Marianna Richardson is the Director of Communications for the G20 Interfaith Forum, where she works at the intersection of faith, ethics, and global policy. She is also an adjunct professor at Brigham Young University’s Marriott School of Business, where she teaches management communication and serves as editor-in-chief of the Marriott Student Review. Marianna has become a respected voice in discussions surrounding technology, human flourishing, and the role faith communities can play in shaping society and public dialogue. She holds degrees from Johns Hopkins University and Seattle Pacific University and has published extensively on religion, communication, and international affairs.

https://www.g20interfaith.org/

Hi, I'm Angel.

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Our prayer is that this listening space brings growth and transforms your life forever.

Praise God for you, Marianne.

It's such a great pleasure to connect with you.

What part of the world are you in today?

I am in Utah in the United States and I live up in the mountains in Alpine.

Utah is so beautiful.

Oh my gosh, the parks, the mountains.

Oh my, yeah, your backdrop is beautiful.

Yeah, just by default.

Yeah, it is.

Very cool.

How did you come to meet Jesus?

Well, I was raised in a very spiritual family.

I was the oldest of 12 children and my parents just loved children.

But my father worked on Wall Street.

We were kind of, you know, the strange ones.

We lived in, you know, New York City area and my father worked on Wall Street.

My mother is a novelist, a nationally renowned novelist.

So we weren't the normal 12 children family.

We lived in Scarsdale just outside of the city.

And it was a wonderful way to live.

They just said, we're going to have children until it's not fun.

But it was always fun.

We just had fun.

And it was fun because of our faith.

And I think our faith just brought us together.

We were just best friends.

And so when I got married to my husband, who's also a faithful person, we had 12 children too, because it was fun.

It's amazing.

So and we do love serving in the community.

We love, you know, being a part of faithful communities, but also encouraging and helping others.

Over what period of time did you have your 12 children?

There's 22 years between my oldest and my youngest.

That was my full time job.

But I always took classes.

I love school.

I love school.

So I have four graduate degrees.

So I had my undergrad before I got married.

And then once I got married, and we started having children, I would just take classes, you know, graduate classes, you know, just one at a time.

And then the children when they were doing their homework, I would do my homework.

We just did homework together.

And then over the years, I just got a degree after a degree after a degree.

And then once they were all, you know, graduated themselves, I started getting involved as a professor.

So very cool.

What an amazing story.

How old is your youngest?

My baby's 26.

Wow.

So and my husband and I will be married 50 years next year.

How did he manage being in Wall Street and managing having 12 children?

My husband is a computational linguist.

Have you ever used Bing translator or Google Translate?

That's what he did for Microsoft.

So he has a PhD in computer science.

And then he was the first Microsoft researcher for Microsoft Research in the 1990s.

Then a few years into, you know, after he had been working for Microsoft for almost 20 years, we became missionaries.

We went to Sao Paulo, Brazil, and just lived there for three years, kind of supporting.

We lived right downtown in Sao Paulo, and just worked with the people, you know, supporting the people there.

My husband had been a missionary in Sao Paulo.

And I won't know in Brazil, southern Brazil, as a young man.

And so he had always dreamed of going back and helping, you know, the Brazilian people.

So we did that for three years.

And then we came back.

And now what he's doing is he's concerned about the countries in the world that are low resource languages, especially in Africa.

He's doing a lot of work in Africa right now, helping the African people to save their language.

So more and more, especially for the younger generation, they have to learn English to be able to survive.

You know what I'm saying?

Because with AI, everything is in English.

And so a lot of the languages are being lost, either that or they're, you know, people who don't have the English that are being left behind in terms of being able to find jobs, or, you know, keep up with AI and everything.

So he is working with all these people in Africa that speak English, but also speak another dialect.

And so he has them do a passage in their native language, and then in English, so there's mapping, so then he can help them translate it, you know, anything that they want.

So that's his passion right now, is working with all African low resource languages.

Given the time, which story would you share at this junction?

One of the big things and lessons I've learned in my life is that one person really can make a difference.

And I think all times, we look at the way things are going in the world and think, it's useless, it's hopeless, you know, how can I make a difference?

But I have such a strong feeling about the fact that we can.

And a lot of that is my story, because I'm just a mom.

I mean, I'm not anything special.

But I do feel that sometimes we don't give ourselves enough credit with, you know, when we go into our spiritual selves and really ask, what is it that you want me to do to the Lord, that we will be guided and directed to do things that we kind of never thought we could never thought we could accomplish.

So like I said, I had my 12 children, and I was mostly a stay at home mom.

I mean, I just stayed home.

I love learning.

I mean, that's just part of who I am.

So that's but that's just kind of, you know, like some women like to quilt, I think it's amazing.

Some people like to can and cook.

I you know, those are all things that I think are fabulous.

Mine is just I love to read.

I love to, you know, I love to study.

So I, after I was finished with my children, I was like, What am I supposed to do?

And just kind of it came to me that I needed to get one more degree.

And it was law school.

And I was in my late 60s.

And I'm like, what, you know, law school for me.

And the reason why was to go and get a degree in understanding of human rights law.

And the main thing that I gained as I got involved in human rights, international human rights law, was, you really do need to have that background to be able to understand how to change the law, and how to help with governments, because oftentimes we'll see a law and go that does not make sense.

And it doesn't make sense unless you understand the principles behind why why that law was made.

So my I guess my message is once I started doing that doors opened.

And now I have to admit the things that I get to do the people I get to work with, I was, you know, I've been multiple times working with the African Union helping with a lot of my my focus right now has been on artificial intelligence.

I've been working with the UN, trying to see what we can do to help third world countries have more access to artificial intelligence.

And, you know, with infrastructure and other ways, who would have thought that that would be me, you know what I'm saying, years ago.

And I do think that that's what happens when you prepare and then just ask the Lord, what am I supposed to do?

Would you say that God is debtor to no man?

Would you agree with that?

100%.

Which biblical character resonates the most with you and the life that you've lived?

If not a parallel mirror version of your life?

Um, I would say, Martha, in the New Testament, I'm a hard worker, you know, sometimes I maybe work too hard.

You know, like she she did sometimes, and then had to be reminded to slow down a little bit.

Five years from today, you're listening to this conversation.

What's a message you'd leave for future you?

Just keep busy.

In my 70s.

Now, I look at a lot of people who retire, but what does retirement mean?

Retirement for me means getting back to my spiritual roots, looking into what's most important.

So just don't forget what's most important.

I guess that's my, my message to my older self.

Amazing audience, of course, as you know, links in the show notes, if Mariana's voice has captivated you and your story, of course, I could not cover it all in 12 minutes.

Yeah, please go to the show notes, the links are there to connect you to have a conversation to follow up via message.

A pleasure, I treasure and thank you for being on what is inspired by 12 Minute Converse.