EDMOND—A German-language version of theTrumpet.com went live online on February 15. DiePosaune.de, which is patterned after the English-language site, was two months in the making and so far has reached over 1,600 German speakers in dozens of nations worldwide.
Netherlands deacon Aart van Halteren began designing and programming the website last December while on a car ride to the Philadelphia Church of God campus in Edstone, England. “[United Kingdom and Europe Regional Director Brad] Macdonald invited my whole family to Edstone, and while my boys were enjoying their time off from school with everybody at Edstone, I was able to get a large portion of the website done,” Mr. van Halteren said. “It also gave me the opportunity to work with Lauren Eames, Brandi Davis, Jessie Hester, Sam Livingston and Richard Howard to understand how they would be working with the site. The objective was to get them familiar with how to put content on the site after I had returned home.”
The pcg employs an outside translation team to translate two English-language theTrumpet.com articles into German each week. Foreign language translations sub-department coordinator Edwin Trebels cited the precedent set by late Worldwide Church of God founder Herbert W. Armstrong, who used professional translators but always aimed to bring all translation in-house. Once the articles are translated, Austrian pcg member Hans Schmidl edits them, and then Edstone staffers post them to the website.
pcg translators Emanuel Maximoff, Annette Ommen and Herta Geisler translated a sizable archive of Trumpet articles in time for the website launch. Since the ongoing work of translating new articles is fulfilled by the professional translation team, pcg translators are free to focus on translating pcg books and booklets. Because this literature is recommended in many of the website articles, the translators are racing to increase the site’s archive from 23 books and booklets to the 96 listed on the English version of the site.
As translators work to keep the website updated and catch up to the English-language literature archive, the German Trumpet print edition will be suspended for the next three to four issues. Foreign Language Translations head Brad Macdonald wrote in a February 23 letter to German Trumpet subscribers that the goal is to produce six or more new translations of literature in 2016.
Edstone mail processing department supervisor Richard Howard assisted Mr. van Halteren as he created the initial one-page website design that mimicked the styles and fonts of the English-language site. Howard tracked down the website style sheets from headquarters and worked with the online marketing department in Edmond to set up analytics that would track how visitors use the website, which pages receive the most views, how many booklets are downloaded, and other statistics.
The top 10 countries in terms of visitors to the website are Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, the United States, Canada, Switzerland, Australia, the United Kingdom, Russia and Belgium. As of May 12, Mystery of the Ages (Geheimnis der Zeitalter) leads the way with 136 downloads, followed by Who or What Is the Prophetic Beast? (Wer oder was ist das Prophezeite Tier?) with 59, Does God Exist? (Existiert Gott Tatsächlich?) with 25, and What Is Faith? (Was ist Glaube?) with 22. Overall, German visitors to theTrumpet.com have downloaded 35 pieces of literature 338 times.
“It certainly is a very exciting development,” Trebels said. “It allows for the German readership to grow and receive articles in a timely manner, in particular with the political world climate. It’s important to have the ability to report on events quickly.”
“Significant and prophetically important events are unfolding in Germany and Europe each week,” Mr. Macdonald wrote. “The Continent is undergoing a historic transformation that will impact every European, and, ultimately, every human being. We hope diePosaune.de will help you better understand events in Europe, and understand what they mean for the future.”