Ryan and his wife joined Wycliffe Bible Translators in 2007, and a year later they moved to the country of Papua New Guinea—just north of Australia—as Bible Translators. They worked with the Ma Manda language group.
Over the following years, they took repeated trips to their small bamboo bush house in Saut Village. There they conducted linguistic research, learned the language, and developed a committee to oversee the translation program. Over the next few years, Ryan & Crystal had the pleasure of helping the Ma Manda people develop their own orthography so they could read and write their own language for the first time.
Ryan wrote two theses on the language, fully describing the sound system and grammar as a basis for future Bible Translation work. Ryan also served as a linguistics consultant, supporting other translators in their own research, and training Papua New Guineans in linguistics as they developed as Bible Translators themselves.
In 2016, the Pennington family left Wycliffe Bible Translators to embark on a new form of service. Ryan was eager to use his linguistic expertise in a new relational format, and Amarillo provided just the opportunity.
