Pozos de Refugio
Spanish-language adaptation of the Wells of Refuge platform for refugee and immigrant communities
A Spanish-language adaptation of the Wells of Refuge devotional platform — built in Flutter/Dart for cross-platform delivery across iOS and Android — designed to bring accessible scripture, guided reading plans, and refugee-centered devotional content to Spanish-speaking immigrant and refugee communities. The translation workflow for Pozos de Refugio served as the primary case study for AI-assisted content localization, compressing what would have been months of manual translation into days through AI-generated first-pass content reviewed and contextualized by an educated, bilingual native Spanish speaker. Launched on schedule for the 2025 General Council of The Christian & Missionary Alliance.
What Made This Complex
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Spanish Bible USX formatting differed significantly from the English implementation, requiring extensive custom parsing adjustments for reliable scripture rendering
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Translation required cultural clarity and readability for refugee and immigrant audiences — not literal word conversion
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Scripture, guided plans, immigrant stories, and devotional content needed consistency across both languages and platforms
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AI-assisted translation introduced efficiency but required structured human review to ensure cultural and theological accuracy
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Cross-platform delivery required maintainable shared architecture across iOS and Android
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A hard launch deadline for a major denominational conference left no margin for schedule slippage
How I Approached It
Rather than treating Pozos de Refugio as a direct language conversion, I approached it as a multilingual systems adaptation requiring technical normalization, culturally meaningful delivery, and a disciplined translation workflow under deadline pressure.
Prioritized:
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Using AI-assisted translation to generate first-pass content across 66 biblical book introductions, 120 devotionals, approximately 35 immigrant stories, a preface, foreword, contributions pages, and all UI elements
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Pairing AI translation output with review and contextualization by an educated, bilingual native Spanish speaker
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Resolving Spanish USX parsing incompatibilities to support reliable scripture rendering across the platform
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Maintaining shared architectural consistency across platforms while adapting language-specific content
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Transitioning the mentee co-developer toward greater UI implementation ownership
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Delivering a complete, production-ready application on schedule for General Council
Constraints & Tradeoffs
The central tension was between speed and fidelity. AI-assisted translation dramatically compressed the timeline but produced output that required careful human review — particularly for scripture, where word choice carries theological weight that literal translation can flatten. The Spanish USX parsing challenges were discovered mid-development and required technical problem-solving without the option of schedule adjustment. Delivering a production-quality multilingual application under a fixed conference deadline, with limited development resources and no promotional budget, required disciplined prioritization at every stage.
Outcome
Delivered a production Spanish-language devotional application on both Google Play and the Apple App Store, launched on schedule for the 2025 General Council of The Christian & Missionary Alliance. The AI-assisted translation workflow reduced an estimated months-long localization effort to days without sacrificing quality — demonstrating a repeatable, human-reviewed approach to multilingual content delivery. The application provides Spanish-speaking refugee and immigrant communities with accessible scripture, guided reading plans, and devotional content adapted for their language and cultural context.
