High winds destroy much of Mayans' corn crop

SOLOLÁ — This week’s high-pressure system packing strong winds has destroyed much of the Mayan farmers’ area corn crops, snapping corn stalks, drying leaves and stopping growth of the ears too soon.

I learned of the damage from a friend who lives in an agricultural area, his house virtually surrounded by cornfields. Yesterday after work, I hitched a ride with him up to El Tablón — a wide, relatively flat plateau above Sololá — to check it out.

It was sobering to see so much corn looking dead and dry, snapped or knocked down by the wind. Some corn is still standing. It has a chance to mature properly and fill out with full kernels, my friend said. But many fields have suffered irreversible damage and loss. My friend estimates that about 25 percent of the area’s corn crop has been lost, noting this is not the worst he’s seen.

The corn growing season here is much longer than it is in the United States. Farmers plant their crops in May before the rainy season and harvest in January, when the cobs have fully matured and the kernels have dried. Mayans store the dry ears of corn at their houses and use them to make tortillas, tamales and atol (hot drinks) all year long, three meals a day.

My friend’s sister walked with me out to the road, where I caught a bus back to town. She explained that for the vast majority of the people, corn is not a cash crop, but eaten by the farmers themselves. Rising food costs have pushed the price up from about 12 cents to 23 cents per pound over the past year or so, she said.

My Guatemalan friends had warned me about the winds of November and December, but I didn’t believe them till my corrugated tin roof nearly went flying the other evening. During one particularly strong gust, I heard a “ping” and observed the metal sheet buckle vertically (in the direction of the trough).

The winds have significantly cooled the air here, making it quite uncomfortable and dusty. But that’s as far as I thought it went. Until today, I didn’t realize people were losing their crops and their roofs.

Please pray for those who have lost so much.

“As for man, his days are like grass;
he flourishes like a flower of the field;
for the wind passes over it, and it is gone,
and its place knows it no more.
But the steadfast love of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting
on those who fear him,” Psalm 103:15-17.

*****

The first photo below shows a small cornfield above Sololá from about a month ago, before the high winds arrived. The second shows last evening’s beautiful sunset and high clouds with a few standing cornstalks near El Tablón.

Viña to dub 'Acts' video into Q'eqchí Mayan

SOLOLÁ — Two events coincided recently to speed up a video dubbing project, while Viña Studios’ goal of recording four audio New Testaments this year will have to wait.

We received good news about a month ago that Viña’s project to dub the “Acts” video into the Q’eqchí language of Cobán has received funding after being on hold for more than two years. Meanwhile, we also received word that the next Bible translation scheduled for recording is not quite ready.

The dramatic “Acts” video, produced by Visual Bible International, was released in 1995. The movie follows the biblical text and can be used in multiple viewings in Sunday schools or other settings for discipleship, teaching and training. The video is geared toward oral cultures such as Guatemala’s Mayans.

I spoke with Carlos, our Scripture recording director, the other day about the recordings, and he appeared ready to take on yet another audio New Testament — despite having been away from home for practically six months of the year already on the Ixil, Q’eqchí and Kiché language Scripture-recording projects. With the scheduling change, his wife and kids should get to see him more.

Carlos and Isidro are busy mixing music and sound effects with the dramatized Kiché New Testament of Joyabáj, which our field team finished last week for Faith Comes By Hearing. After they finish mixing, perhaps they will begin the “Acts” dubbing project.

Viña training, equipping partners in ministry

SOLOLÁ — We’re getting outside help: The daunting task of dubbing dozens of Deditos finger-puppet videos into dozens of Mayan languages and dialects might well take us decades if attempted on our own.

So we’ve begun to identify and equip strategic partners across Guatemala who can help us at Viña Studios and share the load with dubbing Deditos as well as taking on other projects. Some are arriving here at our Sololá studios for training.

Recent visitors include Rudi, a Q’eqchí Mayan from Cobán; and Ernesto and Ambrosio, two Mayans from Huehuetenango (Q’anjobal and Chuj Mayans respectively), visiting for training and for quality control checking on their dubbing work with the Deditos videos.

In each language area, linguists have translated Viña’s Deditos finger-puppet scripts and Sunday school lessons into the local Mayan languages. Viña is working to help establish, train and equip satellite studios in these areas. We’re hoping our friends like Rudi, Ernesto and Ambrosio will continue to develop and improve their skills, dubbing the Deditos videos — which are ideal for oral learners — into the Mayan languages.

Here’s an example of a grant proposal we’ve prepared to establish a studio with another friend, Josué, among the Awakateko Mayans in remote town near Huehuetenango (click to enlarge). The basic studio equipment would allow Viña partners to take on dubbing projects themselves. If you’re interested in helping out, please let us know.

Please join us in praying for these partners and for the Lord’s blessing on their lives and work.

Friend performs laptop computer 'brain swap'

SOLOLÁ — With a poor power connection, my external hard drive was virtually useless. But Wednesday evening, my Guatemalan friend and Viña Studios co-worker, Alejandro, resuscitated it and installed it inside my laptop — entering a dark netherworld I would never have dared to trod alone.

Without a candle to light our way and without first properly scrubbing for “brain surgery,” we embarked. “Have you done this before?” I nervously asked Alejandro. He grinned and said, “No,” but he showed me some diagrams of my Apple iBook G4’s insides that he found online.

Thus we disassembled my thee-year-old laptop, removing dozens of different sized screws, the keyboard, the track pad, front and back plastic covers and at least two thin metal casing panels before reaching our target: the hard drive.

Few Americans deign to open the hood of their car and change the oil, but Guatemalan males seem to have an inordinate confidence that they can master their car’s mechanics as well as any electronic device. When a friend’s stereo CD tray got stuck, he whipped out a screwdriver and had the stereo in pieces on his dining room table. (Eventually, he did need help.)

After two failed attempts Wednesday evening and a few anxious moments I began to wonder whether we had ruined my perfectly good computer. But in the end we managed to do two things I never have dreamed possible: We made use of a “useless” hard drive, and with the “brain swap,” we tripled my laptop’s storage, extending its life.

Throughout the several hours-long “surgery” I also got to know Alejandro better. Turns out he had disassembled laptop computers before, but not a Mac laptop. Also, he said, during a one-hour high school test, he had to reassemble a desktop computer that had been completely taken apart.

*****

The surgery wasn’t without some side effects. After coffee break on Thursday I returned to my desk and to my horror heard the computer screeching loudly. I quickly fetched the doctor: “Houston, we have a problem.” We hustled upstairs to the operating room, Alejandro carefully carrying my laptop and me alongside with a bottle held upside down, representing a hospital IV.

Within minutes, he discovered the problem: A wire to a speaker had gotten too close to a screwhead and gotten pinched when we screwed everything back together.

Farmer catches cops stealing onions by night

SOLOLÁ — Police corruption now comes in a new flavor here, as a local farmer caught two police officers stealing his onions by night.

Juan Vicente, a Kaqchikel farmer, noticed his onion harvest wasn’t quite up to par and he began to suspect a thief, reports the Prensa Libre in today’s edition. So beginning this past Sunday evening, Juan and his family decided to post watch by their fields.

At 11 p.m. Wednesday, they discovered two thieves in the fields, trying to make off with Juan’s onions. Onion prices are high now, and a gunny sack can fetch upwards of $100 or more.

When Juan and his family grabbed the thieves, they discovered they were armed police officers. The cops threatened to kill the farmers, who let them go but kept the police jacket of one of the officers.

The next day, Juan presented his accusation against the two officers. Townsfolk were rightly perturbed, and they thronged to the police station; the dialogue lasted five hours (police are seen here wearing black uniforms in center). Eventually the officers admitted their guilt and agreed to pay 5,000 quetzales (about $666) as compensation. In return, the farmer agreed not to press charges.

Where’s John the Baptist when you need him? The fiery prophet’s pointed words for corrupt soldiers would apply nicely to Sololá’s police officers.

“Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages,” Luke 3:14. We might add, “And don’t steal onions!”

Please pray for Guatemala’s authorities. We need a John the Baptist and Christ’s transforming power.

*****

These photos show some local onion fields here in the Guatemalan highlands. Farmers use stepped farming as in many other parts of the world because of the steep hills.

'Deditos' Red Sea crossing taxes Viña's crew

SOLOLÁ — Crossing the Red Sea must have been a cakewalk for Moses compared to the chore it’s been for our crew here at Viña Studios.

In the biblical narrative, Moses raised his rod, the seas parted and the Israelites walked across on dry ground. Here at Viña, we didn’t have Moses nor his rod (nor Charlton Heston) to recreate the scene for our 30-minute Deditos video.


Attempting to make the video as realistic as possible on a modest budget, our crew created several complicated sets to film the sea-crossing scene. Viña’s Deditos video series is designed to effectively communicate the Gospel and a biblical worldview to oral learners such as Guatemala’s 6.5 million Mayans.

“When you try to film (the Red Sea crossing), you realize how big that miracle really was,” said José, Viña’s creative director. “Imagine passing 2 million people across the sea. How tall were the walls of water, and how wide was the path? There isn’t any design for (filming) this so we just had to figure it out.”

One day, I noticed our crew hammering away outside, building a rectangular framed wooden box with rotating cardboard cylinders at either end. Around the cylinders, they wrapped a wide belt, gluing Pharoah’s army to it and then turning the belt to create the sense of movement. The crew had to build the conveyor belt and box contraption twice because the first didn’t work, José said.

Upstairs in the studio, they turned the belt rapidly, making the chariots whip around and around on that belt as the camera “rolled.” We slipped slim sticks under the belt and wiggled them up and down make the horses appear to gallop.

Another day, our crew had tipped the box and its belt on its side, raised above the ground. On this day, the Israelite Deditos characters were glued to the belt. Behind them, on the ground, the crew placed a blue plastic tarp, spraying water on it to appear like the wall of water on either side of the Israelites. One crew member turned the belt and another — lying flat on his belly on an inclined ladder — filmed the characters passing by on the rotating belt as a wall of water “stood” behind them (actually rolling downhill on the tarp).

The scene showing Pharoahs army getting inundated as it tried to follow the Israelites across the Red Sea required setting up three cameras for just one “take.” The set-up took hours; the big splash lasted just a second or two. Several of us grabbed our cameras trying to capture the moment.

Roughly calculated, José said Viña’s crew spent about 75 man-hours building and readying the sets and cameras for about 30 seconds of film showing the crossing of the Red Sea.

A final scene took us down to Panajachel beside Lake Atitlán, where we tossed the Egyptian soldiers and chariots into the water, filming as waves washed them against the shore. It was fun to see a small, curious crowd gather around to see what we were up to.

Lord willing, the videos and accompanying Sunday school lessons will help disciple Mayan children, showing them how God worked miracles, how he delivered the Israelites from slavery and how he saves sinners from the power and penalty of sin through Jesus Christ.

Shootings, kidnappings highlight need for prayer

SOLOLÁ — Once again, the need for Christ’s transformation within Guatemala’s institutions and society is evident in the reaction to a recent string of local kidnappings for ransom.

Last week someone here printed up a flier naming alleged local kidnappers, circulating it about Sololá. Saturday morning — less than 24 hours after an attempted kidnapping in town left one man dead and another wounded —, a Sololá man was gunned down by 22 bullets from an AK-47. The killers left a note accusing him of being an extortionist and kidnapper. Whether true or not, we don’t know.

Friends I spoke with expressed surprise at the accusation and assassination. “Panza,” so named for his large belly, was a big, hard-working man who had labored for years near the town market, yelling, “Guate! Guate! Guate!” telling people a bus for Guatemala City would be departing soon, or unloading the heavy cargo from trucks and buses.

People don’t trust the police, and friends say some locals have organized, deciding to initiate a vigilante-style “limpieza” or “cleansing,” ridding the community of those who are kidnapping and extorting money.

Over the weekend in Panajachel, a short bus-ride down the hill, two more people were kidnapped. The crooks targeted business owners, getting one but missing another and nabbing a friend’s uncle instead. The uncle was released after paying a ransom.

Please pray for peace in this community and for the authorities (I Timothy 2:1-8). May Christ’s kingdom come.

Forgiving his uncle, friend shows God's grace

SOLOLÁ — My friend Yazo has a simple faith in God that perplexes and amazes me, showing God’s power to forgive others.

Sometimes I wonder whether Yazo knows God hears his prayers just as well as his pastor’s prayers, but on other days he blows me away with his simple obedience to Jesus’ teaching.

Several years ago, Yazo decided to try to make some extra money. With the savings he had, he bought 300 baby chickens, planning to raise them for market. But he made a big mistake, he told me: He forgot to ask the pastor to come pray for the chicks. Within days, they all died, except for two.

It’s quite possible God wanted to teach Yazo something, but I told him God would have heard his prayers just as well as those of his pastor.

A couple of years ago, Yazo lost his good-paying job. One day, a neighbor offered him work chopping firewood. Yazo chopped about a cord of firewood by noon. A day or two later, a mason asked what he was doing the next week: “Nothing.”

“Good,” the man said. “You’ll be my assistant on Monday.” “Sounds great,” Yazo answered.

On Sunday, however, the mason stopped by to say he couldn’t hire Yazo. Why not? “Your uncle told me not to hire you.” Ouch. When Yazo told his wife, she became angry with the uncle, but Yazo told her, “Don’t get upset. God forgave us, so we have to forgive my uncle. Let’s just trust God to provide me with some work.” (See Matthew 6:14,15)

Not long after that, Yazo saw his aunt standing in the street near his home one evening. Instead of maintaining his distance from a meddlesome relative, he walked over to greet her. She was waiting for a taxi, but a boy she had sent to fetch one had been gone for quite some time. Yazo ran up the hill and discovered the boy had gotten sidetracked. So he called a friend who owns a taxi, and the friend — just two blocks away — arrived quickly.

One day, his uncle and aunt’s daughter needed to borrow Yazo’s wife’s typewriter for her schoolwork. At first, Yazo’s wife didn’t want to give it. “No,” Yazo told her. “We have to forgive them and let them borrow it.” Many more times, the girl needed to borrow the typewriter and each time, Yazo happily sent it out the door.

Finally, the girl graduated from her class, and her parents — who formerly had held a grudge for some unknown reason against Yazo — sent Yazo’s family a special meal — the traditional Kaqchikel soup, “pulique.”

Would they have sent pulique, would they be on friendly terms if Yazo hadn’t forgiven his uncle and aunt and shown his forgiveness in concrete terms? I wonder.

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.

Reflection on failed Sololá kidnapping, death

SOLOLÁ — A criminal band’s lust for quick cash cost a young man his life yesterday afternoon as crooks tried and failed to kidnap a Sololá businessman.

“Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed blood,” wrote King Solomon in Proverbs 1:16,18-19. “But they lie in wait for their own blood, they lurk secretly for their own lives. So are the ways of everyone who is greedy for gain; it takes away the life of its owners.”

Pedro Fernando Luis Par, 18, tried to come to his boss’s assistance. The 50-year-old Christian businessman was shot twice, but he survived and the kidnappers fled. Neighbors said Par was a an honorable young man, about to graduate from his technical training.

Life is not all gunfire and danger down here. Indeed, according to today’s Prensa Libre, Sololá ranks as the fourth safest in the country by a count of violent crimes this year. Most explosions here involve some celebratory Guatemalan lighting off rounds of firecrackers at any hour for any occasion. Folks are concerned about the kidnappings but not living in fear.

I mention this news, asking for prayer for Guatemala’s authorities, transforming for its institutions, and justice and peace for this land — in the spirit of the Apostle Paul’s letter Timothy (I Tim. 2:1,2).

Looking at the U.S. economic problems and sharp decline of global stock markets, I wonder how different are the causes of these problems. Whether at gunpoint or by the click of a mouse, those “greedy for gain” destroy lives.

Viña says good-bye to Flavio, its videographer

SOLOLÁ — Flavio, Viña Studios’ videographer for nearly the past two years, worked his last day here yesterday, zooming off this morning on his motorcycle.

We’re happy for Flavio as he looks forward to new challenges ahead, but he’ll be sorely missed here as we continue filming Deditos, our Bible-story, finger-puppet video series. In his last week here, Viña’s crew hustled to finish filming scenes of our third video on the life of Moses. The photo above shows Flavio filming a scene at Lake Atitlán, one of the shots we will use to portray the Israelites crossing the Red Sea and the Egyptian army drowning as it attempted to follow.

Flavio told me he enjoyed working in Sololá — his first opportunity to work alongside Mayans. It helped broaden his worldview and learn to appreciate people in a new way. (The photo above shows Flavio visiting with a Kaqchikel girl who is selling hand-made textiles.)

He purchased the typical dress a man from Todos Santos wears and enjoyed buying different brightly colored huipiles (blouses) for Linda, his girlfriend (pictured together here). Flavio commuted here by motorcycle, carrying with his beloved cat, Baudelaire, in a special backpack from Guatemala City every week; he maintained a tiny apartment just around the block.

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you may remember reading about Flavio earlier this year. In early June, he was robbed while riding a public bus to Viña. The crooks managed to access his bank account which held the funds from the sale his former motorcycle. He managed to borrow enough money, however, to go ahead with the purchase of a newer motorbike (pictured here).

On Tuesday, we celebrated Flavio’s time here with us by sharing the traditional Kaqchikel meal, pulique. A Kaqchikel worker’s Mayan mother prepared the delicious soup with chicken and tamalitos.

Kidnapping victims released from captors

SOLOLÁ — A man kidnapped for ransom Wednesday has been released after family members paid the perverse scoundrels all money they could — a fraction of the demand — to obtain his freedom. A woman kidnapped here Thursday has also been released.

Kidnappers released the man in the early morning hours today about 45 minutes from here, and family members retrieved him, taking the man home.

“They beat him up, but thanks be to God he’s alive,” my friend told me, whose brother-in-law was kidnapped.

Another friend’s cousin’s wife, kidnapped here Thursday, has also been freed, although we’re not sure how. Somehow or another, police were involved in bringing her home from another town, also about 45 minutes from here. I haven’t heard much about her case.

King Solomon had something to say about scoundrels who prey on the lives of innocent people: “They say, ‘Come with us, let us lie in wait to shed blood; let us lurk secretly for the innocent without cause; let us swallow them alive like Sheol (hell). We shall find all kinds of precious possessions, we shall fill our houses with spoil.’ For their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed blood. But they lie in wait for their own blood, they lurk secretly for their own lives. So are the ways of everyone who is greedy for gain; it takes away the life of its owners,” Proverbs 1:11-19.

Thanks for your prayers.

*****

A story in Wednesday's Prensa Libre notes an increase in kidnappings nationwide, 60 this year. Police have identified at least 10 different bands of kidnappers. Most kidnappings are believed to go unreported because people don't trust the police very much.

Kidnappings on upswing again around Sololá

***** Nov. 30, 2009 Update: Sololá residents lynch three accused of killing bus driver, passenger.

*****

SOLOLÁ — Kidnappings for ransom seem to be quietly increasing here again.

Wednesday afternoon, the brother-in-law of a friend was kidnapped by four men about an hour from here. The kidnappers are demanding $40,000 and threatening to shorten digits or limbs. Yesterday’s deadline came and went because the family doesn’t have the money.

Frightened family members usually don’t report kidnappings because police often can’t be trusted. Since Thursday’s crime I’ve learned of several more recent kidnappings locally.

A couple of months ago, a Sololá business owner was kidnapped. Family and friends collected $11,000 to free the man. In another case about four months ago, a friend of a friend’s father was kidnapped and taken to a remote area in the hills nearby. While there, they fed him and treated him well for about a week before family members managed to scrape together $13,000 to free him.

Yesterday afternoon, the wife of another friend’s cousin was allegedly kidnapped. There are some mysterious circumstances surrounding this case. The kidnappers are demanding $20,000 in that case.

In another case, family members went to report a kidnapping, and the police officer embarrassed himself by accidentally mentioning the kidnappers’ deadline — even before the family told him about it. Apparently, he was somehow connected with the crooks.

Citizens will apparently hold some kind of mass demonstration against violence on Saturday in Guatemala City. Sololá’s peaceful demonstration in February — after which they not-so-peacefully torched the homes of known kidnappers — seemed to quiet things down for a while.

A young woman who is a U.S. citizen was kidnapped in Guatemala City sometime recently. Her family contacted the U.S. Embassy, which managed to liberate her within two hours. Why can’t the same response and results be available for every person here?

Until people stop paying ransom money to crooks and have confidence in their authorities, we’ll probably see more kidnappings. Please pray for Guatemala’s authorities (I Tim. 2:1-8) to act with courage, wisdom and honor, not accepting bribes but upholding justice.

*****

Here's a case of an apparent false kidnapping in nearby Panajachel, which I wrote up in August. Two men came to collect a debt, and the debtor yelled, "Kidnapping!" Media accounts reported 800 townsfolk came together, beat them and burned their car. Some officials later told me the townsfolk got it wrong.

*****

A friend is set to return to Iraq any day now for his third tour of duty. Here is a passage from one of his favorite psalms, Psalm 91:

Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him;
I will protect him, because he knows my name.
When he calls to me, I will answer him;
I will be with him in trouble;
I will rescue him and honor him.

Volunteer returns to Viña, land of volcanoes

SOLOLÁ — Was it the volcanoes, the colorful Mayan cultures, Viña Studios’ ministry focus or something in the salsa? Either way, the mix struck a C-major chord with Sarah Agee when she visited Guatemala on a family vacation early last year.

She knew better than to make a snap decision while on vacation. Guatemala can be intoxicating — the land of eternal spring, its exotic Maya history, a place where her grandparents lived and served 40-some years ago. Sarah waited to express her interest in working here till she returned to Illinois to finish her Bible degree at Wheaton College.

Her Wheaton degree included a foreign internship, and Sarah had planned to complete it in Peru, but Viña’s creative director, Jose Abel, challenged her to consider working here. Viña’s emphasis on delivering the good news of Jesus Christ in the heart languages of Guatemala’s Mayans appealed to her.

“Jose Abel gave us a tour and showed us what they’re doing with Deditos, and I thought it was the coolest thing,” Sarah said.

Jose Abel asked her, “What would you most like to do with your life?” “Well,” Sarah recalls thinking to herself, “I love the Bible, music and art — what you guys are doing here. ... But I didn’t want to say that.”

Eventually, she put feet to those thoughts, returning to Guatemala the summer of 2007 for a six-month internship at Viña. While here, she helped craft Bible-story scripts for the children’s Deditos finger-puppet videos.

Sarah immersed herself in the local Mayan culture, living with a Kaqchikel family. She learned to wash her clothes by hand, make tortillas by hand, wear traditional clothing and to speak their language. One day she walked to the Sololá town market balancing a basket of on tamales her head, selling her produce among the local Kaqchikel women. This impressed Kaqchikel men, resulting in several marriage proposals.

Kaqchikel believers’ humble piety impressed Sarah. At the Pentecostal church she attended, Christians kneel for prayer on an unforgiving tile floor, crying out to God altogether in a mournful tone of voice. Men and women sit in divided sections and the women wear veils over their heads, listening to sermons in Kaqchikel.

The second-oldest of four children born to Bible-translating missionaries, Sarah learned to speak Spanish in the southern Mexico state of Oaxaca.

A missions trip to Africa left an impact on Sarah, then 14. With a group of 35 teens, she helped build a church in Ethiopia, living for three weeks in primitive conditions without water to bathe — just barely enough to wash her hair occasionally. Strict leaders required morning Bible reading, a practice that has stayed with her.

After finishing her studies at Wheaton, Sarah quickly prepared to return to Guatemala. Last month, she arrived here for a four-year commitment, continuing to help develop Deditos finger-puppet video scripts. Other than Marcia Welser, an SIL International volunteer at Viña, Sarah is the only woman working alongside 12 Guatemalan men and two “gringo” male volunteers.

These past few weeks she and Marcia have been working together, reviewing the English versions of the first six Deditos video scripts. They invited my help reviewing the dialogue for three scripts, focusing on English fluidity. They sent the scripts yesterday to a man who will take them to Mozambique, Africa where there are 3 million Tsonga speakers. Linguists there will translate and record dubbed versions in the Tsonga language.

Sarah’s return has also added to the musical ambience as she frequently plays hymns and choruses on the out-of-tune piano here at Viña.

“(Viña) combines all the things that I like and am most interested in and love to do,” Sarah said, “trying to portray all God’s actions in history in ways that communicate strongly to people.”

Sololá stations welcome audio Scriptures

SOLOLÁ, Guatemala — Two more local radio stations will soon be playing the audio New Testament in the Kaqchikel, Mayan language.

Chepe, a Viña Studios Kaqchikel co-worker, joined me yesterday and today, visiting two Sololá radio stations and offering the audio New Testament. The woman at the station, the owner's niece, quickly invited us on the air to announce the program. That was a thrill for Chepe, who had never spoken on the radio before.

At the station we visited today, they don't have the equipment to play MP3 CDs. The DJ seemed very interested in the Scriptures. He said he has some sermons in Spanish, but people are tired of hearing them. Back at Viña's offices, however, I learned we've still got three or four copies of the New Testament on cassette tape.

Please pray for God's blessing on the reading, helping Mayans grow in the knowledge and grace of God.

*****

P.S. — We received a call today (Monday Oct. 6) from Olga, the radio station operator, who informed us the MP3 discs wouldn't play on their computer. That was nice of her to call and let us know. Isidro and I went down this afternoon and after quite a bit of fiddling, Isidro got everything working! She will speak to the owner about playing the Scriptures at a regular time.

Violence continues in Orissa, prayer needed

Violence against Christians in India’s Orissa state continues to reap a harsh toll on believers there as three more lives were taken Tuesday, 150 homes and three churches burned. The violence seems to be centered around the city of Kandhamal, the “epicenter.”

Here’s a link to a news update provided by Gospel For Asia, which has workers in the area.

Sadly, this doesn’t seem to register with many in the U.S. or international media. It’s disconcerting enough and cause for prayer enough that I think I’ll add a feature to the blog at the right of the page, attempting to keep folks up to date. Many other people are doing a better job of following this, and I’ll try to provide some links to those locations.

Please pray for peace to return to India and for the Christians who are suffering in Orissa state to trust in God and not to return evil for evil, despite horrific crimes being committed against them.



Below I’ve placed an informational news video, “Your God or Mine,” that appears to have been broadcast on CNN. It’s divided into several parts on these links to YouTube.



Here’s the second part to the news video, “Your God or Mine.”



I think this is the third part:



This part focuses on conversions and "reconversions."



Christmas 2007, a preview to the violence:



This video, not part of the "30 Minutes" series, shows the rise of Hindu fundamentalism in India: