Download the July 2014 Beans'talk with photos here.

Utcubamba

The little congregation at Utcubamba has no pastor. So, Felipe and his wife took public transportation as far as they could and then walked uphill two and a half hours to spend the weekend with the church there. It was the church’s anniversary. The villagers were so thankful to have someone show up to help them celebrate.

What follows are a couple stories that Felipe told us from that weekend. It makes a difference when God’s word is in your own language.

Repentant tears

One evening Felipe taught the first ten verses of Galatians chapter six. The passage talks about our relationships and behavior, particularly with other believers.

A man named Moisés was listening. He was not only listening to Felipe, but he was listening to the Holy Spirit as well. He was so convicted of his un-Christlike behavior towards fellow believers that he got up from the bench he was sitting on, went over to two people in the congregation whom he had mistreated and publicly asked for their forgiveness. His weren’t the only tears shed during the service.

Joyful Tears

For another message, Felipe taught from Hebrews chapter 4. Maria and Santosa, two women whose lives are burdened with cares right now, wept upon hearing a message of hope. In spite of their current sufferings and troubles, they were both encouraged that God has a rest promised for them. They determined to keep on “keeping on;” following Jesus and continuing to believe God’s promises.

God gets them home

As soon as church was out on Sunday, Felipe and his wife started hiking back down to the road. They needed to get back that same day in order for Felipe to be at work Monday morning. The only money Felipe had with him was the $1.80 cash offering they’d been given. Most of the offering was in the form of a sack of potatoes. But, it was too heavy for Felipe to carry so far.

What were they going to do? It had cost them $5.50 to get up and now they didn’t have enough money to make it home. For a long time it looked like that was a moot problem: there was not a single car headed back down to the city.

Finally, an engineer with some buddies in a company truck drove by. After some persuasion, the driver reluctantly let Felipe and his wife Evarista climb in back. On the trip down, Felipe visited with a young man, telling him what they had been doing. When they arrived down in Huánuco the young man said, “We’re not going to charge you for this ride. You’re doing God’s work!” What a relief! What a blessing!

Praises and Prayer Requests

? June 30–July 18th is the next translation workshop. Pray for the NT revision group as they finish up Acts then do 1 Corinthians. Pray for the OT revision group, too: the plan is to have them start recording Genesis as a way to check the translation.

? Praise: Once again, thank you for praying for Mark as he’s worked on the supporting programs to be able to adapt the translation to and from a number of possible orthographies, as well as to find any spelling errors. Now pray as they wrestle with deciding which spelling system to actually use. This coming workshop the men will be reading their chapters in an orthography they haven’t used before to begin to prepare for a possible shift.

? Praise: there are three new green squares on the chart! Joshua, Judges and Ruth.

Counting on your prayers!

Mark & Patti Bean