The Bean Family

The Bean Family

Recent Blogposts

  • Mark & Patti March-April 2023 Beans'talk

    Download the March-April 2023 Beans'talk with photos.

    Face to face

    For two years now, Mark has been meeting weekly to mentor Antonio Pop, a Guatemalan believer whose first language is Tz’utujil. Antonio was a key translator working on getting the Bible into his language. The translation is about to go to press, so they are excited! Antonio has been to seminary. He was chosen by those who know him best as someone who should be mentored to become a translation consultant.

    Up until now, all the training and practice Mark and Antonio have done together has been virtual. This week Mark and Antonio meet in person for the first time.

    Training the next generation

    As you read this, Mark is already in Peru. The two weeks of March 13-24, Mark and a number of other experienced consultants will be working with a cohort of 19 younger consultants-in-training from all over Latin America, including Antonio. This is taking place in greater Lima. A translation consultant carefully goes over the translation to check for accuracy and to help the team do the best job they can.

    Checking a translation together

    After their two weeks on the coast, Mark and Antonio will travel up to the mountains to work with the Panao Quechua team. The plan is to join them and take part in a “comprehension check” with members of the community. The books they hope to check are Leviticus, Obadiah and Haggai.

    Ahead of that check, the Panao team has been busy wrapping up their responses to the notes that Mark and Antonio have already generated for those three books. Once everyone is happy, this comprehension check is the next step.

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  • Mark & Patti March 2023 Prayer Requests

    Mark leaves for Peru late in the day March 10th. He will help lead a two week workshop outside of Lima for translation consultants-in-training from all over Latin America. They will be giving the students practice using the book of Jonah. 

     

    Then, Mark and his mentee from Guatemala plan to spend a third week (March 26-31st) up in the mountains checking Scripture together for the Panao Quechua team. They hope to check Leviticus, Haggai and Obadiah. In addition to asking for God's favor in the training and checking processes, with close attention to details, pray too for the ability to travel freely to the places they plan to work.

  • Mark & Patti January-February 2023 Beans'talk

    Download the January-February 2023 Beans'talk with photos here.


    Big questions

    There never seems to be a lack of big questions when translating. The latest come from Leviticus. Leviticus 10:10 gives the job description for the role of priest in the Old Testament:

    You are to distinguish between the holy and the common, and between the unclean and the clean

    So, the big questions are:

    What does it mean to be holy or common?

    What about clean and unclean? Do these have anything to do with soap?

    Helps for Leviticus

    Mark has been checking the book of Leviticus for a team in Peru. It is clear that these terms are anything but clear to them. And no wonder. These are not categories central to our culture, either. However, to understand much of the Bible, it’s something we must learn.

    Mark has been working on simple presentations to help explain these categories and the processes that move us from one of these states to another. There is holy and everything else, which is common. The common stuff can be either ceremonially clean or unclean. His work helps me. We pray that it also helps the men he comes alongside of as he checks their translation work. Pictured below are some people for whom Leviticus and the rest of the Old Testament is being translated.

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  • Mark & Patti January 2023 Prayer Requests

    While Mark continues to do translation consulting for a couple teams, the big items this month are family related.

    1. Our son Ernie arrives from Germany for a consultation at the Clinic on the 10th regarding a possible hernia surgery repair. Mark hasn't seen him in over 3 and half years. We're tickled to have him come!

    2. The last half of January we hope to visit our daughter Emily and family in Australia. We're trusting that there will be unsold seats available on Delta to get there on standby and back in the slice of time between their staff meetings and the beginning of a new school year. Our prayer is to provide practical and emotional support to Emily, Blake and the boys while we're there.

  • Mark & Patti November-December 2022 Beans'talk

    Download the November-December Beans'talk here.

     

    Who knew! New gospel videos

    We recently discovered that there are two new videos out in Quechua, resulting from a project we hadn’t heard of: The Lumo Project. Their goal is to make each of the four Gospels available in as many languages as possible with the unabridged Scripture as narration. They now have several Quechua versions posted on the web. Roughly half of them have the Gospel of Mark available, while the other half have the Gospel of Luke. Who knew!

     

    Okay, so how did they do this?

    Years ago, Faith Comes By Hearing made dramatized recordings of the New Testament. More recently, they partnered with the Bible Media Group to create the Lumo Project. The Lumo Project’s style of filming avoids having to lip-sync, making it fairly easy to insert different languages into the soundtrack. So, voilà, new videos!

     

    Read more....

  • Mark & Patti November 2022 Prayer Requests

    * Pray for Mark as he slowly works his way through the book of Genesis, checking it for the Panao Quechua translation team. It is a BIG book!

    * Continue to pray for the new team of Bible sellers - that they would not shy from getting out to make God's word available in Quechua.

  • Mark & Patti September-October 2022 Beans'Talk

    Download the September-October 2022 Beans'Talk


    Oh, for a heart to respond like this!

    Our colleague in Peru, Rachel Yanac, taught through the book of Luke with Quechua ladies in her neighborhood. The Quechua women were amazed by every detail as they heard Scripture for the first time in their language. Before presenting chapter 21 which talks about Jesus’ return, Rachel did some extra study. She thought the grannies would be baffled by the difficult verses. Imagine her surprise when they heard the passage and their response was,

    “Jesus is coming HERE! What are we going to feed him?”


    The conversation that followed

    As they considered their question, one granny planned to butcher her prize lamb, while another offered the guinea pigs she had been raising for special occasions. These delicacies would make a perfect meal for Jesus when he came to their homes.


    These Quechua women live in houses with adobe walls and dirt floors, tiny windows that barely let in light, soot-darkened rooms from cooking fires where they had prepared meals for so many years. Not a single woman worried about how her house would look when Jesus came. Instead, they focused on what they saw as the obvious need—feeding the traveler when he arrived. And not just feeding him any old thing but offering their best.

    Oh, that we might live expectantly, offering Jesus our best each day!

     Read more...

  • Mark & Patti October 2022 Prayer Requests

    Praise: In September Mark completed the consultant check of 1 & 2 Thessalonians, 1, 2 & 3 John, and Jude for the Sihuas Quechua team. He also checked Hosea, Micah and Joel for the Panao Quechua team. Then, via the internet he "sat in with" the Panao team for 7 days while they read those books with people who weren't involved in the translation, in order to see how well they understood them. That gave rise to more observations and improvements to the translation. Additionally, he's been tweaking computer programs to automate preparing an easy-to-follow report of spelling mistakes that he can present to the translation teams.

     

    Pray: There's a lot of back and forth that goes on between a team and the consultant. Mark, as consultant, makes observations and suggestions. The team looks at each one and responds. Mark checks their response. Sometimes he can just say, "Great!" and move on to the next note. Other times, he needs to clarify the issue or make another suggestion. Pray for attention to detail and clarity.

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  • Mark & Patti September 2022 Prayer Requests

    * This month, Mark has a lot of Scripture to check for the two projects he consults for. Pray for careful attention to detail as he works through their drafts of 1/2 Thess, 1/2/3 John, and Jude as well as Hosea, Micah, and Joel.

     

    * Continue to pray for God's word to be opened, read, and shared with others. May God's word do it's powerful work in the lives of Quechua speakers.

  • The Beans'Talk July/August 2022

    Download The Beans'Talk July/August 2022 with pictures.

     

    Encouragement from Peru

    It’s so good to hear bits of news from Peru:

    1.—Sihuas Quechua speakers now have access to the gospel of John in digital format. Mark has recently approved their gospel of Matthew and is gearing up to check a number of Paul’s letters for them.

    2.—The Huallaga Quechua team adapted a number of Bible studies from us. They held a two-day seminar to train pastors using the first book.

    3.—Mark is currently checking the books of Genesis and Micah for the Panao Quechua team. They recently organized a music event among a number of different churches to encourage more new praise music in Quechua.

    4.—Our colleague Ade and team in Huaraz are making trips out to remote areas of North and South Conchucos with summer missions teams from the States. They are getting copies of those respective Quechua Bibles out and into the hands of the Quechua speakers there. We are so thankful for all the different individuals and teams who keep working and reaching out, encouraging Quechua speakers by making God’s Word available and accessible.

    Encouragement on the home front

    There has also been plenty of encouragement on the home front. Key points include:

    Last chemo! Hurray!

    Mark finished his last chemo cycle for lymphoma the end of June. At one point we faced the possibility of 18 months of treatment, but in the end it was only six. We are thankful that he faired as well as he did and that it is now behind him.
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