Attribution: This training comes from two sources. First, it uses the training Andy Kellogg taught in Kenya in March 2025. Second, it uses videos from the Luke Partnership training in Training for Translators: Community Testing 1 and Community Testing 2.

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🪁 Training Guide 🫂

Training Guide

⏱️ 90 minutes

🗒️ This guide is not a script (a word-for-word text to read). We write ideas to help trainers understand activities and pictures. You can use these ideas in your training. You can also make your own materials.

🔬 Translators will learn how to study a passage (a section of text from the Bible). They will learn to understand what the original author meant. This helps them make the best translation choices for a Bible in their language. You need to choose Open Bible Stories, a book of the Bible, or a set of passages. The translators will use these for practice during this training.

🤔 This training expects you to know the basic qualities of a good translation. You should understand what makes a translation clear, natural, and accurate.

🗣️ Group discussion results in solutions to problem-based learning scenarios.

❓The translation should sound like a person who grew up speaking the language wrote it. The meaning should be clear and easy to understand.

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🎯 Why is this important: People will not use a translation if it does not sound natural. They will not use it if it is not clear. They will not use it if they cannot understand it.

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Why This Version Includes Ministry Integration

Many people think translation is a technical job that happens before ministry can begin. But every step below is already doing something the church does—listening to God's Word, talking about it together, speaking it in the heart language, and checking that everyone understands. Each green callout shows where your work is already serving the church. Translation is not preparation for ministry. It is ministry happening right now. When translators understand that their work is already serving people, motivation grows, quality improves, and God's Word starts reaching people long before the project is finished.

🗣️ Oral tip: In communities where people learn by listening and speaking, testing is the moment when Scripture comes alive—people hear it, respond to it, and begin sharing what they understand with others.

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Session Objectives:

1️⃣ Participants will see examples of bad community testing and good community testing.

2️⃣ Participants will learn how to write good questions for community testing.

Introduction Activity 👀

🕦 15 minutes

Why do we need to test our translation?

Asking Good Questions 🕺

🕑 20 minutes

Practice preparing questions

Discovery Activity Skit 👀 ****

🕦 30 minutes

Bad Community Testing vs Good Community Testing

Language Community Checking 🕺

🕑 25 minutes

Get ready for community testing

🪁 Training Guide 🫂

Training Guide

Session Objectives:

Introduction Activity 👀

Discovery activity: Skits 👀