Meet the Team
Location:
Wycliffe South Africa | Seed Company
Sebastian Floor
Psalms that Sing Coordinator
Consultant
Location:
Cape Town, SA
Sebastian serves as coordinator of the Psalms that Sing team. He and his wife Karen worked for 20 years with SIL in Mozambique, in a variety of roles including as consultant for the translation of the Book of Psalms in the Kimwani language. He also taught several Psalms and poetry workshops over the past six years, and is now one of the psalm guide writers and trainers for Psalms that Sing. His fields of interest are Biblical Theology, cognitive linguistics, poetry, and history.
Wycliffe South Africa
June Dickie
Performance Specialist
Consultant
Location:
Cape Town, SA
June is a psalm guide writer and trainer for Psalms that Sing. She has been a member of Wycliffe South Africa for over 30 years, working mainly in Mozambique with the Kimwani language (translation of the NT and half of the OT, including the Book of Psalms). She also has experience in Nigeria, the Comores, Ethiopia, Angola, and India. June completed a Ph.D working with Zulu youth in poetry and performance of some praise psalms. She is particularly interested in performance as an exegetical tool and for internalization, and has focused on lament psalms and the use of biblical text (Ruth and Psalms) in trauma-healing. June enjoys her garden and swimming.
Wycliffe UK | SIL Southern Africa
Benjie Leach
Bantu linguistics | Hebrew poetry
Consultant
Location:
London, UK
Benjie is a guide writer and trainer with Psalms that Sing. He loves the psalms because they draw us to worship the Lord, and he loves the poetry of the psalms because their beauty turns us to the beauty of the Lord. Benjie spent the 1990's and 2000's working on the Makonde NT translation in northern Mozambique where a fascination with the tonal system of the language led to a doctoral thesis in Bantu linguistics. He has spent the last decade, with his wife Rhoda, serving a variety of translation projects across southern Africa. The Psalms that Sing project brings together Benjie's interest in sound patterns, scripture translation and scripture in use. He also enjoys his grandchildren, construction projects, astronomy and dinghy sailing.
Wycliffe UK | SIL Southern Africa
Rhoda Leach
Discourse Analysis | Hebrew
Consultant
Location:
London, UK
Rhoda is a guide writer and trainer for Psalms that Sing. She has been involved in Bible Translation in southern Africa for 30 years, firstly in Mozambique where she and her husband Benjie led the Makonde NT project, then later as a consultant in Mozambique, Malawi and Angola. She has done research in discourse analysis and worked in Oral Bible Translation as well as OT and NT translation. It was the Psalms that first took Rhoda into studying Hebrew.
Seed Company | SIM USA
Milton Watt
Biblical Studies | Translation Principles
Consultant
Location:
Siloam Springs, Arkansas, USA
Milton is a Bible translation consultant with Seed Company and works as a psalm guide writer and trainer for Psalms that Sing. He lived and worked in Benin and Niger for 20 years, mainly training the Western Niger Fulfulde translation team for OT and NT texts, completing a NT in March 2019. Milton and his wife Linda, who works in Trauma Healing, are members of SIM USA. Milton has taught or co-taught many Psalms and poetry workshops over the past 10 years. He has loved the OT for about 40 years, especially Hebrew poetry. He writes poetry and is currently working on his own version of the Psalms. He is also involved in an Oral Bible Translation project in DRC, plus consulting a different Fulfulde team in the OT. His expertise is in OT/NT exegesis (Biblical Studies) and Bible translation principles, especially as applied to translating poetry.
Wycliffe South Africa
Helen van der Walt
IT | Psalms that Sing Trainer
Scripture Engagement | Ethnodoxology
Location:
Johannesburg, SA
Helen joined Wycliffe UK in 2017 and was sent to Wycliffe South Africa in 2019. Her current role is as Scripture Engagement and Ethnodoxology Coordinator, both with language groups doing Bible Translation across southern Africa and with the South African Church. She also spearheads the WSA initiative called Wycliffe Links, which looks to partner people, churches and organisations to advance the Bible Translation Movement in a variety of creative ways. She is now managing the IT for Psalms that Sing and is training to be a trainer. Helen has completed a Masters Degree in Contemporary Missiology, addressing issues such as orality, scripture engagement, Ethnodoxology and Bible Translation. Her interests are in using the arts to both translate and engage with the Bible.
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J
Hebrew Specialist | Biblical Data
Exegete
Location:
USA
J (pseudonym) has been involved in checking Bible translations and in projects involving programming and biblical data, including a website for analysis of the psalms and other Old Testament poetic texts. J lives in the USA with his wife and two boys. He loves music and writes poetry and songs based on the Bible, including some lightly poetic translations for many of the psalms and choir pieces for his church. His desire is that people would express the riches of God's Word, from their heart, using their own beautiful artforms.
Wycliffe New Zealand | SIL Eurasia
Murray Salisbury
Psalms Guide Reviewer
Consultant
Location:
Guildford, UK
Murray is delighted to be a reviewer for Psalms that Sing (part-time). Over the past 33 years, he has taught 137 courses and workshops on the Psalms and other Biblical books – online and in 46 countries around the world. He especially likes to teach and promote an oral-lyrical approach to translating the Psalms – with pleasing results on every continent, including Oceania. Psalms that Sing uses an improved version of the same ten-step procedure. Murray is an adjunct professor with the Jerusalem Seminary and with the Jerusalem Center for Bible Translators, Israel.