Download the March 2017 Beans'talk with photos here.

A treasure hunt!

Between our annual conference and heading up to the mountains, we spent a Sunday looking for our old friend Severo and his wife Manuela in the sprawling outskirts of Lima. Years ago, they befriended us in Margos and eventually invited us to live next to them.

All we had was a map Severo drew for us a year and a half ago when we ran into him at a Quechua church convention. The map, not to scale, gave few street names and no numbers. It said to look for an empty lot used for playing soccer with stairs going up the mountainside just behind it.

We found something that matched that description. We made it to the top of the stairs and asked a woman sweeping in front of her house for Gloria Vega as indicated on the map. She lived just next door! Gloria is Severo’s daughter. Boy was she surprised to open her door and see us standing there!

We thought her parents must live close by, but it took another car, bus, and moto-taxi to get from her house to her parents’ place. It would have been extremely difficult to try to draw a map of where they lived.

The hunt was worth it! What a treat to be together again with Severo, Manuela, her mother and two more daughters.

Transplanted Quechua speakers

You can imagine how after many generations there simply would not be enough land left in the mountains to support all of one’s children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Thus, many young adults move from the mountains to the capital city to start a new life. In Severo’s new neighborhood perched on a rock-pile of a mountain outside of Lima there are people from all over the Margos area.

Spontaneous applause for God’s Word

Since most people work by day, the church there only meets in the evening. It was already getting dark and we had a long way togo to find our way back to the guesthouse, so Mark’s message from Psalm 19 in Quechua was brief. In the process of teaching, Mark quoted Hebrews 4:12. Just as he finished the verse the congregation burst out in spontaneous applause. It was surprising and FUN to see them react to God's word throughout the message.

Maria’s heart attacked

Maria, Severo’s youngest daughter, was 10 years old we moved next door. Now, at 41, Maria has lived over half of her life down near Lima, raising her three sons as Spanish speakers. The Sunday we visited she left the church service with us to help us find our way down to public transportation.

As we picked our way down the precipitous path, she commented how surprised she was listening to Mark’s message. She said every single word sunk in and entered my heart. Even though she uses Spanish all the time, she said she hadn’t realized how messages in Spanish sort of skim along the top of her head, not coming close to her heart. She was surprised how much more meaningful it was to listen to God’s word proclaimed in her mother tongue. What an encouragement to us. Even seemingly Spanish-ized people still understand God’s word better in their mother tongue.

Praises and Prayer Requests

* Praise: we had a very refreshing retreat, and Mark was thankful for the downtime available so he could finish getting ready to work with the translation team.

* Praise: he finished the parallel passages before we met with the team as well as got all the Bible studies tweaked and prepared for teaching later this month.

* Praise: for the good work accomplished with the translation team. More about that next month.

* Pray for good rapport with the pastors/students Mark will teach a course on the Bible Feb 20—25.

* Praise: Two Quechua guys from a local ministry are planning to attend Mark’s course so that they can teach it in the future. Pray that they will grasp the material clearly.

Thank you for so faithfully accompanying us along the way with your prayers and encouragement.

Mark and Patti Bean