Dear and good friends,
Greetings from lovely Ohio. We're expecting snow flurries today. Nan and I are gearing up to head to Raleigh on Sunday (tomorrow)and from there on to Guatemala for the kick-off of CLAVE, which is slated to start on October 26 and run for 18 weeks, with two weeks off for Christmas.
You may recall that Nan and I have worked for the last four years in a program called CILTA, the "International course for linguistics, translation and literacy." The course is very intensive and aims to give native Spanish speakers the linguistic skills and attitude we think they'll need to work cross culturally in a language-based ministry. Most of our students are planning to do Bible translation or literacy work. They are wonderful people, highly motivated and especially good students.
Next week we're headed not back to Peru, where CILTA takes place, but Guatemala, where we will work directly with speakers of indigenous languages. This program is sort of a spin-off of CILTA, but with a different audience, and a different focus. The languages spoken natively by these students are all endangered in the sense that if a generation determines that Spanish is more valuable than Mam or Aguaruna or Quechua, children will switch to Spanish and the languages and cultures will be lost- along with the treasures locked up within them. You've probably heard or read me rant and rave about just such issues. The program for Indians is called CLAVE (Applied linguistics course for speakers of minority languages). More on that next month once we see how it goes.
Imagine that you had only two books in your language, a "See Spot run" primer and a New Testament. If these are the only two titles in your languag, a few things become clear. It's unlikely that you read your language well, something which takes hundreds of hours and dozens and dozens of books to perfect. It¹s also likely that you have entertained the notion of "What's the use?" Why bother learning to read a language with only two books in it?
So even though potential readers would be able to understand the Scriptures much better in their heart language, the lack of literature in that language, and the lack of deeply seated reading ability reduce the likelihood that speakers of such languages would learn to read well. So the Scriptures sit silently while possible readers don¹t even try.
So that's on the docket from now until the first of March. We hope to encourage and help speakers of such languages to develop literature: folklore, wisdom of the elders, technical articles, health articles, Bible study materials- all things that will raise the prestige of the local language and promote reading as a cultural value. That¹s the goal. I'll keep you posted.
Elisa and the twins. They are doing well as is papa Yury. We plan to see them, Lord enabling, before heading to Guatemala.
Molly is back to nannying. A business couple was looking for someone who was musical, bilingual, artistic and fascinating. That¹s Molly. She's still in the Portland area and glad to be working with two little boys five and three years old.
We'd appreciate prayer for the kids and for us. The moving and travel may sound exciting, but sitting home by the fire sounds pretty exciting to me most cool evenings.
Please pray for CLAVE, the administration of the program, the students, profs and everything else. There are hundreds of details to tend to.
Pray for Nan's health in Guatemala. She has often felt quite a bit less than 100% due to intestinal issues in our many years living there in the past.
Thanks much.
Wes and Nancy Collins
