Off to Mexico to Finish Recording the Huichol New Testament, God Willing
My wife and I are finishing up some last-minute packing for the trip to Mexico, where she grew up. We hvae the honor, privilege, and blessing of being able to produce an audio recording of the Bible into an indigenous language (Huichol) of one of the tribes that live in the mountains near where my wife grew up and her parents have served as missionaries for over 30-years. The recording will, God-willing, be completed this summer. You can monitor the progress here. The recordings will be uploaded to that site. If we have sufficient funding, we would like to produce 1000 handheld solar-powered digital audio players which will be distributed among the believers.There are between 20,000-30,000 Huichols and likely somewhere around a thousand belivers among them. God is doing an amazing work among the Huichols as more are being added to the number of believers among them daily. Only about 5-10% of the Huichols are considered literate and even fewer of those have a great proficiency in reading since very little exists in writing in the Huichol language outside of the Bible. The written language was actually created just 50 years ago so that the Bible could be translated. So an audio Bible among an oral culture with a high level of illiteracy will likely make God's word available to many more who would not have had it otherwise. Check out my mother-in-law's excellent blog for just a glimpse. Please pray:
- Pray for success in the recording process and for thankful, diligent, and worshipful hearts for me and the 3 pastors who will be speaking for the recordings (We will have about 6 weeks of long days in a hot, humid room).
- Pray that the weather would cooperate and we wouldn't have too many power outages and that the rainy days (the area is jungle and the rainy season usually starts in June) wouldn't prohibit recording.
- Pray that God would get the glory, not me or the pastors speaking as He uses this means to get His Word to people who could not have had it as accessible before.
- Pray that God would use these handheld audio Bibles to accomplish His purposes among both the believers (sanctifying them, building them up, guarding them from false doctrine, etc) and among the nonbelievers (drawing them to Himself).
- Pray that we and the pastors of the Huichol churches would be wise in their distribution.
- Pray that the money would be available to produce the full batch of 1000 (at about $35 apiece it will be quite a bit of money, but God has moved in an amazing way causing my path to cross with another individual who had already begun fundraising and research for a Huichol audio New Testament. Independently of each other we both began working on this project. God is so gracious to give us little reminders that it really is Him who is at work. Praise God!).
- Pray for the new believers among the Huichols who are facing persecution.
- Pray for protection from false doctine and divisive leaders that threaten to lead some astray, that God will guard His Church.
John 17:17 - Tita yuri mrainec quenivapatani ahesie mieme. Aniuqui canihctni tita yuri mraine.
