March-April 2007

“It is of the LORD's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness. The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him." Lamentations 3:22-24

On March 23, as we commemorated the 2-year anniversary of Kirt’s promotion to Heaven, the remembrance of which will be forever carved in our hearts, no words or actions could ever take away the pain we feel at the loss of someone so special and filled with genuine love, encouragement and admiration for those who surrounded him. May we never ignore the memory of the date in order to reduce the pain, but instead, may we use it as an impetus to thank our Heavenly Father, who holds Kirt in His open arms, for the extraordinary legacy he left for us. My perpetual prayer is that God will continue to grant the same measure that He has given us during these past two years, of inconceivable grace, the peace to accept His plan, and the strength for each of us to carry on with His purpose, whatever that divine design might be.

Among the many astonishing evidences that attest to God’s great faithfulness during these past 2 years is one that continues to take place, without missing one single day, every Wednesday morning at my house. A large percentage of the brothers from the Tepic church continue to meet weekly before work for a time of prayer for each other, the needs of the church, and requests for friends and family members. Their joyful sacrifice, unity, and determined commitment are nothing short of a miracle.

Thank you for your prayers for the Huichol New Testament MegaVoice Ambassador MP3 player project. We have met the goal for their purchase, the players are in hand, but there has been an unexpected hang-up in the compression of the audio files in ISRAEL, where the players are manufactured. So Jacob, who has done a fine job engineering the project, has been busy editing and converting the recordings to get them just right for burning them to the chips. We had hoped to have the first units ready for distribution to the Huichol village churches by Semana Santa (That means "Holy Week" = Easter), but this delay has made that impossible. Please pray with me that the "glitches" will be ironed out quickly, and we will be able to start the first of the "smuggling operation" getting the units into Mexico soon. We accept that our timing is not God's timing, and we KNOW that He knows best.

Back in September, we AWANA leaders began praying that God would provide a means to help clubbers who are faithful, but who have no means of transportation to church. We even had a special promo day, in October, in which we committed to pray faithfully for that miracle. Every week, three volunteers drive pick-up trucks to bring kids from outlying neighborhoods of our city to AWANA, but they arrive at church way too full to be safe. Well, our prayers have been answered, and the “OANSAmobile” is a reality! Now our prayer is for even more kids, quality instruction, and continued safety.

God has performed yet another miracle. During Easter week vacation time from school, my little AWANA Sparky group got together for some special activities. We girls had a slumber party at my house (NOT much slumber, though!) on Saturday, then we went to church together on Easter Sunday. The boys and I went for a day at the park with games and other activities and back to my house for a hot dog roast. For each of the groups, I prepared a short object lesson related to Resurrection week. BEST of ALL, little Luis, gave his heart to Jesus. We now have a new little "brother" in God's family.


The Huichol churches opted this year to divide their annual Easter gathering among three different villages rather than one central village. The logistics of transportation and housing, especially during that particular week, have become impractical. New believers in two of the villages, Puga and Zapote de Picachos, were baptized during the respective celebrations.

Huichol pastor, José, REALLY wants his son, Eugenio (15 years old), to learn computer data entry for the Huichol Old Testament translation project. He's a good budding bilingual, and it is unfortunate that he has had to be in school during the workshops. I told José that while Eugenio was on Easter break from school, if the two of them, using the principles José learned in the first translation workshop in February, would work on their own in their village translating the first draft of Genesis 50 and bring the handwritten draft to my house, I would help Eugenio learn the basics of data entry. Eugenio was so motivated on the project with the "reward" being potential computer literacy that they showed up at my door bright and early the following week with 3 handwritten pages, no top, bottom, or side margins, of translated text from Genesis 50. Eugenio was chomping at the bit to get started. He is the first person I have ever seen who had never touched a computer keyboard before in his life that learned absolutely everything (like "Shift" for caps, backspace to erase a letter, arrow keys to navigate, "Ctrl-V" to insert ü from an English keyboard, "File+Save" in English no less, to save after every verse, etc.) after only showing him once! In four hours, they had the first draft of Genesis, Chapter 50, on the hard drive. This is by no means the final draft. As for all of the Old Testament verses, chapters and books, there are many steps for checking, revising, back-translating, and re-checking for meaning and adherence to original texts again and again before the job is considered complete.

The last 2 weeks of April were dedicated to the second Principles of Translation workshop. Again, the Huichol translators, José, Manuel, Hilario, Joaquín, and Román worked resolutely with linguist, Elizabeth Willet, learning and putting into practice new principles, polishing Ruth and Jonah, and getting a good start on the Joseph section of Genesis. The god of this world has cast his snare and done everything in his power to discourage, distract and destroy the men who have committed themselves, with inspiring and exemplary seriousness to this arduous, but crucial task of translating not man’s words, but God’s. It appears that his fiery darts have been well-aimed at Emilio, and he has given in to the “call of the world.” We prayed for God's direction in the decision the translation team would have to make, and pastors Manuel, José, and Hilario agreed unanimously that translation is equivalent to a position of leadership for which the criteria are found in Titus and I Timothy. They insist that future readers will not respect the translated Word if it has been done by less than "blameless" servants. Emilio has been replaced on the translation team by Román. The next 2-week translation workshop begins June 10. Please pray for endurance for the translation team…and pray for Emilio.

To enjoy a collection of digital pictures of some of these March-April 2007 activities click here, then select any set to see the slideshow.

Quick Reference Version of March-April Prayer Requests:

· Production and Distribution of MegaVoice Ambassador Mp3 players to Huichol communities
· OANSA/AWANA Club – Luis
· 16 Huichol new believers
· Huichol Old Testament Translation Project – translators, workshops, consultants
· Emilio