Tim’s Blog

Thank you for your prayers yesterday. The meeting yesterday was successful, and the alphabet was approved, even though there was a low number turnout. Rudy was expecting between 400-600 representatives and only 40 showed up. Even still, he said that the meeting went well. The Ministry of Education will need signatures of the remaining representatives which is scheduled to take place at another meeting in PA next week. The next step is to create an “Acta” and the P’s from every sector will sign it. I understand then that the signatures (or signed Act) will then be taken to Caracas and then the P language will then become official in Venezuela.

Thank you again for your continued prayers for this,

t.

Just a reminder of the important day of tomorrow for the P meeting to vote and approve their alphabet. If the government officials who will be observing this meeting tomorrow see a majority, they will approve it and name it as an official language of Venezuela. This is a huge step in advancing literacy and the reading of the scriptures in the P nation.

Asking you to pause for a moment and bring this matter before the throne of our heavenly Father by the authority of Jesus.

Thank you!

t.

COMMUNITY
I received this short video the other day from a P brother who was just sharing their progress on a new mission type base that the P church is building. The base was inspired by the presence of Rudy and his wife Rosío who trained for about 5 years at the CFM national mission training institute in Venezuela. Typically trainees will be sent out to other people groups. In this case, Rudy and his wife felt called to serve their own nation and to join us as co-workers. After some prayer and deliberation (for the first year), they together with the church decided to locate for now in one of the major P villages. As you can see in the video, the church at large decided to build them a house with a church building. This facility will be used specifically for an upcoming seminar on the topic of the “maturing church”. I will be one of the guest speakers at that seminar via zoom. They had asked me to travel there in person, but it didn’t seem that the Lord gave the approval, so we settled on zoom meetings.

I thought it was a beautiful thing to see the P culture at work in the context of Christ. I enjoyed seeing everyone pitching in, free of charge, serving their Lord together as family. I enjoyed the peaceful but steady tone of labor. It kind of reminded me of the “barn raising day” type culture. Thought you may enjoy it too. Rudy is still not certain where they may serve in the long term. He’s asking prayer for the Lord’s direction and for housing to be provided in PA where his son will be studying. He feels PA would be a better place to base out of. He also asked for prayer for Rosío’s health.

MISSION BASE
Other news is that G, J, M and E are involved in the development of a larger mission base in another P village where they will build a more permanent recording studio, with housing for participants, both preachers, teachers and musicians to arrive and record.

LITERACY
The dates are set for the next meeting with government personnel to approve the P alphabet. Meetings will be held on July 16-17 where representatives from all over the P nation will be arriving to show their vote in favor of our P alphabet. This is a pretty big thing. The government wants to see some basic curriculum that can be used in the schools. There are hundreds of government schools all over the P nation. They are in P villages and the government school teachers are P. Up until now they have been teaching literacy in Spanish but going forward we hope they can also be teaching P literacy in these government schools. Presently, there is a group of P’s who are developing a curriculum in their language to show to the Institute of Languages on these dates. This curriculum is what they will propose to be used in the schools. It would be nice if the government would also print the materials, rather than make the P church foot the bill.

RADIO
I am back in the studio now recording more radio programs, continuing through the gospel of John.

Thanks for your prayers. Much appreciated.

t.

SONG
I was moved this morning when I heard this song (“Take Up Your Cross” by Jon Guerra) in my early morning prayer time. I ended up sharing the song with Elendie and translating the lyrics into P. He was so moved and is going to arranged a P rendition. I can’t wait to hear what he does.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGc3pE2FMP8

LITERACY
Other good news is that the P’s who went to CCS to meet with the Institute of Languages had a successful meeting with the authorities locally. The next step is to get a large representation of the P school teachers to show a majority vote for our alphabet. Santiago (who met with the authorities) was very optimistic that it would be approved. The next step would then be to provide the school system with curriculum which they are also working on. They will have another meeting with the Institute of Languages in July sometime.

SHORT VIDEO
We finished a short 10 minute video on our work and will share it with you soon.

t.

The P’s sent three delegates from their nation to the capitol city of Caracas where the President of the Institute of Languages was awaiting their meeting. That meeting took place on June 2.

These three guys (Alfonzo, Santiago and Jairo) are gems, incredibly apt and intelligent with a long history as teachers in the government school system.

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Santiago (in the center) really impressed me in January with his bilingual language ability. He worked as a live translator at the conference when Russell or others would speak to the group in Spanish.

The night of June 2nd, Santiago called me from Caracas following their meeting with the president and others at the I.O.L. You had prayed for this meeting. They were very happy with the meeting and reported that the people at the institute were highly favorable and excited about this opportunity. The outcome was that I.O.L has requested the P nation to set up a meeting with them on site in a P village! The meeting will be scheduled for the last week of June or the first week in July. The president himself along with one other from the I.O.L will travel from Caracas south into the rain forest to attend the meeting! They have requested a large representation of the P’s to be present, delegates from all over the P nation are to be there so that they can see a majority representation and approve the alphabet and the P language as an “Official Language” of Venezuela. This would then allow for it to be taught through the school system.

Presently the P’s are teaching literacy independently from the school system. A P named Alexandri has created a colorful primer for kids (I worked with him on this a few years ago and we printed thousands of copies in Bogota of this beautiful little book). Alexandri has worked alongside a Venezuelan missionary named Gabriel who has a super tender heart for the Lord and for the P’s. Below is a short video of Alexandri testing one of the kids and a photo of Gabriel with a group of kids holding this primer.

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I just wanted to update you on this theme in case you would like to continue praying specifically for this upcoming meeting and especially for the ‘approval’ of our alphabet.

t.