Marie Lusted
Box 1111
Addis Ababa
Ethiopia
Email: Marie Lusted

Marie Lusted retired after 49 years of service in November 2004. She may have sat down for a few minutes, but we're not sure, because she went right back to Ethiopia to continue her work translating the Bible into Anuak, this time as a long-term volunteer.

Marie—known to most as "Breezy"—has been interested in Bible translation since 1957 during her first assignment at the Pokwo Clinic in western Ethiopia. While working as a nurse at the Pokwo and Gilo clinics, she got involved in the mission’s literature program, helping to proofread the New Testament in Anuak as it was typeset at Pokwo.

Prevented by the political situation from returning to Pokwo, she has been living in Addis Ababa, the capital, since 1979 where, in addition to her translation work, she assists in summer training courses for Anuak church leaders and since 1998 has again been assigned to supervise the work of the Pokwo and Gilo clinics.

Letters from
Marie Lusted

• January 2007
• January 2006
• March 2004
• February 2003
• June 2002
• December 2000
• July 2000

The Old Testament translation team includes Marie and two Anuak translators, who are joined occasionally by a retired missionary who used to work with the team. The program is funded by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), but the actual translation work is under the supervision of the Bible Society of Ethiopia.

A native of Wisconsin, Marie received the R.N. degree from West Suburban Hospital, Oak Park, Illinois, and the B.S. degree in nursing from Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois. She has also studied at George Washington University, Washington, D.C.; DePaul University, Chicago, Illinois; the University of Maryland, College Park, and the Summer Institute of Linguistics at Gordon College, Wenham, Massachusetts. In 1976 her article on Anuak grammar was published by the African Studies Center of Michigan State University in a volume entitled The Non-Semitic Languages of Ethiopia.

Birthday: March 26