Cotonou, Benin · August 12, 2026
Francophone Africa Conference of OBT Consultants

The session was ninety minutes long, scheduled for four in the afternoon on the third day, in a hotel conference room in Cotonou. Fifty oral Bible translation consultants from across francophone Africa had been sitting through presentations since Monday. Bio Athanase Yanto opened his by handing the room over to someone else.

On the screen was Justin Codjo, a Beninese Bible translation consultant, recorded from inside a workshop that was still running — psalms being translated in one corner, songs being composed in another.

“We don’t want to translate for the sake of translating. What we want today is accelerated impact. We want people to be impacted through the translation of the Bible. […] And we see how the impact is visible, palpable. So we don’t need speeches.”

It is an unusual way to begin a talk: a consultant telling a room of consultants that talking is not the point.

Codjo was in the room as well, and when the floor opened after the presentation he filled in what he had meant. He had been to one of these workshops himself. The final product was songs. “I saw how people were happy, how people danced” — and then the comparison that gave the afternoon its argument: “but if it was a psalm that is translated into writing or reading, I don’t think the joy would be greater.”

Then the line that has stayed with people who were there: “People don’t know the psalms were songs, so we only read, and it never has the same impact as if it’s sung.”

He wanted the workshops continued, and said so. He also said something quieter, which was not entirely a compliment: after his workshop ended, the discussions about carrying it into Wycliffe-Benin projects had not yet gone anywhere. “We thought it would continue.”