Help us Print Bibles in Nahuatl
There are approximately ONE MILLION people that speak our dialects of Nahuatl still today (and as you will read below generally only those under 20 years of age understand Spanish).
We have been raising funds for a new printing of the Eastern dialect Bible in Nahuatl. Each Bible costs about $12.50 to print. There are over 420,000 speakers of this Eastern dialect and there are NO Bibles left for them! (We have in stock (September/2013) 800 Western Bibles, and 1600 Central Bibles but NO Eastern dialect Bibles) Can you imagine not being able to buy a Bible? Can you imagine giving 40 years of your life to a project like translating the entire Bible into a new language and they are not available to the people whom you loved and served your entire adult life?
If you are interested in helping us print Nahuatl Bibles, you can designate your tax deductible gift for this project and 100% of your gift will go directly to print Bibles.
Click the Link below to give: (select option #1)
YES! I can help print Bibles in Nahuatl!
Here is an email I received from a missionary who visited a village that speaks our Eastern dialect. Please read:
"Yesterday (July 14, 2013) morning, José Carpio stood at the pulpit of his small house church, and looked at me intensely, his voice deep with emotion: “Please tell Tami what you are seeing here in the Huasteca. Please tell her we haven’t forgotten what her parents taught us. We are putting it all into practice. Tell her everything you saw yesterday. Tell her we were singing in Nahuatl. That we were preaching in Nahuatl and reading the Bible in Nahuatl. Show her pictures. Please do that for me.”
So, here I write in fulfillment of this promise.
Xoxolpa is unique amongst the Huasteca churches, because the church has grown explosively over the last three years, in what is truly a revival. The children came first, such that up to 80 children come daily to receive Bible teaching, and have been doing so, for the last two and a half years. Well over 100 adults poured into the church last year, more than doubling its size in less than six months. And the adolescents alone are 40 kids, all longing to hear more of the Word. It is the Spirit of the Lord alone that has promoted this revival, as no evangelistic program could possibly have produced such results.
Leocadio, the pastor, his sons, and other young leaders, are struggling to cope with it all. It is truly a daunting task, and at times they seem to be drowning in a sea of confusion, false doctrine, while at the same time they rejoice, seeing people´s lives transformed. Only those 20 years old and under speak Spanish fluently, and even this younger crowd understand the lofty archaic Spanish in the Reina Valera Bible version they insist on using.
So two weeks ago, when I told José we were planning on visiting Xoxolpa to see the girl with epilepsy as well as Leocadio and his family, I received an urgent text message telling me that we must go, quoting Titus 1:5: “that you might straighten out what was left unfinished”. He even traveled all the way to Tuxpan, just to talk with us face to face about the need.
We arrived with Pedro, his wife Lucía and Toño, a young man from Pilchiatipa, as the worship team. With us were Agustín and his wife Isabel, who recently heard Pedro´s messages broadcasted in Nahuatl on a local radio station and are more and more interested in the Gospel. Katy, from Wisconsin and a young couple, Luis and Cintia, came to help us with the children. And of course, Mirna and myself.
When we first arrived, the 80 or so children were divided into about 5 groups, all faithfully repeating dozens of verses they have learned in the aforementioned Reina Valera. They know the verses perfectly by memory, but I have serious doubts that they have the least idea what they mean.
The adults in church were also in full session. Soon after we arrived, huge (and I mean HUGE) tubs of tamales were taken off the fire, and all attendants were given their fill. José´s purpose for this meeting is that ALL be able attend, including the married women, who on every other occasion have spent their entire time in the kitchen, preparing the meals and unable to hear the teaching. (since it was always in Spanish, and they don´t understand Spanish, it was no big loss anyway). But tamales are cooked beforehand, thus freeing these women to be able to spend the whole day in church. It was SUCH a blessing to see them there, listening intently the whole time.
Luis, Cintia and Katy, with full translation into Nahuatl, gave them hands on teaching on the Prodigal Son and were amazed at how well the kids comprehended the lessons. Meanwhile José gave a heartfelt talk on the tremendous worth of the Nahuatl language. The church was filled to overflowing, with a number of people sitting outside. Pedro, Lucía and Toño sang a number of songs, all in Nahuatl. José came and gave out the very last of the Eastern Nahuatl Bibles which we had bought down at your parent´s home the day before. (Since you shared with me about your project for printing more, I have told everyone I know and asked them to pray. Now it is even more urgent, as not one is left). He asked how many brought a Nahuatl Bible to church with them, and only four raised their hands. I´m sad to say that none of the church leaders had one, only Reina Valera.
Mirna and I then shared a Power Point presentation we have on Jesus the Good Shepherd, using photos we and other friends have taken in Israel. We had a projector, and a couple of days before, I had sat down with Madaí, our caretaker´s wife from camp who is from a village near Xoxolpa, and we went through her Eastern Nahuatl Bible word by word, phrase by phrase. I don´t think she had even tried to read it before, and struggled through every verse, with her eyes brightening as she understood the Scriptures in her mother tongue. She was a great help, giving a word for word translation, and helping us with concepts. We didn´t teach that much. More than anything, we encouraged them to read and meditate on John 10 in their own language. We had them repeating the words over and over again, hoping that they could memorize them. It was midday and hot, but almost all, especially the women, were extremely attentive.
After we finished, José continued to teach for another three hours, occasionally interrupted by a few songs in Nahuatl, and a break to drink water. At one point he offered about 15 audio New Testaments that a young man from Tuxpan had sent. The ladies ran up to the altar, all fighting (nicely) for a copy. He went on for as long as he did, he told us, because he could see that they were drinking it in. I did my best to comprehend for the first half hour or so, seeing that my understanding of the language begins to flicker to life, but only very dimly. After a while, I could no longer concentrate and was just happy to soak in the atmosphere.
We had to leave TOO soon after the time was over, because Pedro needed to get back to Huejutla before the last bus left for his village. I hurriedly spoke to Agustina, to inquire how she was and discuss a visit to the doctor, all through a translator. But as I set out to where the cars had been left, she came running after me. Overcoming her shyness, she spoke to me in Spanish, begging me for a Bible in Nahuatl. I was so sorry to tell her they were all gone, that she will have to wait a while before we can provide her with one. So then she said: “A hymnal? Do you have one of those hymnals?” That I could supply, so she accompanied me all the way to the truck, where I took one of José´s hymnals that he had brought from his church. She was SO delighted to have her very own hymnal in Nahuatl… one of the lovely new ones.
Mirna had a similar request from a total stranger, who had seen her near the car at the end of the event. She stopped her, and said, “PLEASE give me a Bible. I have been hearing God´s Word, but I don´t have a Bible. I want to learn more.” Mirna tried to explain that she didn´t have one, but the woman continued to beg. Finally, she gave the woman her very own Reina Valera (which for Mirna is her most treasured possession, covered with thousands of notes over years of study), because she was so insistent. Later, through text messages, Mirna found out that this lady has been listening to the Gospel at a distance for a while, but this is the first time she has asked for herself. How Mirna wished she could have given her a Bible in her own language.
Another man in the village recently integrated into the Xoxolpa church, because of Pedro´s radio programme. He had heard the Gospel preached to him before, but in Spanish, so he didn´t really understand. When he heard Pedro´s programme, it became clear to him. He contacted Pedro, who came to visit him, and present him to pastor Leocadio. He is now a faithful church attender and was there yesterday.
So that is our story, about a lightening trip to the heart of the Huasteca mountains, where we did little more than provide transportation, some materials and tried to support the people in their desire to communicate (and hear) the Gospel in the language of their heart. How I wish we could do this more!"
We did order 2,000 more Eastern Bibles for these precious believers in August, 2013. We have raised $18,000 of the needed $28,000 (which includes the shipping and importation costs).
Please pray with us that God would provide the funds for this project and that we would not have to draw upon funds delineated for other projects.
Click the Link below to give: (select option #1)
YES! I can help print Bibles in Nahuatl!
