Some History

The latest updates are on our blog.

We are Benjamin and Shanna Wright, with our children Mira, Peregrine, Anastasia, and Cyrus. We joined Wycliffe Bible Translators in 2013 and 2011 respectively. We served in the Republic of Georgia from 2014-2018 working on a literacy and Bible translation project for three unreached people groups in the Caucasus mountains.

Before joining Wycliffe, Benjamin served for six years in the Army as a Korean linguist. He then earned his MA in Linguistics with a focus on Bible Translation and Hebrew from Dallas International University.

At the same university (where we met), Shanna studied the intersection of culture, arts, and missions. Before that she double majored, earning BAs in Photojournalism and Linguisitics from Baylor University. She has put her studies and work on hold while our children are small.

Assisting with Translation

Benjamin is training to become a Translation Consultant, though many days he's not sure how different things will look once he's actually certified. Much of his work is with his mentor assisting a language community in Nigeria to translate the Old Testament. The church in this language is very motivated, they initiated the OT project and are eagerly involving the community! When you look at where Bible translation still needs to be done, Nigeria is in the top three countries with over 100 projects currently underway. However, he is also involved in training and checking in other countries and continents as opportunities arise.

In the Bible translation world, there’s a huge bottleneck. There are more translation projects underway than can be finished because there’s not enough translation consultants (<300 for >2,600 projects). Translation consultants oversee projects, provide another level of experienced checking for projects, approve translations for publication, and most importantly: provide quality control for translations. All the Bible translation agencies are scrambling to get more translation consultants. Pray that this program would equip Benjamin and the others in his cohorts to train and equip others to do Bible translation well.

Benjamin is also part of a team creating tools and resources to equip church leaders around the world to translate the Bible into their own languages. He is currently working with some others on notes on translating Psalms. These tools and resources can go places we cannot and be accessed by churches in physically hard to reach areas, regions where governments are preventing traditional Bible translators’ access, or places where the local church is eager and gifted to start translation work before a traditional Bible translation team is available. (Praise God & pray for more laborers!)