Tragedy, toil & wild town mark Kiché project

After eight weeks, Viña Studios’ Scripture recording crew finished their work among the Kiché Mayans of Joyabáj and returned home today, finishing a job both long-time employees told me was the most difficult of their careers.

While there, Viña technicians Carlos and Miguel observed a town with a wild side and shared tragedy along with their readers.

Toiling among readers with limited ability to read their own language, Carlos and Miguel managed to scrape together a rag-tag cast of actors to play Jesus, the Apostle Paul, Mary and some 25 voices needed to record the dramatized New Testament, sponsored by Faith Comes By Hearing.

Unlike most projects, Miguel told me he couldn’t recall one evangelical believer taking part. Viña works with Catholics and evangelicals, hoping both groups will use the audio Scriptures and benefit from them, but it’s more typical for the readers who participate to adhere to an evangelical faith.

The Joyabáj readers sometimes amused Viña’s crew. One young man, reading about particular sins commented, “Uh oh, this is for me.” Another time, he tried repeatedly to say his line and failed, finally asking, “Excuse me, you wouldn’t happen to have a beer or a cigarette there, would you?” Without missing a beat, Carlos answered, “Sure, but first you have to finish your line.”

One challenge involved confusing alphabets, eliciting many complaints from readers. Since translators arrived in Guatemala in the last century, they have used a western alphabet. But sometime within the last decade, I believe, the Mayan Academy adopted an adjusted alphabet, replacing the “c” with a “k,” for example and the “k” with a “q.” Mayan languages differentiate several similar sounds within this realm. (I’m struggling to learn to produce the four similar “c” or “k” or “q” sounds found the local Kaqchikel language.) Most of the actors learned to read the new Mayan Academy alphabet, while the Kiché Bible is published with the old alphabet.

Despite written differences to the text, it still sounds the same. “They can all listen to it,” Miguel told me. “They won’t be able to say, ‘Ah ha, this is the old alphabet, or that is the new alphabet.’”

One reader experienced tragedy during the recording project when he and a co-worker went to repair a leak in the roof of the Catholic church. Although it should have been his turn to climb to the heights, the man’s co-worker insisted on doing the job. Somehow the co-worker slipped and fell to his death. The reader, who witnessed the accident, was deeply troubled by it.

Miguel commented that Joyabáj seemed to have a higher incidence of drunkenness, fighting and use of Mayan rituals than elsewhere in Guatemala. He noted seeing even women drunk and lying on the sidewalk. “I’ve never seen a place like that,” he told me.

Please pray for God’s transforming power to reach the Kiché of Joyabáj and give them the hope of the Gospel, leaving behind whatever sins may hold them in darkness and turn to the God of Light.