Some hands operate the controls of airplanes that fly translators to remote villages. Some fix engines or computers used by linguists. Some build offices in remote locations, where literacy workers can teach local people to read. And some special hands type the very words of a translation.
Typing is an often under-rated skill. While practically anyone can learn to type, some become masters at it. You realize that
when you watch Kathy Bergman. For twenty years in Peru, before every Bible translator there had a computer, each new draft of a New Testament had to be typed and re-typed—often many times. It’s one thing to type a manuscript in a language you know, but Kathy could type letters and symbols in languages unfamiliar to her and do it word-perfect, amazingly fast. Kathy loved the job she did faithfully day-after-day. Sitting at a typewriter, and later a computer, she would look at the manuscript and those hands would work their wonder for hours on end. Many a translator was glad not to handle this laborious task.
Was she always good at typing? Kathy would say no. All she had was a high school typing class, where she rated herself as slow. She typed her college and post-grad papers with average proficiency. But after going to Peru to work as a Bible translator, she fell into the typing role and proficiency came the old fashioned way—practice!
What motivates a person to get up every morning to sit and type all day? “The total goal of Bible translation,” says Kathy. “I probably couldn’t be very content doing this sort of thing for another goal. Typing novels wouldn’t motivate me, but because it is Bible translation, because it is getting the Word to people who have never heard it before—or maybe heard it, but not in their own language well enough to understand—it is worthwhile.”
Over the years Kathy typed Scripture in many Peruvian languages. Two projects stand out as special to her. She typeset the New Testament in the Nomatsiguenga language for Harold and Betty Shaver in the ‘70s. Then one of the Shaver’s children, Dwight, grew up and became a Bible translator. When he and his wife, Gwynne, completed the Lambayeque New Testament, Kathy got to typeset it. Now she calls herself a two-generation typesetter.
Kathy presently works as a desktop publishing expert for Wycliffe and continues to serve in Peru. Her long career has given her great satisfaction. Kathy says it comes down to this: “Don’t think that your skills can’t be used. Just be positive about what you are able to do. Look for opportunities to do the thing that you’re good at. And it’s important to enjoy what you do.”