Collins Family July 2015 Prayer Requests

Wes and Nancy just returned from Peru where Wes taught a semantics course to missionary candidates studying to be Bible translators. Pray that these students continue to learn and that they would soon make it to the field to serve indigenous, minority groups.

The Collins are very much looking forward to being at Parkside on July 5. Stop and see them at the Missions table or during their Missions Moment in Room 212 during the 9:45 service.

Missions Moment with Wes & Nancy Collins

Location: Room 212
Start Time: Sun 5, July 2015, 12:45 p.m.
End Time: Sun 5, July 2015, 1:45 p.m.

Join Parkside missionaries Wes & Nancy Collins on July 5 at 9:45am in Room 212 to hear an update on their ministry with Wycliffe Bible Translators, which takes them to Guatemala, Peru, and beyond.

Collins Family May 2015 Update

Download the Collins' May 2015 letter with photos here.

Dear ones,

Greetings from Lima. Nancy was with me for a month and just returned to North Carolina and a lovely spring. Actually they don’t do much spring in North Carolina. It goes from winter (which isn’t much either) directly to summer and then it stays summer until pretty much November, when people plant pansies, which begin to flourish in February. I understand that Ohio’s winter was pretty robust this year.

I’m teaching a cohort of nine students, seven of whom are from Argentina. The other two are Mexicans, with additional profs and TAs from the US, El Salvador, Guatemala and Peru. It’s like International Day every day around here. The program is called CILTA (International Course for Linguistics, Translation and Literacy) and it is run in conjunction with a local Peruvian university.

Collins Family May 2015 Prayer Requests

Hi friends,

Thanks for your prayers. Here are two prayer requests.

1. Wes and Nancy Collins are in Peru for two months of CILTA where Latino missionary candidates are getting training in basic linguistics to be able to engage another culture and to work as Bible translators. Pray that the students learn lots.

2. The training of Latino students is only part of the mission task. Pray for interest, prayer and support among students’ families, friends and churches, so that trained students can actually get to the field and stay there.

Collins Family April 2015 Update

Download the Collins Family April 2015 Update with photo here.

Dear and good friends,

Greetings from Wake Forest. We’ve been busy, and we’re looking forward to leaving in a few weeks for two months in Peru where I’ll be teaching a semantics course—a course on meaning—to ten Latino students interested in cross-cultural ministry. I know that a course on meaning sounds a bit bizarre, as if “meaning” were some kind of transcendental category, or perhaps some sort of weird blob that you can dissect and study. But it is indeed kind of complicated. Here’s an example.

Let’s say you go to Bob’s house to pick up him and his wife for dinner. When you arrive you see the emergency squad in the driveway with lights flashing, and you figure something is up. You ask, “Are we still on for dinner?” and Bob says, “Our son is really sick.” In this context, the sentence “Our son is really sick.” means basically, “No, we’re not still on for dinner.” So there are two levels of meaning here, the actual meaning of the sentence that was uttered (that the son is really sick) and then what it means in this specific context (no, we’re not going to dinner).

Collins Family March 2015 Prayer Requests

Here are a few prayer requests for us.

1. Nancy and I leave in mid-March for Lima Peru where Wes will again teach linguistic skills to Latino missionary candidates. Pray that the students would see the importance of language skills for cross-cultural ministry, and that they would work hard to develop them.

2. Wes and Nancy completed a New Testament translation in Mam many years ago. Today a small group of Indians is working on a translation of the Old Testament. Pray for their tenacity and enthusiasm and that the Collinses would get to spend time with them for their encouragement and for consultation.

Collins 2014 in Retrospect

Download the Collins 2014 in Retrospect letter here.

Dear and good friends,

I have attached our year in review as a PDF file.

Blessings to you all and Happy 2015.

Wes and Nancy

Collins Family January 2015 Prayer Requests

Praise God for a great trip to Guatemala in late November. Work by Mam speakers is moving ahead in both Old Testament translation and literacy training.

Wes and Nancy plan to visit their daughter Amalia and family in Hawaii for two weeks in late January. Amalia is expecting her second daughter.  Pray for health and much joy.

Thanks much,

Wes

Collins Family December 2014 Prayer Requests

Dear ones,

Greetings from North Carolina Here are two prayer requests:

1. Our daughter Amalia lives in Hawaii where she and her family work a small organic farm. They are dangerously close to the lava flow that has been in the news for the last few months. Pray that their property would be spared, that they would not be cut off from lava flowing over important roads, and that God would be real to them under duress.

Collins November 2014 Update

Dear and good friends,

Greetings from North Carolina where it is feeling more and more like fall. No frost yet, but it won’t be long. I was surprised to read recently that the five best places for fall colors in the nation are New Hampshire, Vermont, Upstate New York, Colorado and the Blue Ridge mountains in western North Carolina (Ashland, Ohio would, no doubt, have been 6th). I’m not sure how “best color” is measured?probably via donations to the local Chamber of Commerce, but it is what it is, as they increasingly say.