Water that makes you float
All day long [your terrors] surround me like a flood; they have completely engulfed me. Psalm 88:17 NIV
The psalmist in Psalm 88 feels overwhelmed by troubles and terrors. He describes them at one point as floodwaters, threatening to drown him. Mark was surprised to see our Quechua colleagues translate “floodwaters” as “watersthat- make-you-float.”
“Wait!” he said. If you are floating, then you are safe. It is when you sink that you are in trouble!”
They reminded him that in the mountains, water is rarely deep and no one swims. If you were ever in water deep enough so that you could float, it would be truly terrifying!
For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him. Psalm 103:11 NIV
What would you understand if you read “purple as great as the height of the sky?” Sound a bit absurd? Colors don’t have size!
For a Quechua speaker, love can’t have size, either. So, how can we translate Psalm 103:11? How can God’s love be as high as the heavens are above the earth? Here’s our current try: God loves us so much that we can’t possibly comprehend it.
Trouble as heavy as stone
Stone is heavy and sand a burden, but provocation by a fool is heavier than both. Proverbs 27:3 NIV
Like love that can’t have size, provocation or trouble can’t have weight. It would sound ridiculous in Quechua to read in Proverbs 27:3 that the trouble caused by a fool is heavier than stone or sand.
Two language teams will try this for a solution: Just like it is hard to put up with the weight of a huge stone or big load of sand, it is hard to put up with the trouble of a fool.
Workshop in session: prayer needed
We are one week into another three-week Old Testament workshop. The five language teams just finished adapting Proverbs yesterday! Now they will go back to working on Psalms.
Continue to pray for the ten men and their families. Sumer arrived sad having just buried a close sister who died unexpectantly.
Enrique arrived thinking his grandmother would probably die any day. She did. He travelled all the way back home this weekend to be there for her funeral.
Felipe’s mother continues in much pain with no medical solution in sight. Pray for the health and safety of families left behind these three weeks. It is hard on husbands, fathers and sons to concentrate if they are worried about their loved ones.
Introduction to the Bible
This workshop the teams are beginning to adapt the Quechua Bible course Mark wrote, Introduction to the Bible. The course is in two volumes with about sixty pages total. It includes a chapter on the role of the Old Testament in schools and synagogues in Jesus’ day. One issue raised: how should we say Old Testament in Quechua? If we use the opposite of New Testament, it makes it sound like the Old Testament is old and worn out. Another option is to say First Testament and Later Testament.
Praise & Prayers
- The teams just finished stage three for Proverbs. They still have to do the community checks. Proverbs would now be colored yellow if the whole chart of translation progress were posted here.
- Pray for the mother-tongue translators and their families. The ten men working on the Old Testament are paired here by language: Pedro & Sumer, Saturnino & Felipe, Santos & Juan Julio, Timoteo & Enrique, Wilmer & Walter.
- The Quechua women’s annual retreat for the Margos area churches is coming up this next weekend, September 25–27th. Pray for Mark’s part in teaching.
- October 3rd & 4th Mark will be teaching all the pastors in the Margos area at the request of their denominational leaders.
- Starting October Walter will spend his afternoons supporting the Quechua work in other ways besides translation. Pray that God would lead us as we seek some younger men to be involved in translation process.
Thank you for your encouragement and prayers!
