Collins Family December 2017 Prayer Requests

1. CILTA students graduate on December 13. Pray for them as they seek assignments from their churches and mission agencies. They hope and plan to be involved in Bible translation and community development aimed at promoting the Scriptures among the cultures that speak the non-dominant languages of the world. Pray that they serve the Lord effectively and that they would be well supported and prayed for.

2. Nancy and Wes plan to visit their middle daughter, Amalia, and her husband and their two daughters this Christmas. Pray for the church’s missionary families. May the advent of Jesus be both a family and church celebration.

Collins Family November 2017 Prayer Requests

Pray for Byron. He is extremely active as a Mam pastor, literacy promoter and writer of Mam books; plus he has a weekly radio program and helps on the translation of the Mam Old Testament. He has good people with him, but leadership often falls to him. Pray for his health, his family, his Spirit, his strength, his vision and his motivation. Pray that he can attract some disciples to help share the load and the ministry.

Wes

Collins Family October 2017 Prayer Requests

1. The last week of the course I am teaching in Peru will be taught online from North Carolina, using some kind of face-time software. The course ends October 9. This is a first for me, and it may have repercussions for taking training far beyond the traditional classroom I presently have six students studying to be Bible translators.

2. After eight years of exclusively teaching latinos and gringos, SIL is sponsoring a linguistics introductory course for South American Indians who are working as Bible translators and literacy promotores. Dates are still flexible, but we’re starting to work on budget and curriculum. Pray that we give students what they need for translating into their own language.

Collins Family September 2017 Update

Download the Collins September 2017 Update with photos here.

Dear Friends,

Greetings from Lima, Peru. Nancy isn’t with me this trip. She and her sisters have been helping her mom, who just went through cancer surgery. She’s doing well. She starts 28 days of chemo on the 18th. She’s 89 and pretty spry.

I’m teaching a course called Discourse Analysis, which is a new course for us here at CILTA. In linguistics, discourse studies have to do with how to create and understand well formed arguments, stories, sermons, discussions, and any other conglomeration of words meant to communicate with others, be they listeners or readers—or even signers.

In Bible translation, this is complicated by the presence of at least three languages and their subsequent rules for good discourse. First there is our own language and the way we put things together in ordered fashion. Then there is the discourse structure of the original—either Greek or Hebrew. Then there is the “receiving culture,” those who receive and read the discourse. If you are interested in pursuing this, look at chapters 13 and 17 of Acts, where the Apostle Paul takes local culture and discourse and argument structure into consideration as he writes to two different audiences, Hebrew and Greek.

Collins Family September 2017 Prayer Requests

1. CILTA second semester has just gotten started. Students have a heavy load of classes. Pray for their motivation and understanding. Students come frm Argentina, Peru, Mexico, Venezuela, Costa Rica and the US (engaged to an Argentine).

2. Several students and class assistants are from Venezuela. They are heartbroken and deeply concerned about the situation in their home county. Yet the Venezuelan church continues to train and send young people into the field as Bible translators and cross-cultural workers. Pray for peace and rescue for their country.

Collins Family August 2017 Prayer Requests

1. Pray for the (Guatemalan) Mam Old Testament project underway via a team of people in Guatemala and in the US. It is one of 8 projects taking place presently in Guatemala among speakers of languages that have had their New Testaments available to them for more than a generation. May they soon have the words of the prophets and the literary masterpieces of the wisdom literature. It’s a long and complex project.

2. CILTA students will start their second semester studies on August 14. Pray for them to get a good start and keep their faith and motivation high, and that they have a refreshing 3-week break between semesters. Many will be traveling. CILTA training takes place in Lima, Peru and is for Latino young people planning to do Bible translation in the Americas and around the world.

Collins Family July 2017 Prayer Requests

* Wes is teaching a course on semantics, the study of linguistic meaning. He has students from Argentina, Mexico, Peru, Costa Rica, Venezuela, and the US. Pray that the students can see the end from the beginning and understand how their studies will equip them for future ministry in Bible translation.

* The Collins’ Mam colleague in Guatemala, Byron, has received some threats of violence for not supporting and participating in the local town fiesta. May God honor his and area churches’ decision to stand for righteousness.

Collins Family June 2017 Prayer Requests

Wes has begun teaching at CILTA, a program for training native Spanish-speaking missionary candidates for cross-cultural ministry. Pray for good chemistry among students and professors, and that students would embrace their studies.

Our friend Byron in Guatemala planned a Literacy Olympics, which was very successful in the community in providing a high profile for reading Mam in general and reading Scripture in particular. Pray that this increases the number of Mam literates, and that the Scriptures would be a daily choice as far as reading Mam goes.

Collins Family May 2017 Update

Download the Collins May 2017 Update with photos here.

Dear and good friends,

Greetings to you from springy North Carolina. Nancy and I have been busy since we last touched base with you. Our biggest news is that our bundle of grandchildren has grown to six with the birth of Jolene Joy Collins to Isaac and Elizabeth. She was born on April 21 and weighed in at 8 pounds even and 20 1/2 inches long. Among the details is that she sports her Grandpa Collins’ hair. Elizabeth and JoJo are both fine.

Our other big event was a trip that Nancy and I took back to Guatemala, and to the village where we worked, and where the kids grew up.

Collins Family May 2017 Prayer Requests

Here are a few prayer requests for us:

1. Our youngest child (and only son), Isaac, and his wife Elizabeth gave birth to Jolene Joy on April 21. Please pray for “JoJo,” their first child, and that health and joy would abound. They are also in the middle of selling their home and moving to a new one. Missionary kids like to stay busy.

2. Wes is headed back to Peru on May 25 to help train Latino missionary candidates in skills related to Bible translation and linguistics. This block of classes will last two months.Pray for Wes and the students as they all learn new things.