For many years, the government of Venezuela has had elementary schools inside P villages. They have a curriculum which teaches P children the basics of math and literacy. The unfortunate thing (and I’ve said it for so many years), is that even though 100% of these government funded school teachers are P, they have zero curriculum in P! It’s all in Spanish. It’s wonderful that these children are learning some Spanish and math but unfortunately they come out of school not even knowing how to read their own language.
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While I was at the Venezuelan border earlier this year, I visited with a 15 year old P who was fluent in Spanish and P, but could not read very well her P Bible. I asked her to read Genesis 1 and she labored through it, only coming out with about 50% accuracy. So here’s where things get a little interesting. A few years ago, my brother Brent got involved in a mission for under privileged children in Venezuela called Andean Aid. It was entirely “coincidental” that this outreach operates in the same country as I work. The connection was completely unrelated to my work in Venezuela. Well, one of the men in Brent’s leadership group, is a Venezuelan who happens to be Director of the Ministry of Education in one of the western states of the country.
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Long story short, Tomás (the Director of Ministry of Education) wants to help get our P literacy books to be registered and officially entered as curriculum for these P schools. If these children start learning to read P in school, it will revolutionize the efficacy of the written scriptures which we have translated in P. These illiterate children will be able to read their Bibles! Additionally, if our literacy books are the ones used, it will cement our alphabet as the official alphabet in P. (There are fringe P groups who have gone to universities who have developed strange and inferior alphabets which they are trying to get to be official.) 80% of the P’s who can read P, use our alphabet which was developed years ago by the early missionaries (Mary Lou Yount and the Findley’s).
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Tomás travels tomorrow morning and will spend 1 week visiting several P villages. The P’s are all anticipating his arrival and trying to make it special. They have invited teachers from all over the nation to be present. Tomás wants to visit the P villages, have meetings with the P’s and take a literacy primer to the Department of Education and go to bat for us.
Pray for success in this as it has powerful ramifications!
Thanks,
t.