agreements with government agencies, a strategy that had served SIL well for generations.  It was an unsettled period for the two corporations as traditional strategies were challenged and leadership become more international.  The traditional agreements were supplemented by the now familiar relationships with churches, missions and national bodies.  The dominant role of “westerners” in the organisation was changing, so that today people of many different cultures are at work, together.

There were other changes that struck us as we came to terms with the new Bible translation movement, among them:

• The emphasis on working in language cluster groups rather than with stand-alone teams who spoke – long ago of course – of “my allocation, my decision, my informant”.  The result was sometimes an unhelpful diversity in orthography (alphabet), key terms, exegetical choices (Biblical explanation) and translation style.  The cluster approach is better placed to manage and minimise this diversity.
• The training of local language speakers in translation skills at all levels of competence, made possible by the growing number who have secondary or tertiary education.
• The recruitment of people with experience in middle management to support the translators, with the happy result that the latter are less likely to be called on to do “group service”.
• The shift to shorter field terms and short term assignments, a shift which one suspects might have disadvantages as well as advantages.
• The growing and effective use of management tools (analysis by professionals, change & more change) so that, today the prevailing model is professionally competent management.

Recording indigenous songs on tape

That may sound as if we’re anti-management, but we’re not.  We ourselves have benefitted greatly from the management skills of the team in the NZ office.  They helped cut through the red tape so that we could be reinstated as members in our old age.  They were patient with our ignorance of terminology and our dumb inability to read a few simple finance statements.  We are especially grateful to Steve and Karen Lynip, the superb managers who are currently developing the Language Program Coordinator model and who were so helpful and hospitable to us during our times in the southern Philippines.

To sum up our life with Wycliffe from the misty past right up to now:
We have rarely been bored, often surprised, and (nearly) always thankful.  These last four years of intense involvement with training translators and doing some translation ourselves have been a fine way to spend the evening of our lives.

Praise Him, all saints and angels and created things!