Embraced by the Deaf community
Wycliffe Today Winter 2025 Edition
Amy Cruickshanks is a linguistics consultant with Bible Society Australia who played an integral role in creating the Auslan Alpha translation videos. Along with her desire to see Deaf communities equipped with resources to grow and share their faith, Amy has been part of the team translating the Bible into Auslan. Amy says that, prior to joining the project, she did not have connections with the Deaf community. Yet that all changed once she began learning the language and meeting the people with whom she would come to develop close relationships:
Since I joined the team and started learning Auslan, I feel like my life has changed quite a bit. Now, some of my closest friends are Deaf people and others I have met through the Deaf community. It is also because of Auslan that I joined the church I am currently attending. The church has Auslan interpreting, so I thought I would visit to say hello and see what was happening there. I was really only intending to visit the church once, but the welcome I received that first Sunday was so warm and I was so readily embraced into the group of signers (made up of both Deaf and hearing) that I just kept going back. I’ve been there a year and a half now, and feel I have truly found my church family.
Amy has been with the Auslan translation team for two years now, but notes that the Auslan Bible Project has been underway for almost 30 years. So what are some of the biggest challenges in a signed translation compared to a written or oral translation? Amy shares:
There are a few differences. I think the biggest one is that in Auslan, as in all signed languages, the visual details of objects and events are important and communicated, so these always need to be brought into consideration in translation work. For example, our team was recently translating Psalm 23, and we had a few discussions around the section ‘you anoint my head with oil’. What did that anointing actually look like? Was it just a dab of oil on the forehead or was the oil liberally poured out and running down the face? These sorts of details aren’t something you typically have to consider in spoken language translations.
Along with the challenges, Amy says she finds the Auslan translation work incredibly rewarding:
Being involved in this project has been the biggest gift from God to me. Not only is working with my teammates a joy, but together we have the opportunity to make the Bible more accessible to people who use Auslan as their first language – what could be better than that?
There are currently two full books of the Bible translated into Auslan (John and Acts) and portions of a number of other New and Old Testament books. While there is still a long way to go, Bible Society Australia recently launched a new, updated website for the Auslan Bible so that the Deaf community in Australia can better access what has already been translated. To see the Auslan Bible, visit https://auslan.bible/
Please pray:
- that God would continue to guide the Auslan Bible Project committee and the translation team
- for those who engage with the Auslan Bible and Alpha in Auslan – that they would grow in their understanding of how great God’s love for them is.
AI for Bible translation: Why real people matter
By John Tan | Wycliffe Today Autumn 2025 |
When I met with David Duncan, he told me that the purpose of AI software is to speed up translation. It will not replace the Bible translation process. As an Information and Communications Technology (ICT) manager, as well as a Bible College and language student, I found this thought comforting.
Translation is not simply replacing words and phrases with that of another language. It is also carrying the meaning of those words and phrases across. Artificial Intelligence (AI) works very well with the process of substituting words and phrases, but, being artificial, it cannot be expected to handle meaning well.
Comprehension
How would you translate the word ‘lamb’ for people who do not know of such a creature? We could replace ‘lamb’ with the word for a similar animal in the target language, but this could lead to theological difficulties with interpretation later. Software can easily handle word substitutions, but it will not so easily teach such new concepts to a group of people.
Grammar
Both human intelligence and software can analyse how sentences are formed. But people tend to take shortcuts. We create new patterns or exceptions to the grammatical rules. Because of this, software can help us get the grammar right most of the time, but we still need a community to confirm and correct the translation work.
Theology
It can be quite easy to add our own interpretations to a text but Bible translators are not supposed to do this. A translation team checks work for each other to help remove interpretation biases. AI will come with its own biases based on the data it is fed. We need to check this data well, either before or after the software works with it.
Bible translation has come a long way in the last decade in particular. It used to take many years to translate the New Testament, and many translators could not see themselves working on the Old Testament as well within their lifetime.
Scripture translation software can create a very rough draft of the Old Testament overnight if we feed it the New Testament in the target language. But it will still take about 16 years for people to work through this very rough draft to make it usable. Having computer software to help speed up the Bible translation process is exciting. Even so, we still need a team of … real people!
Why do we need ANOTHER version of the English Bible?
Wycliffe Today October 2019 (updated Mar 2025)
This is the question Dave Glasgow and his team often encounter as they work on the Plain English Version of the Bible. Dave explains:
The PEV allows Indigenous communities to read God’s Word in a format they can understand. Australian Indigenous languages have no passive voice and very few abstract nouns. They are also some of the most linguistically diverse languages in the world — especially compared to English. People may speak English as a learned language but they still think in terms of their mother tongue. There may be some features they share in common with the learned language, but those that differ can cause significant misunderstandings. We are modifying the English contained in the Scriptures to conform to their Indigenous thought, culture, grammar and semantic patterns.
The PEV is a great tool for Scripture engagement and comprehension in simple English. It is also incredibly strategic in bolstering and expediting the work of individual Indigenous translation projects. Dave says:
When I first joined AuSIL to work with the Burarra language, and later when I was a translation consultant, I learned about the structure of Indigenous languages, which helped when I came to start work on the PEV. Now I know of at least three translation projects using the PEV as the main tool to help with their own translation. It gives them a helpful starting point.
As of 2024 almost 25% of the PEV Bible has been translated. Several books have been published in printed form by Bible League, including a mini-Bible with almost 70% of the New Testament and portions from Genesis and 1 & 2 Samuel.
Bible Society has also printed: picture books, colouring-in books and sets of story cards using the PEV, which are available through Koorong.
Please pray:
- that the books that have been translated will help people know God better
- for continued progress with translation so that one day the whole Bible will be available
- for wisdom for the translation team as they seek to express the Scriptures accurately in a way that the target audience will understand.
For more information on the Plain English Bible, go to https://aboriginalbibles.org.au/english-plain/.
Children learning the signs of Easter
By Deb Fox | Wycliffe Today Winter 2023 |
In that day the deaf will hear words read from a book, and the blind will see through the gloom and darkness. – Isaiah 28:18 (NLT)
Do you remember listening to Bible stories in Sunday School? For many Deaf children, there are very few resources available for them to learn more about God’s love for them. So far, only American Sign Language (ASL) has the full Bible available. Australian Sign Language (Auslan) only has a few books translated and does not have any resources to support Scripture engagement. Wycliffe Bible Translators Australia members Saul and Rebecca Thurrowgood want to change that.
Saul & Rebecca Thurrowgood and their children
The Thurrowgoods have been working in partnership with the Bible Society to create animated Bible stories for children in Auslan. The Christmas story was released at the end of 2022 and an Easter message was recently published. The videos are based on evangelical children’s booklets the Bible Society produced a couple of years ago. They have been created using the motion capture Artificial Intelligence (AI) tool called ‘Chameleon’ which Saul and his team have been refining for the past 10 years ’and which converts the signed movements from a real person to an animated character.
Saul explains:
Last year, the Bible Society wanted to see if they could use Chameleon for translation projects and they came to check it out. We trialled the technology with the Christmas story and were thrilled that it worked so well. The second time around, everything worked even more smoothly with the Easter story. All the characters are consistent throughout the series. It’s been a long time building up but we’re finally seeing fruit from all the years of hard work to get Chameleon off the ground.
Rebecca adds:
A screenshot of the Easter video translated into Auslan.
I’ve been thinking a lot about creating resources for kids to put online to equip the church. These videos are like a seed – the first in a way of creating resources for Deaf children. Auslan has its own linguistic style that is very poetic visually that would not translate the same way in spoken English. These videos provide the stories in a form that kids can easily understand. We have a dream for Deaf community to be able to connect with the gospel. The children’s stories we’ve created using Chameleon so far will hopefully be a good start.
Pray:
- for more people to join the team! We need workers highly skilled in programming, computer science, AI, computer vision and robotics
- that the Auslan translation of the Easter story can continue to be shared with Deaf children throughout Australia and open their hearts to the love of Jesus
- for the languages and countries that have shared an interest in using Chameleon
More: To watch the video, click here. To visit the Chameleon website, click here.
Bibles and backpackers in the Outback
By Deb Fox | Wycliffe Today Autumn 2022 |
David and Ming Fang Strickland live in Central Australia and work alongside Anmatyerr speakers to help them translate Scripture and engage with God’s Word. Last year, the Anmatyerr Mini Bible which they have been working on for 18 years was published with the help of The Bible Society and dedicated in four communities. Ming Fang says that the Mini Bible is incredibly important to the people:
David and Ming Fang with children at the Mini Bible celebration
The dedication made people feel like this is a new milestone for them. We have published Mark and John, the seven letters and Luke and Acts. When you put them all together in one book, people feel it is significant. We are very pleased seeing this publication come to life.
The Mini Bible dedication opened opportunities for Anmatyerr people to engage with Scripture. Ming Fang notes:
I have received requests from many women to start a Bible study. We already had Mark’s Gospel, John’s Gospel and seven letters in audio format and now we would like to add Luke’s Gospel and Acts so we will have the whole recording of the Mini Bible. We will have audio and digital versions to add to a website so that people can download. We want every Anmatyerr person to know the Bible is there for them to use.
Ming Fang also runs painting workshops for Anmatyerr women to read God’s Word and connect with it in a way and in a format that relates closely with their culture. However, it is not just the Anmatyerr people the Stricklands have been able to reach. A ‘backpackers ministry’ has been making an impact on visitors to Alice Springs, especially those from overseas when they were unable to travel home during worldwide lockdowns. Ming Fang says she started a Chinese Bible study in 2015, which then expanded to a much larger international group:
I just felt that I would like to talk to them and make them feel welcomed. We share testimonies, personal stories and a meal together then finish by worshipping in a number of different languages.
Now a team of young volunteers are working with Ming Fang. In 2020, the group set up emergency aid for backpackers who lost their jobs due to COVID-19 lockdowns. With the help of local churches and businesses, over $18,000 was raised to provide vouchers and essentials for anyone in need. Ming Fang says the backpacker ministry numbers can go up and down but the people always leave changed:
Language and culture are living things. Just like people, language and culture are always changing. Every language and culture is unique but deep in the heart of each person, they need God. The unique challenges in the past two years have helped us spread seeds for the gospel here in Australia and (eventually) throughout the world.
Pray:
- for safety as the Stricklands visit communities in Ti Tree, Mount Allen, Six Mile and other smaller communities
- for financial support to develop more resources that help Anmatyerr speakers connect with God and his Word.
For more information on supporting David and Ming Fang, go to
wycliffe.org.au/david-mingfang/
Photos by Gary McMaster
Bible beginnings in the back of Burke
By John Tan
Boorong was the first known Indigenous Australian to have substantial exposure to the Bible. She was sick with smallpox in 1789 when Governor Philip’s men took her to Sydney for treatment. Rev Johnson and his family looked after her for 18 months. Boorong saw the clergyman’s family reading and studying the Bible, and heard him preach from the ‘buk’ on Sundays.[1]
Boorong, like other Aboriginals in that era, encountered the Bible as colonisers tried to educate and ‘civilise’ their communities. Christian missionaries brought the King James Bible into their society, together with other products of European civilisation. Indigenous Australians learned the Bible as they learned English.[2]
The Bible Society started in Australia in 1817, making the Bible available to the public [3]. For non-English readers, they brought in Bibles in Welsh, Hindi, Scottish Gaelic, Russian, Chinese and other languages[4]. They desperately also wanted to get the Bible into indigenous languages.
Lancelot Threlkeld, together with Aboriginal translator Biraban, finished translating Luke’s Gospel into the Awabakal language in 1831. [5] This could be Australia’s first Indigenous Bible translation.[6]
The list of Indigenous languages grew slowly in the 1930s and 1940s.[7] In 1942, when Wycliffe Bible Translators began in the USA, CMS missionary Len Harris and his best students, Grace Yamambu and Bidigainj, translated Bible passages into the Wubuy language of Arnhem Land[8]. Madi, who heard it read at a campfire, was excited that to realise that ‘Jesus speaks Wubuy’[9].
Wycliffe Australia started in 1954, with some of the first translators sent to work in languages overseas in places like the Philippines and PNG. Others formed AuSIL (Australian Society for Indigenous Languages) and worked in the languages of Bandalang, Burarra, Kuku Yalanji and Wik Mungkan.[10]
Translation efforts picked up in the 1960s and 1970s. The most significant result of this was the Kriol Bible, the first full Indigenous Australian Bible. This Holi Baibul was published in 2007, after about 30 years of work by people from Wycliffe, AuSIL, the Bible Society and the CMS.[11]
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