Friends,
Greetings from Peru.
It is kicking into fall here and we're enjoying cooler weather. At least I am. Nancy loves it hot, which makes Lima nice for her about two months of the year, March and April. January and February are hot too, but classes start in mid-March so she gets to enjoy <Ohio> weather in January and February, rather than Lima weather.
School is off to a good start. We've got five weeks in the books and students are starting to figure things out after wandering in the dark for a good while. That's sort of how linguistics seems to work. Our students hail from Mexico, El Salvador, Colombia, Peru, Chile and Argentina, and the different accents are quite a hoot.
As most of you know, Nan and I are at CILTA, a training program for native Spanish speakers aimed at helping them learn the linguistic skills needed for cross-cultural ministry. We're starting our fourth year here. We've had 42 students so far, most of whom are working in villages around the hemisphere, although some are in Asia , Africa and the Pacific. Our students basically want to work as Bible translators or in some kind of community development ministry, particularly literacy. Virtually all of them want to work with speakers of minority languages.
In 2006 (our first year in Peru), there weren't enough students to hold regular CILTA training, so we held a training program in order to directly serve Amerindians. There were 15 different native languages represented, although each student also spoke Spanish. The training we offered was aimed at helping native speakers of minority languages to work on projects and publications in order to help promote reading in their native languages.
Our main purpose is to try to create an atmosphere in which the Scriptures will be read and understood in the "vernacular." As I've said many times, a "See Spot run" primer and a New Testament do not constitute enough reading material for literacy to become a people movement, which is what we're after--moving people.
The 2006 program was so successful that our indigenous colleagues have been asking us to repeat it. Well now it looks like that will happen, Lord enabling--in Guatemala of all places. This is scheduled for late October
2009 through February (with two weeks off for Christmas). I've been asked to lead this, which sounds like something right up my alley, so I've agreed.
This will have repercussions for our work in Peru, but I will still be able to teach here at least part of the year. Details are a bit sketchy, so I'd like to ask for prayer for this to get worked out and to happen. We've got lots of things to get done and thought through before these classes can begin.
Another prayer request is for our <mamacita> to be, Elisa. She is now great with children, twin boys, but still two months from probable delivery, assuming everything goes well. This is a lot to assume, of course, so we would all appreciate prayer for her to carry these babies as close to full term as possible. Her official due date is July 3, but Nan (the resident
expert) is thinking they'll arrive early. Amalia and Isaac are excited about being aunt and uncle and plan to visit soon after the boys' arrival.
I get to see Isaac in just a few days. Some colleagues and I have been asked to present a paper at a linguistics conference in Albuquerque. Nan will hold the fort here in Lima, but my return flight overnights in Atlanta, so Isaac and I plan to hang out for a full 24 hours. He says that there is hopeful news concerning the band, so we'd appreciate prayer for them that their music would touch young people for Christ. My younger brother, Miller, and his wife, Kathi, live close to Albuquerque (at least a whole lot closer than they live to South America, so I'm looking forward to seeing them as well, and perhaps my mom's lone living sibling, my Uncle Tim and his wife, Sarah. That would be wonderful.
And I'd appreciate prayer for the opportunity we've got to present this paper. As you know, SIL is an academic organization made up of Christians and this puts us at odds with most of the academic world which holds cultural relativism in high regard--that all cultures have the right to determine what is right and wrong for them, and that we have no right to impose our view of life or faith or God on anyone much less on innocent cultures without the wherewithal to resist our heavy-handed ways. But anthropologists get stuck in a corner on this, because we all believe that infanticide, the sexual abuse of children, and ritual wife burning are wrong, no matter what culture we belong to. So maybe scholars do believe in some absolutes after all. Would you pray that on the academic side of things, we would be responsible scholars and that most of all we would be be faithful to God and His calling on us and in the opportunities he gives us to meet lots of people interested in what we're interested in. Our presentation is Thursday afternoon from 1:30-3:00 Mountain time.
Nancy and I are well and I continue to rejoice in the wife of my youth. She also keeps the wheels on the CILTA budget and the linguistics and anthropology library as well as our own finances. Plus she keeps a running conversation with Elisa about being pregnant (Elisa's pregnant, not Nancy).
And we do our best to keep up with Amalia and Isaac. We're grateful that they are healthy and well and Godly young adults.
Thanks to all of you for your prayers of many years.
Best.
Wes and Nancy
