Spreading the Word in Many Different Tongues

Only minutes before evangelist Billy Graham was to begin his long-anticipated 10-day crusade at Anaheim Stadium, Emilian and Joana Moldavanian looked bewildered as they held transistor radios in their hands.

All around them they heard more than a dozen languages, but no one was speaking Romanian. The Fullerton couple tinkered with the small transistors but could not find their native tongue on the airwaves.

Finally, an usher found David Damian, a Romanian native, who was attending the crusade and who volunteered to interpret for them.

The confusion for the Moldavanians, who immigrated to the United States 11 months ago to avoid religious persecution in Romania, began when they assumed Romanian interpreters would be available throughout Graham’s 10-day crusade, which began Friday night and runs through next Sunday.

Similar Event in Romania

Romanian was added just two days before the crusade began because Graham is scheduled to conduct a similar event in Romania later this year. The language was among 14 that were listed for simultaneous translation, but an organizer said that Romanian translation would be possible only tonight, Monday and Tuesday because of a scarcity of interpreters.

“We’ve come hear to listen to the word of God,” Emilian Moldavanian said through his new-found interpreter, Damian. “In Romania, we couldn’t do this. That’s why we came to America.”

Although the Moldavanians had to rely on Damian, everything worked well for the other 8,000 people who came to listen to Graham in a language other than English. The entire sermon was interpreted for them by a team of about 50 people.

Graham said before the start of the crusade that only once before had his sermons undergone more simultaneous translations:in India, where numerous native dialects were interpreted for his listeners.

From the initial planning stages of the evangelist’s first Southern California crusade in 16 years, and perhaps his last, organizers placed a heavy emphasis on translations of Graham’s nightly sermons.

Graham also observed how Southern California had grown into a great “multilingual, multiracial population” since he last preached at Anaheim Stadium in 1969.

“I feel like God, in His providence, is bringing people--to whom we used to send missionaries--right here in Southern California,” Graham said.

For several months Chun Il Cho, president of the Southern California Korean Ministerial Assn., and Juan Carlos Miranda, a professor at the Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, organized the interpreters.

The task was not easy, but Roger Tompkins, the Orange County crusade chairman, said that translation always had been a key part of the crusade program.

“We want to provide as many people as possible with the opportunity to hear his (Graham’s)message,” said Tompkins, who has served on the volunteer board of Wycliffe Bible Translators, a Huntington Beach-based organization. Wycliffe trains and sends translators to many Third World countries.

One of the busiest interpreters at the 10-day crusade will be David Hock Tey, a Christian pastor in San Bernardino. Tey, who immigrated to Southern California from Taiwan four years ago, supervises 18 people who interpret Graham’s message into three Chinese dialects.

Those listening to Graham in Chinese and Vietnamese make up the largest group occupying the 12,000-capacity club section at the stadium reserved for non-English speakers.

“We will probably have about 3,000 people listening to Chinese every night,” Tey said. “I think it is a wonderful thing to able to translate the sermons into all these languages so more people can hear the word of God.”