Category: Venezuela

Attached find a photo from this morning of the team at work. Not visible in the photo is D who is speaking the Narrator’s text. G and E are carefully watching the text as D reads so as to make sure that nothing is missed or added incorrectly. The FCBH director Daniel, is monitoring. He sets the context for the reader and suggests the type of tone to add depending on whether it’s a Pharisee debating, or a hungry soul searching, etc. E said they really have it all mapped out well and down to a science. Thanks for your continued prayers for them.

Sandra, the other FCBH director, texted me today and said, “We are making progress and truly, these brothers are very, VERY special and sharp.” It was nice to hear such great feedback from her.

In the meantime, I have purchased tickets to Colombia for the Tribal Pastor’s Conference which Russell invited me to. I will be gone from here June 3-15. I will fly from Mexico. Robin decided to stay on in Mexico while I’m gone rather than try to make it back to Canada. I scheduled a few more days in Colombia since G, E and D will not be able to take time off of the recording to attend the conference. G was a little emotional when he found out that he wasn’t able to attend the conference. So, I scheduled a few more days in Colombia and, once back to Bogota from the conference, I will fly to this other Colombia border town where they are recording and I will be able to spend a few days with them there.

E just sent me a message saying that G and D have made it as far as Matthew 20 and that E (voice of Paul) has finished Romans 1-9.

Thanks for your prayers,

t.

Just received this photo from E which shows the three men who will be doing this first phase of the reading. They look happy and spiffed up ready to work. The mobile studio is set up and they are beginning to record today! I was thinking today how much intonation can change the meaning of the text. You can read something with an angry tone, a proud tone, a smug tone, a self righteous tone, a strong tone, a weak tone or a loving or kind tone… The list goes on. I don’t know about you, but when I’ve listened to audio Bibles before in English, there have been some that come across in a tone that, in my opinion, doesn’t suit the Spirit of God who inspired the words. Imagine how easily you could insert your own tone into the text. Imagine the great challenge it would be to read Jesus’ voice.

I sent E, G and D a message today to that effect so that they may seek to set their minds on the nature of God as they speak on His behalf. (That’s a challenge to all of us!).

As you think of them reading hour upon hour, pray for them that the Spirit of God would fill their own soul with the right intonation of each text and to guard them from inserting any false ideas.

Thanks,

t.

Here is an album of some additional photos that we recently received from the P’s. These photos are from G’s village after the presentation of Bibles to G’s church and the surrounding area churches.

It is touching to see the impact that your gifts had on so many people who otherwise could not have afforded to pay for their own Bible.

Click the play button to scroll through the photos automatically or click the arrows to the right or left of the photos to scroll through them manually. It might take up to 15 seconds to start the automatic scroll.

John Howard asked the question, “One part of the story that I haven’t heard is how the P’s learn to read. You say that you think thousands of them are reading their Bibles, so some method must have been used to teach them to read.”

Good question John. The vast majority of the P population between the ages of 10-40 are fairly literate. They all learn how to read in the government schools which are situated in their respective villages. However, the government schools only teach them how to read in Spanish, so this throws a bit of a curve ball at them when it comes to reading in their own language.

However, we are so grateful for the early missionaries, particularly Alli Findley and Mary Lou Yount, who developed readers and syllable charts in the P language and taught literacy before Robin and I ever arrived. This gave a large percentage of the nation the ability to read in their own language. Most can sound out words, but there is a lower percentage of readers that can read well with sight words. So, the majority of these “thousands” of P’s that are now reading their Bibles are also honing their reading skills as there are virtually no reading materials in their language other than the Bible.

This brings us to a great topic and that is the topic of literacy. The Silva brothers have adapted Mary Lou’s reading Primer and desire to have it printed as they desire to launch a reading program across the P nation. Nereo just sent me the final version of the Primer which he worked on for me to proof read it. Once it’s approved by me and Nereo, I will send it to the Print shop in Bogota for a quote to see how much per copy it would be to print 20,000 Primers. At that time, we will be raising the money for that project as well and Nereo wants to launch a nation wide reading program and train teachers to get out to all the villages and teach the children to read first in their own language. This is really exciting news as the better they can read, the better they will be able to read and study the Scriptures.

We are very grateful for Mary Lou’s wisdom in using as much of the Spanish orthography as possible (i.e. the ‘W’ sound she wrote with the Spanish ‘Hu’ so that the reader would not have to learn two symbols for the same sound).

Thanks for the question John. Let me know if you have any more.

t.