Mark & Patti May-June 2023 Beans'talk

Download a printable version of the May-June 2023 Beans'talk with photos

Our plans or God’s?

Who looks at the year ahead and plans to be sick? Our plans certainly didn’t include Mark being down with pneumonia this month – first for a week at home followed by eight days in the hospital. After eliminating possible culprits via easier means, a couple lung biopsies and a bronchial wash uncovered the problem. He has a case of cryptogenic organizing pneumonia (COP). The switch from antibiotics to steroids is making a world of difference. Treatment is at least three months.

Our days are in God’s hands. We look to him rather than the passing circumstances that seem to interrupt our lives.

A re-run of one’s life

No energy to hold up a book and too fuzzy brained to listen to an audiobook, Mark was a captive audience. Re-playing situations and circumstances from the past, God reviewed times Mark or both of us were unkind, insensitive, inconsiderate and prideful.

It’s not that we meant to be that way. We were too self-absorbed, too insensitive to the feelings of others, too wrapped up in our own work and family. As a result, we were blind to the pain we caused others. God obviously wanted our attention, and putting one of us in bed was one way to get it.

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Mark & Patti May 2023 Prayer Requests

This month of May Mark is working through the books of Lamentations and Song of Songs for the Panao Quechua team. As always, pray for attention to detail and for being an encouragement to the team while helping them do the best job they can.

Our first grandson, Jeremiah, again needs prayer. He was recently diagnosed with MPAL, a type of leukemia. Immediately, that very same day, the medical team in Charleston started him on chemotherapy. Pray for the whole family to keep their thoughts fixed on God's trustworthiness and unfailing love no matter the circumstances. Jeremiah is 14.

Mark & Patti March-April 2023 Beans'talk

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Face to face

For two years now, Mark has been meeting weekly to mentor Antonio Pop, a Guatemalan believer whose first language is Tz’utujil. Antonio was a key translator working on getting the Bible into his language. The translation is about to go to press, so they are excited! Antonio has been to seminary. He was chosen by those who know him best as someone who should be mentored to become a translation consultant.

Up until now, all the training and practice Mark and Antonio have done together has been virtual. This week Mark and Antonio meet in person for the first time.

Training the next generation

As you read this, Mark is already in Peru. The two weeks of March 13-24, Mark and a number of other experienced consultants will be working with a cohort of 19 younger consultants-in-training from all over Latin America, including Antonio. This is taking place in greater Lima. A translation consultant carefully goes over the translation to check for accuracy and to help the team do the best job they can.

Checking a translation together

After their two weeks on the coast, Mark and Antonio will travel up to the mountains to work with the Panao Quechua team. The plan is to join them and take part in a “comprehension check” with members of the community. The books they hope to check are Leviticus, Obadiah and Haggai.

Ahead of that check, the Panao team has been busy wrapping up their responses to the notes that Mark and Antonio have already generated for those three books. Once everyone is happy, this comprehension check is the next step.

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Mark & Patti March 2023 Prayer Requests

Mark leaves for Peru late in the day March 10th. He will help lead a two week workshop outside of Lima for translation consultants-in-training from all over Latin America. They will be giving the students practice using the book of Jonah. 

Then, Mark and his mentee from Guatemala plan to spend a third week (March 26-31st) up in the mountains checking Scripture together for the Panao Quechua team. They hope to check Leviticus, Haggai and Obadiah. In addition to asking for God's favor in the training and checking processes, with close attention to details, pray too for the ability to travel freely to the places they plan to work.

Mark & Patti January-February 2023 Beans'talk

Download the January-February 2023 Beans'talk with photos here.

Big questions

There never seems to be a lack of big questions when translating. The latest come from Leviticus. Leviticus 10:10 gives the job description for the role of priest in the Old Testament:

You are to distinguish between the holy and the common, and between the unclean and the clean…

So, the big questions are:

What does it mean to be holy or common?

What about clean and unclean? Do these have anything to do with soap?

Helps for Leviticus

Mark has been checking the book of Leviticus for a team in Peru. It is clear that these terms are anything but clear to them. And no wonder. These are not categories central to our culture, either. However, to understand much of the Bible, it’s something we must learn.

Mark has been working on simple presentations to help explain these categories and the processes that move us from one of these states to another. There is holy and everything else, which is common. The common stuff can be either ceremonially clean or unclean. His work helps me. We pray that it also helps the men he comes alongside of as he checks their translation work. Pictured below are some people for whom Leviticus and the rest of the Old Testament is being translated.

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Mark & Patti January 2023 Prayer Requests

While Mark continues to do translation consulting for a couple teams, the big items this month are family related.

1. Our son Ernie arrives from Germany for a consultation at the Clinic on the 10th regarding a possible hernia surgery repair. Mark hasn't seen him in over 3 and half years. We're tickled to have him come!

2. The last half of January we hope to visit our daughter Emily and family in Australia. We're trusting that there will be unsold seats available on Delta to get there on standby and back in the slice of time between their staff meetings and the beginning of a new school year. Our prayer is to provide practical and emotional support to Emily, Blake and the boys while we're there.

Mark & Patti November-December 2022 Beans'talk

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Who knew! New gospel videos

We recently discovered that there are two new videos out in Quechua, resulting from a project we hadn’t heard of: The Lumo Project. Their goal is to make each of the four Gospels available in as many languages as possible with the unabridged Scripture as narration. They now have several Quechua versions posted on the web. Roughly half of them have the Gospel of Mark available, while the other half have the Gospel of Luke. Who knew!

Okay, so how did they do this?

Years ago, Faith Comes By Hearing made dramatized recordings of the New Testament. More recently, they partnered with the Bible Media Group to create the Lumo Project. The Lumo Project’s style of filming avoids having to lip-sync, making it fairly easy to insert different languages into the soundtrack. So, voilà, new videos!

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Mark & Patti November 2022 Prayer Requests

* Pray for Mark as he slowly works his way through the book of Genesis, checking it for the Panao Quechua translation team. It is a BIG book!

* Continue to pray for the new team of Bible sellers - that they would not shy from getting out to make God's word available in Quechua.

Mark & Patti September-October 2022 Beans'Talk

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Oh, for a heart to respond like this!

Our colleague in Peru, Rachel Yanac, taught through the book of Luke with Quechua ladies in her neighborhood. The Quechua women were amazed by every detail as they heard Scripture for the first time in their language. Before presenting chapter 21 which talks about Jesus’ return, Rachel did some extra study. She thought the grannies would be baffled by the difficult verses. Imagine her surprise when they heard the passage and their response was,

“Jesus is coming HERE! What are we going to feed him?”

The conversation that followed

As they considered their question, one granny planned to butcher her prize lamb, while another offered the guinea pigs she had been raising for special occasions. These delicacies would make a perfect meal for Jesus when he came to their homes.

These Quechua women live in houses with adobe walls and dirt floors, tiny windows that barely let in light, soot-darkened rooms from cooking fires where they had prepared meals for so many years. Not a single woman worried about how her house would look when Jesus came. Instead, they focused on what they saw as the obvious need—feeding the traveler when he arrived. And not just feeding him any old thing but offering their best.

Oh, that we might live expectantly, offering Jesus our best each day!

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Mark & Patti October 2022 Prayer Requests

Praise: In September Mark completed the consultant check of 1 & 2 Thessalonians, 1, 2 & 3 John, and Jude for the Sihuas Quechua team. He also checked Hosea, Micah and Joel for the Panao Quechua team. Then, via the internet he "sat in with" the Panao team for 7 days while they read those books with people who weren't involved in the translation, in order to see how well they understood them. That gave rise to more observations and improvements to the translation. Additionally, he's been tweaking computer programs to automate preparing an easy-to-follow report of spelling mistakes that he can present to the translation teams.

Pray: There's a lot of back and forth that goes on between a team and the consultant. Mark, as consultant, makes observations and suggestions. The team looks at each one and responds. Mark checks their response. Sometimes he can just say, "Great!" and move on to the next note. Other times, he needs to clarify the issue or make another suggestion. Pray for attention to detail and clarity.

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