The Collins Family

Dear Friends,
 
Greetings from Ashland.  We got back safe and sound Sunday evening after visiting Elisa and Yury and the twins in North Carolina and then Nan¹s folks in Carrollton, Ohio.
 
The twins are well, for which we thank God.  Since Nancy and Elisa are medical people, they tend to see every hiccough in a worst-case scenario, so although health concerns arise, the boys are healthy and gaining weight quickly.
 
I said good bye to my students in Lima on July 14.  I don¹t plan to go back to Peru this year, since the training in Guatemala begins in October.  I¹m starting my ³summer break² a bit late (actually it¹s a winter break in Peru), but it certainly is a lovely time to be in Ohio. Nancy and I rode bikes last night on a nearby bike trail.  Delightful.
 
We¹re getting settled into our place here in Ashland. We¹ve got the phone and internet hooked up, so we¹re back in touch with friends and family.  You can reach us at 216-201-9130, the same number we use in Peru.  It is an internet phone and we pretty much take it everywhere we plan to settle for a while.
 
I had asked for prayer for Isaac¹s concert.  The group, Joy in Tomorrow, released their first full-length CD on July 7 to much fanfare, including a record executive and a film crew.  They are yet to hear of any offers, but they¹ve sold a lot of CD¹s and hope to be contacted in the next week or so.
May God use them in ministry through music and their concerts.  The guys in the band told me to thank you for your prayers.
 
Pray for Molly¹s health and spirit.  She is working harvesting crops in California together with Mexican immigrants.  This is not what we had in mind when she was awarded her degree in international business, but Molly has never taken the easy way in anything.  We pray that she¹ll join us all for some family time soon, probably in Raleigh.
 
Nan is well and has been busy helping Elisa with the twins (they were 6 weeks old this past Sunday), touching base with her parents and continuing to fix up our home in Ashland.
 
I have some projects that I can pursue locally, working on some articles for publication and preparing for the training program that starts up in October.  Pray for the application process for this program, called CLAVE, the Spanish acronym for the Applied linguistics course for minority language speakers (Curso de lingüística aplicada para lenguas vernáculas).  We have room for 20 speakers of minority languages, and we¹re working on details for faculty, student body, curriculum and all the details of training, housing, feeding (and entertaining) 30 people for four months.
 
The purpose of this training to is help native speakers of Amerindian languages to ³develop² their languages with literature, Scripture, drama, newspapers, comic books, dictionaries, all of which we feel helps to create an atmosphere where reading is cool and reading the Scriptures is possible.
Many people wonder if this is a good idea, and wouldn¹t they be better off learning Spanish. That¹s an interesting question, and one that i deal with pretty much every day, but an answer (at least my answer) will take a bit of space, so I¹ll send that next month.  Feel free to kick in with your comments between now and the middle of August, and I¹ll try to incorporate your concerns.
 
God¹s best to each one.  Nan and I are grandparents, so it goes without saying that I¹ll include an attached photo.  The hands are Elisa¹s.  The boys are, left to right, Lucas and Jacob.  Notice that both boys share their grandpa's receding hairline.
 
Blessings always.
 
Wes