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Recently, in Catalan, Spain, Annalisa Wells and her family have just finished translating Frank Viola’s “Bethany” into Spanish.  The local church and other Spanish-speaking believers world-wide will have access to this invaluable resource.  What is commonly accepted as the church in Spain is more of the club atmosphere, and right away the Wells recognized that this wasn’t what God had meant for the church to become. Their group made it their goal to learn what God really meant for the church to be.  The Wells family noticed that most Christian literature that covered the topic of understanding what role the church is supposed to take were available in Spanish.  Mr. Wells had the opportunity to meet Frank Viola and felt that the Lord wanted him to share Mr. Viola’s thoughts and writings with their group of local believers.  Thus, the Wells family took on the task of translating one of Frank Viola’s shorter works “Bethany.”

 

“Bethany” is only twenty-five pages long with a mere four chapters, but the discussion and study of going through each part has proved invaluable for their group.  Annalisa spent almost two months translating the text whenever she had the time on top of an already tough course-load.  In total, the process took her about twenty to thirty hours.  She spent hours reading the digital text, translating it to Spanish, and formatting the document, most of which she did herself.  With thanks to many years of Spanish school as well as the down-to-earth level of Viola’s work, she was able to use a digital copy and just sit down, read a paragraph, understand it, and translate it into Spanish. 

 

Annalisa’s work will be used not only by her family’s local group, but is also available online for other Spanish-speaking churches to access worldwide.  This digital copy has already spread through Spain, mostly by word of mouth.  Over the course of the project, she stretched her Spanish skills slightly as she translated “Christian terms.” It forced her to “think like a Spaniard would” so that she could successfully convey the points.  Overall, the process brought her family closer together, since she was constantly bringing up questions about what she was reading, whether it was defining a term that she came across or getting her family’s opinion on certain translations.  Several people have gone over the translation, both Christian and non-Christian, and, across the board, responses have been positive. 

 

This and future documents will help the Wells guide their group discussions and bind them closer to God.  Due to the nature of Annalisa’s upcoming translation project of Frank Viola’s “God’s Ultimate Passion,” which contains over 250 pages, she would appreciate the prayers of her fellow students.  “Bethany” discusses the town where Jesus spent his last nights, how he felt welcomed there and how the people gave him supreme authority.  The book goes on to mention the example of Mary staying and listening to Jesus while her sister worked in the kitchen, mentioning how this would have been unacceptable and how cultural barriers should not impede us from the worship of God.  Examples like this will help Spanish-speaking churches all over the world to deepen their relationships with God.

 

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