Mark & Patti May 2025 Prayer Requests

* Pray for refreshment for our daughter-in-law Rachel who is exhausted from the stress of dealing with her son Jeremiah's leukemia the past two years. Pray for Patti and son Andy as they team up to keep life humming at home with Jeremiah, Matthew and Hannah while their mom is whisked away by her sister and mom for a week.

*May 5 through 24th is another translation workshop for the four central Peruvian Quechua teams. Pray for Mark as he teaches, guides and checks the work they plan to do covering Genesis 33-44 and the books of Ruth and Jonah. It's a lot of concentration, especially when done at a distance.

*Mark is still helping the Panatawa Quechua team work through 1 Samuel. Pray for the teams in Peru to be impacted by God's word as they work at getting it into their language.

*Praise for the gift of a couple weeks with our son and his family (E&J) as they ended up in the States for paperwork/visa issues. Praise that they are back in their country of service.

Mark & Patti April 2025 Prayer Requests

*Pray for Patti to be an encouragement the weekend of April 4-when she will be in Dallas helping establish a "Share-the-Care" group for Mark's sister Margaret. Patti writes, "Margaret and I have a special relationship. I had the privilege of discipling her through college and being good friends with her before Mark and I realized we were more than just friends." Now Margaret anticipates needing more help as she enters what may be the home stretch of her cancer journey. Pray that God will put together a great team to help Margaret in the months ahead.

*Pray for the eight Quechua pastors that Mark worked with last month (March) and will be working with again next month (May). Pray for God's word to impact their lives and ministries as they interact with it daily. This month they are in their respective communities reading and hopefully teaching the chapters that they just translated in March.

March-April 2025 Beans'Talk

Download a printable version of the Beans'Talk.

We wrote the previous Beans’Talk from Peru where Mark was involved in a translation workshop. The subsequent workshop is taking place right now and Mark “attends” from his computer in Ohio.

On the big screen

The Oscars came and went. We don’t follow them. But here’s Mark’s version of being on the big screen. This is what he looks like for those who are in Peru. Being on a screen (actually, just a wall) is not the same as being there in person, but at least it’s something. The new equipment is making it much easier to participate from a distance.

The pot is having trouble

It was day one of the workshop and time to start. Mark checked in with the team of men in Peru, eager to see how the new equipment would work. Unlike many of their latino-countrymen, Quechua speakers often start meetings, even church services, ahead of time. But, here they were all still sitting around the breakfast table laughing and having a great time. It turns out they were still waiting for their breakfast: a hearty soup and piles of potatoes. The holdup? “The pot is having trouble coming to a boil!” What a nice way to avoid embarassing anyone, or casting blame!

Rather than feel stressed about the delay, our friends were enjoying catching up with each other. A late breakfast was the pot’s problem, not theirs. We’re glad they are getting along and forming a team. Subsequent mornings they started on time or early.

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