Update from Mark and Patti Bean:
Translating God’s Word for Quechua speakers in central Peru
Eager to participate
Teaching kids the Bible in Quechua! As far as we know, it’s never been done in our area. So, we invited four people to a week-long seminar this month on how to hold a vacation Bible school in Quechua.
Hercelia really wanted to attend, but she was fifth on the list. When the fourth person didn’t show up by noon on Monday, there was a slot open for her! But, how could we get word to Hercelia that she could come? Step one: contact Alejandrina in Margos by phone. That takes two calls. The first is to the village phone to say that you’ll call back in 20 minutes. That’s enough time for someone to go to Alejandrina’s store to tell her to go to the village phone and wait for a call. Then, the second call is to actually talk to Alejandrina (if she is there). 
Step two: Alejandrina put a message for Her-celia on the radio because Hercelia lives in an-other village. A neighbor happened to be home listening to the radio and heard the message. She knew where Hercelia pastures her animals and –step three– hiked up nearly two hours to find her. Hercelia was so excited, but what to do with all her animals? Her 12 year old daughter said she’d get them all home. (hmm…not in school?) Hercelia flew down the mountain, found her husband, changed her clothes, grabbed her Bi-ble and then hiked 40 minutes over to Margos to find out exactly where to go once she ar-rived where the seminar was being held. A ve-hicle came by, she hopped in, and whoosh! She made it to Huanuco by six o’clock. That is re-cord time!
While a lot of the seminar was a bit in-timidating for her, back in her own envi-ronment Hercelia will do an excellent job.We made it: OT workshop in session
We are now one week into another three-week Old Testament workshop. But this time, we are holding it in a different city: in Huaraz. Nor-mally it is a two-day trip to get to Huaraz, go-ing down to the coast and then back up into the mountains by a different route. This time we decided to try the more direct overland route instead.
So, last Saturday we left home at 2:20am. After riding a bus, a moto-taxi (a motorcycle with a cart on back), a giant van, and another bus, six of us arrived safely in 
by 5:30pm. All the computer equipment we had with us made it safely, too.
Here we are! The facilities are quite nice. Here is a view of everyone from the five Quechua varieties working around the tables we bunched together.
Introduction to the Bible
This workshop the teams expect to finish adapting the Quechua Bible course Mark wrote called Introduction to the Bible. The course is in two volumes totaling almost eighty pages. 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 Tes-tament is old and worn out. Another option is to say First Testament and Later Testament.
Three generations of churches and still multiplying
As you may remember, Felipe is one of the men we work with in translation. He also pas-tors the church in the village of Chullay. The Chullay church has a daughter church up the mountain in the village of Andas. That church and the Chullay church started another church further up the mountain in the village of Niña Verde. Just the other weekend, all three churches hiked to a fourth village, Tuclish, at the invitation of the local officials. They held all-night meetings in the town square for the entire village. There is no church yet in Tu-clish…but someday, Lord willing, there will be!
Praise & Prayers
• Pray for the five teams this workshop as they begin with Psalm 78 and hope to get to Psalm 119. This workshop runs through December 4th.
• Pray for Hercelia, Susana, Lucila and Francisco, the four we invited to the VBS seminar. No-vember 21st and November 28th they will be passing on what they learned to (hopefully) eight others. The plan is to form four teams and hold VBS in eight villages this “summer” (Jan-Feb).
• Praise the Lord with us for the opportunity to spend two weeks at Christmas with most of our kids! Andy, Rachel and grandson Jeremiah don’t expect any time off so we will stop by their house in Texas on our way up to Ohio. We will be traveling on the 20th, and will wait to write again so we can include family photos in our next letter. We are thankful for each one of you.
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Mark & Patti Bean
Address for personal mail: Mark and Patti Bean Apartado 345 Huánuco, PERU
Email: mark_bean@sil.org or patti_bean@sil.org
