I got a quick request for prayer from Ismael, a former student. You may remember that Nan and I were in Guatemala from October of last year until March. I taught several courses to native speakers of Indian languages from several different countries in the Americas. One of my students from that course is a university student in Bogota, Colombia. He is headed back to his home village during these days between semesters. He is one of just a very few Christians in his entire language group. He has heard that village elders have looked on his conversion to Christianity as a very bad thing and that they plan to reign him in and force him to return to the religion of his ancestors. He says that he is willing to die for his faith.
Greetings from cool, gray Lima. Nancy considers it cold and dreary, whereas I see it as an opportunity for the students to stay indoors and study. Judging from their phonology midterm, some did just that, while others may have spent a bit too much time outside coping with the cold. You might wonder what phonology has to do with Bible translation. Well, phonology is the systematic study of the sounds of language, partly how to identify and repeat them, and partly how to fit them into an alphabet. Both parts of this equation are important. To translate well, one must speak, and not just have an academic knowledge, of the language one is translating into.
Classes at CILTA have entered their second month. There are 16 students from 10 different Latin American countries. The training is intense. Pray that students not only thrive academically, but that they would see God's purpose in their training for cross-cultural ministries that each student aspires to.
Since the time of William Carey and other patriarchs of modern cross-cultural missions, the work has in large part been financed and carried out by believers in the West--Britain and western Europe, the US, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Today many countries that historically have "received" missionaries, are now "sending" missionaries--especially countries like India, Nigeria, Korea, and many Latin American countries. This appears to be an irreversible trend as a greater and greater percentage of cross-cultural missionaries now hail from the "third world." This is an exciting and noteworthy occurrence, one fraught with new challenges and issues.
The training and equipping of these missionaries has often taken place in the West with English as the medium of instruction, since the West is where the support and vision for mission has historically arisen. But this is changing. Today mission leaders and missionary young people are asking that training occur more locally and in languages other than English.
Wycliffe has tried to help answer this call by offering training at sites around the world in languages such as French, German, Portuguese, Indonesian and Spanish. The center for Wycliffe's Spanish training is Ricardo Palma University in Lima, Perú, where a year-long program called CILTA (Intensive course for linguistics, translation and literacy) is offered. We presently have 17 students from four countries studying topics that will be beneficial to them in their lives and ministries. For a closer look at the program, go to www.sil.org. 2006 marks the fourth year for the course, which has trained, thus far, over 40 students now working in languages and countries around the world.
Wes & Nancy are receiving partial financial support from Parkside.
The Collins Family
Coordinator Name
Wes & Nancy
Location
Peru
About
Wes and Nancy are members of Wycliffe Bible Translators.
Contact Information
CILTA, C.P. #112
Calle Artesanos 150, Int. #151
Lima 33, Peru
South America
