The Bean Family

The Bean Family

Event
08/20/16

Beans'Talk September 2016

Download the September 2016 Beans'Talk with photos here.

 

Is your God my God?

Back in 1988 we helped facilitate a music festival in the village of Margos. We wanted to encourage the use and writing of praise songs in Quechua. There was lots of participation.

Town officials were included on the program. One warmly welcomed visitors. Included in his welcome he commended to us the time to worship God.

In Quechua the most common way to speak about God is to say “our God.” However, instead of mentioning the time to worship “our God,” this official said, “your God.” Immediately a murmur rippled through the crowd.

Because of the way Quechua works, that phrase essentially meant, “your God, but not my God.” So what was meant to be a welcome ended up being, at best, an embarrasment.

That works well for Pharoah

In Quechua when Pharoah says, “I will let you go to sacrifice to the Lord your God in the wilderness,” it is clear that God is the God of the Israelites, but not Pharoah’s God. It works for any pagan ruler to say your God.

But what about the prophets?

On the other hand, numerous times men of God address the people of Israel and say, “the Lord your God.” In the book of Deuteronomy, Moses frequently uses that phrase: “The Lord your God has blessed you, …has carried you, …goes before you.”

This will not work in Quechua because Moses, like the town official at the music festival, would essentially be saying, he’s your God, but not my God. So, in these passages the Quechua version says, “The Lord our God has blessed us, …has carried us, …goes before us.”

Couches versus sofas

In taking a break from working on parallel passages (explained last month), Mark started to tackle his personal list of things to check. Most of the 900-plus items on his list are things that came up in workshop settings but would have been too time consuming to complete at the moment. For example, when a team says something like, “make sure all instances of X say Y, not X,” he would add it to his list. To give a trivial example, suppose that a team said something like, “Mark, instead of the word couch, we want it to say sofa. So, Mark would add to his list, “check for any stray couches and make sure they say sofa.”

One item on the list is to check all instances of the Lord your God to be sure that they communicate correctly for the six Bibles we are preparing.

Steadily chipping away

Each day Mark gives me a report of what he’s worked on that day. Each item on his personal list is a mini-project in itself. Praise God for daily forward progress.

Praises and Prayer Requests

Praise: Working as a consultant, Mark finished the check of Luke for two Quechua varieties that our colleagues work in. He got back to them with his observations in plenty of time for their upcoming workshop.

Keep praying: for sustained attention to detail so that these finished Bibles will be well done.

* Although we continue working in the States, in September we both have commitments in Peru. Pray that we would be effective communicators and encourage those God places around us.

  • September 9–16 Patti will be part of a team leading a workshop outside of Lima for Peruvian colleagues.
  • September 16–18 Mark will be teaching Quechua pastors in a provincial capital.
  • September 22–25 Mark will be the speaker at a “convention” of Quechua churches in another town.

Thanks for supporting us as we keep chipping away.

Mark & Patti Bean