Coming Full Circle: Translating God’s Word

By Jennifer Whatley Govea ’97
Growing up, I was active in Mission Friends, Girls in Action, and Acteens in church. On a weekly basis, we would pray for missionaries across the country and around the world. Every Easter and Christmas, our church would join other Southern Baptist churches to pray and give toward the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering and the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering to support mission work.
Fast forward to just after college graduation, and I went to Mexico as an International Mission Board ISC missionary, where I soon met my husband. Two years later, I started working at the North American Mission Board in Alpharetta, Georgia. Slowly, but surely, we started translating content for NAMB to the point that I left my position there, and my husband, Enrique, and I started our own translation business, Multitude Languages.
We started out with manuals, workbooks, websites, and brochures in Spanish, but God continued to bless our business to now include books, Bible studies, and videos on a weekly basis in many, many languages. While our main focus is ASL, Chinese, French, German, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish, we have translated materials in Swahili, Karen, Haitian Creole, Amharic, and Kinyarwanda.
I consider it a full circle moment that the little girl in church praying for missionaries not only grew up to work for both missions’ agencies but also now provides the language content for the Annie Armstrong and Lottie Moon offerings for ethnic churches in our nation. We translate lead pastors and CSU alumni, Andy and Stacie Wood’s, sermons from Saddleback Church on a weekly basis so that their Spanish campuses can watch the message in their heart language.
There are lots of believers with a heart to volunteer and help translate, but they don’t always have the dedicated time, training, nor tools for this profession. And there are lots of expert translators out there with all the knowledge, but not the theological background to translate such important content where making sure each word is accurate is key. Our business helps ministries and organizations by collaborating with highly trained language experts who are Christians and know the nuances of our faith, which Bible version to use, etc.
It is a great joy to wake up every day with meaning, working alongside my husband to provide relevant Bible teachings in other languages for the purpose of expanding God’s Kingdom.
Fast Facts:
• I was part of the first study abroad program in Summer 1997 under Dr. Pamela Peek’s leadership.
• We provide translation services (subtitles, dubbing, voiceover, books, websites, manuals, bulletins, etc.) to the IMB, NAMB, ERLC, WMU, Saddleback Church, Brooklyn Tabernacle, and other ministries and churches.
• We served as church planters to Costa Rica from 2011-2013. I was the preschool director.
• We served on staff at Rock Bridge Community Church in Dalton, Georgia, from 2013-2018.
• The knowledge that I gained from CSU in business helps us to run our own company. What I learned in Spanish and also French helps me with my daily responsibilities at work.