The Bean Family

The Bean Family

Event
03/20/19

Beans'Talk April 2019

Jesus spoke about shepherds saying “The sheep recognize his voice and come to him. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.” Then he added: “I am the good shepherd; I know my own sheep and they know me.” John 10:3b,14 (NLT)

 Good shepherds

Quechua speakers can relate to the verses above. They shepherd their sheep daily. What is different is that instead of leading their sheep as described in the Gospel of John, Quechua speakers drive them from behind as seen in the photo.

But many practices are the same. They watch over and care for their sheep. They even give their sheep names. They say their sheep only respond to the voice of their shepherd. They ignore anyone else calling their name. So, when we translated John 10 (see above), they said, “That’s how it is for us, too!” Oh, don’t you wish we could be so attuned to our Good Shepherd’s voice that we would pay attention only to him!

Answers to your prayers

Hear me as I pray, O Lord. Be merciful and answer me! Psalm 27:7 (NLT)

That’s exactly what he’s done! Here are just a few examples of his recent mercy in answering your prayers. First of all, we asked you to pray for different churches to come up with dedication dates. We now have some dates!

Save the date!

Three consecutive weekends in August are booked with Bible dedications. The first one is a big one in Huaraz on Saturday the 10th of August. This is your invitation to consider coming to be part of the celebration. If you are interested in attending, please send us an email and we’ll send you information. We are thankful for our colleagues, Ade and Rachel. Ade and Rachel live right in Huaraz and will be taking care of the logistics. Huaraz is an easy city to get to. Because of all the tourism there, it’s also an easy place to host lots of guests as well as have fun activities for people to do as they acclimate to the high altitude. Ade and Rachel will also offer some trips for people who want do some sight-seeing in the area. So, drop us a note and we’ll get you started.

God encourages and motivates

In addition to praying for Bible dedication dates, we’ve also asked for prayer that we would be used by God to encourage others as we speak. Just last week we heard that a youth group got excited after we spoke to them. They decided to set aside time the first Sunday of each month to focus on missions.

Our trip earlier this month resulted in a number of people writing or verbally giving super positive feedback. God’s at work. What a privilege to play a tiny part in highlighting what he’s doing in the world.

Cutting out cancer

Thank you for praying for our daughter. On March 13th a surgeon removed the right half of her thyroid which included several cancerous nodules. The doctor believes the surrounding tissue is clear and cancer-free.

Pray for Emily’s post-op recuperation as she’s pretty uncomfortable right now. The biggest prayer request is for balancing the meds she’ll need to take from here on to keep her hormone levels steady. Pray that this intervention will also help with symptoms that were previously thought to be related to her having Lyme disease.

Praises and prayer requests

Praise the Lord: Each day he carries us in his arms (Psalm 68:19b).

Praise: for so many answers to prayer, and particularly for the fact that there are three Quechua Bibles being printed right now. Pray that nothing hinders them as they are boxed up and shipped to Peru.

Praise: We have the opportunity to travel next week to be on hand for the arrival of grandchild #7, Ernie and Sarah’s third child. Pray particularly for Mark to have special grandpa times with the boys while staying healthy.

Mark & Patti

Download the April Beans'Talk in a printable form here.