Liuba's experience interpreting into Ukrainian at St Ebbe's church, Oxford

Hi, my name is Liuba, I am a Ukrainian who arrived in the UK in 2022 because of the war.

Our family used to attend and serve at a Baptist church when we lived in Ukraine; here in Oxford we started attending St. Ebbe’s church (Church of England).

Since I was able to speak good English prior to my arrival, I was able to understand what was going on during the service and could fully enjoy being among other believers. But soon we realized this was not the case for everyone: the majority of newly arrived Ukrainians spoke no or very little English. Even if their English was closer to intermediate level, it was still not enough to understand the sermon.

At this point, my husband came up with the idea of providing live simultaneous interpreting into Ukrainian. To his mind this was an excellent opportunity for us to attract Ukrainians who long for Christian fellowship, since no other church in Oxford provided anything like this.

At first, I reacted reluctantly, as I was not sure if I would be able to do it. I did have some experience in both interpreting and written translation from English into Ukrainian: I had translated several books, interpreted for visiting Americans at events etc., but I had never done simultaneous interpreting before! And how would we organise the technical side of it?

My husband did some research and suggested we use a tour-guide style kit, whereby the speaker has a microphone, and all those listening have an earpiece. He talked to the church, and they approved the idea. The church bought the kit, and assigned me a stool at the sound desk.

On my first Sunday I felt very nervous. I had a service sheet that I had translated in advance – the worship songs, general prayers and the Bible passage. Everything else had to be understood and interpreted on the spot. I hoped I might get access to sermon notes too – but that wasn’t possible. Both our rector (senior pastor) and the leader of our congregation (pastor for the particular Sunday service time we attend) never have a typed-up full script of the sermon – only illegible handwritten notes on small pieces of paper. I decided that I would do what I could do, and that any interpreting is better than no interpreting at all – and that is how it all started.

Sunday after Sunday I got more and more used to the outline of the service and to the styles of the preachers. Today, after three years of doing this every Sunday (if I am not away or ill), I definitely feel more confident, but the sermon still remains the main challenge. Some sermons are easier to interpret than others, and the main points that determine their accessibility for the intepreter are as follows:

The personality of the preacher. As an interpreter, I prefer well-structured, predictable sermons with no unexpected twists and turns. I also prefer it when the preacher is calm and not very emotional, as in that case he will not talk too quickly for me to follow. I need to confess at this point that my favourite preacher to listen to is not my favourite one to interpret for!

The Bible passage. It is easier to interpret sermons on passages that have a plot, or which tell a story. In this case, the sermon will follow a familiar story and, in part, retell it, which makes my job easier. For this reason, I prefer sermons on passages from the Old Testament or from the Gospels. Sermons on the Epistles and the Psalms have been the most challenging so far.

Attention-getters. These are jokes, life examples, quotations, sometimes even poetry recitations! These require maximum concentration from me, as I need to listen to it, get it myself, and then very quickly think of a good way to interpret it – all in a couple seconds!

When it comes to jokes, some of them are untranslatable wordplay, in which case I may try to explain it to my listeners rather than attempt to interpret he wordplay. For example, a couple of Sundays ago, the preacher, preaching on the book of Jonah, said: “The book of Jonah is not about fish, it is about God. The fish here is the red herring”. Everybody laughed with the exception of Ukrainians, because there is no way this joke could be rendered, or at least I could not think of one! Last Sunday though the preacher joked that before becoming a believer he imagined the world as some kind of social hierarchy, where right at the bottom were murderers, terrorists and lawyers. This was not difficult to interpret, and my listeners loved it (a couple of them were lawyers themselves!)

So, it is always a game of luck whether I will manage to interpret the attention-getter – apart from poetry recitations. In that case I give up without even trying. I just say: sorry guys, he is reciting poetry. At this point I also get sympathetic looks from my colleagues at the sound desk :)

To summarise our experience so far, I can say that I feel this ministry is needed and appreciated. About a year ago we started a Ukrainian Bible study at St. Ebbe’s, and the core of this group are people who come to the church service and listen to the interpreting into Ukrainian. We are very grateful to the church for providing us with this opportunity and putting up with the distraction of me interpreting. I feel a bit guilty for causing this distraction, and try to keep my voice low, but I guess there is no other way we can think of to get round this.   

The use of a “tour-guide style” interpreting kit has proven to be a good and reliable way to organise interpreting for people who sit in different places around the church. What is very important for me though is to remember to press the “mute/unmute” button on my device at the right time. What can be more embarrassing than interpreting diligently for five minutes straight before realising you are on “mute”? Only to realise you then forgot to “mute” during sung worship, and singing right in your microphone!

I hope our experience can be helpful to other people who are thinking about organising live interpreting into other languages at their churches. I am happy to be contacted by email if you would like to chat or ask questions – please get in touch with me via our church website.

May the Gospel be proclaimed in every tongue!