Wycliffe Bible Translators

There are over 7,000 languages spoken and signed around the world. Only about 750 languages have a full Bible and 50% of languages have some Scripture in their language as of September 2024. When Cameron Townsend heard about this problem, he created three sister organizations to address different aspects of this need:

• Wycliffe Bible Translators would be the church-facing fundraising branch.
• SIL Global would be the linguistics, Bible projects, education, and eventually software side. It was intentionally kept academic and low key so translators working in sensitive countries could look like academics rather than missionaries.
• JAARS would be the logistics, handling travel (e.g. aviation, ships, 4x4’s, etc.), communication (e.g. radio, internet), food, and energy (e.g. solar) so that translators can get to, be supported in, and work from any location in the world.

Put all together, Wycliffe translators would work on an SIL translation project in a location they reached with help from JAARS. Today the organizations continue to work together while being a bit more distinct. SIL has some big donor funding that now allows them to hire people while Wycliffe translators continue to raise their own support so it is not uncommon to have projects made up of both SIL and Wycliffe members.

One such joint project is a translation software tool called Paratext, which is like Google Docs, Logos, and Grammarly, and more all rolled into one. It is used by over 12,000 translators and consultants as they work together to create an accurate and helpful translation of the Bible. One of our members, Katie Jensen has been working on this team as a software engineer for many years.