Home again, hello again Dr. Ajo

WILLAMETTE VALLEY, Oregon — For five weeks, my system seemed impervious to Montezuma’s malignant assault, while Darren suffered.

But once we got back from Guatemala, Darren was fine (thanks to Cipro), but suddenly my defenses seemed weaker than a sombrero against a lightning strike.

Unfortunately, I forgot to stock up on cheap amoeba pills before we left Guatemala. Now, I’m not in favor of President Obama’s expensive nationalized health care ideas, but it sure would be nice if I could walk through the door of a doctor’s office without getting dinged $100 just to ask for some amoeba pills. Turns out, I can’t.

So I apologize right here for my odiferous breath, but I’m back with the more economical Dr. Ajo (Spanish for garlic). I’m happy to report that it’s working fine.

Darren's search for Verapaz reaches its end

SAN CRISTOBAL VERAPAZ, Guatemala — Darren’s search for Verapaz reached its destination Wednesday evening as we rolled into town.

Whether it's all Darren ever imagined, I can't tell you. When I asked him what was behind his "Search for Verapaz" blog name he said, "That's a really long story, and I don't have time to tell you." Shucks.

Anyway, we bade farewell to Viña Studios’ recording crew in San Miguel and to Rodrigo and Carol Barrera, who showed us kind hospitality during our three-day visit there. Moments after stepping outside the Barreras’ door, a wonderful sight appeared — a public bus bearing down upon us.

I signaled it, and we were off to Salamá and then La Cumbre, a crossroads where we disembarked to hail another bus — of the Monja Blanca (white nun) bus company. I like those buses. They’re large, comfortable buses with comfortable seats and way more legroom than most chicken buses. The mountains of Alta Verapaz are more densely wooded with pines than those near Sololá.

Once we arrived and found a hotel, we stopped by to visit Doña Armenia, who rented a room to me here while I tutored Boris and Beth Ramirez’s three oldest boys in 2002. It was great to see her again and get caught up.

Yesterday, we stopped by to visit Bill Brierly, founder and director of Hope for the Pokomchi, a Christian-based community development group whose offices are near Lake Chicoj.

Bill and his wife Linda have been working in the area 10 years here with Pokomchi people in remote villages, providing water, safe cookstoves, education, scholarships and more. Linda left for the states a couple of days ago to rest up and visit family. She has been suffering some health problems since contracting Lyme’s disease here three years ago.

Bill shared stories of their work and his passion for helping the Pokomchí in the name of Christ. Their work is somewhat similar to his earlier career as a Canadian park ranger, hiking demanding hills to reach small Pokomchí villages. Bill and Linda will retire later this year to a small cabin in British Colombia. Please pray for a smooth transition for the new couple who will replace them.

This afternoon, Darren and I will visit the Ramirez clan. I think all but two of their 11 children are here, I believe, as they returned to their home in Nisnic to conclude the New Testament translation into the Pokomchí language. Tomorrow we head back to Sololá, leaving bright and early at 3 a.m.

So we're off on a hike to the Ramirezes, and I'm going to ask Darren to fill me in on the "really long story" behind his blog name. (I'll try to have more photos up later today, perhaps.)

Achí 'devil' gets tongue-tied during temptation

SAN MIGUEL CHICAJ, Guatemala — Amid false starts, tongue tripping and laughter, the devil spent the better part of Tuesday morning tempting Jesus.

The devil wouldn’t have spent so long if he were more used to reading his native language. But this young devil — played by a young Achí Mayan man named Rodriguez — struggled to read his native language.

So began the New Testament recording here in the Rabinal Achí Mayan language. After lunch, the devil rode off on his bicycle, content he had done his work well.

Viña Studios’ recording duo, Carlos and Miguel, are directing the recording which will provide Achí speakers with an audio version of the translated New Testament. The recording is the 28th that Viña has produced. It is sponsored by the New Mexico-based ministry, Faith Comes By Hearing, which has recorded more than 300 audio Scripture translations.

After the devil (a local teacher) departed, an unknown disciple and Martha, the sister of Mary, entered the studio to record their biblical lines for the dramatized recording. Faith Comes By Hearing has found that indigenous peoples respond better to dramatized recordings, and each one requires 25 different readers.

Rodrigo and Carol Barrera worked together on the translation for nearly 35 years before shipping it to the printers in Korea earlier this year. “Two years ago I thought we had finished,” Rodrigo told me last evening. Then, his supervisors with SIL International advised him to use a computer program to recheck the translation, taking special care in difficult passages. “I thought we had finished and I cried with happiness, but it was good that we revised it. They were things that had escaped us.”

Viña’s audio recording may be released at about the same time or sooner than the printed Scriptures, sometime early next year.

Rodrigo Barrera saw power of film in wartime

SAN MIGUEL CHICAJ, Guatemala — Wartime ministry wasn’t a theme with mere spiritual implications for “Don Rodrigo” and Carol Barrera.

During the height of Guatemala’s 36-year civil war, they traveled the mountains of Baja Verapaz with a cassette tape recording of the Gospel of Luke in the Achí language, and the Genesis Project’s film version of Luke, playing it before illiterate audiences, many of whom had never seen a film before.

One evening, Rodrigo set up a bed sheet for the screen and began playing the Luke video and the cassette player. The crude setup required improvisation. When the tape fell behind, Rodrigo had to fast forward it to catch up with the film.

As it got dark, they saw about 200 torches comeing toward them. Military death squads had been operating in the area, and guerrillas and the army had been fighting each other. The Barreras feared the worst, but Rodrigo began praying. Not long before, the townspeople had evicted evangelical believers from their midst. Fear and mistrust dominated the people.

“We didn’t know who it was,” Carol said, recalling the group’s approach.

“Well, I took my two kids, and elias and I just prayed and prayed,” Rodrigo said. The group reached the audience at the point in the film when soldiers were crucifying Jesus on the cross. A leader of the torch-bearing crowd approached the bed-sheet screen to set it afire, but the people cried out in protest. “No, no, we want to see what happens,” they said.

The torches went off, and the crowd joined the audience watching the film.

Later, as he walked around the crowd, Rodrigo noticed a man with tears running down his face. “I have heard all my life that Jesus had suffered for us, but I never understood that it was this way,” he said.

Experiences such as this confirmed to Rodrigo the value and power of oral media to communicate spiritual truths. His convictions and testimony also apparently played a pivotal role in helping Viña Studios get its start.

By God’s providence, one day in about 1983 or 1984, Rodrigo and some of his Achí friends visited SIL International’s Central American Branch office in Guatemala City. As they walked through a meeting room, administrators happened to be meeting to discuss the future of an audio-video recording studio in the branch office. They had been planning to shut it down, perhaps to save costs.

But as Rodrigo passed through the room, they stopped him and asked him to share of any reports he had of their ministry using oral media. Rodrigo shared about their recent experiences, the people’s response to film showings and cassette recordings. The leaders were greatly encouraged by the report, and eventually the SIL branch studio was moved to Sololá to become Viña Studios.

“This was a time when Viña was not about to be born,” Rodrigo said. “But they called us and said. ‘Let’s see what’s going on.’ The whole thing switched around, and they approved Viña Productions.”

Achí helpers 'discover' Word as they translate

SAN MIGUEL CHICAJ, Guatemala — Their future remains uncertain, but Rodrigo and Carol Barrera look back with satisfaction and gratitude on their lives translating the New Testament into the Rabinal Achí language.

Rodrigo rattles off names of Achí men and women — Elías, Toribio, Kike, Estér, Vicenta and Eder — who helped them with the translation over the past 30-plus years, and whose lives they touched. Many are now leaders in area churches.

“It has been exciting to see as they go along how they’re discovering the Scripture,” Rodrigo said. One young man, Toribio, quit a good job working for a Guatemalan electric company to become a pastor. During the worst years of Guatemala’s civil war, Toribio stayed with them in the capital city, aiding them with the translation in the evenings.

“He was just so anxious to come back. He was saying, ‘I’ve been thinking about what we’ve been translating,’” Rodrigo recalled. “He would come with an answer to a translation problem. He was really into it. The word will do its job and just come through to the people.” Toribio now pastors a large Nazarene church in another city.

Rodrigo and Carol look forward to the publication of the Achí New Testament (probably early next year) and express excitement at arrival of Viña Studios' recording crew this week to record a dramatized audio version.

The Barreras arrived here to begin the translation in November 1975. Several months later, the 1976 earthquake hit, killing some 20,000 people, and they became involved with reconstruction.

Originally from Mexico City, Rodrigo was first asked by Wycliffe Bible Translators to go to India or Nepal. He agreed, but then the doors closed to India and he was asked to come here. Carol, a Wyoming native, joined him here as his co-translator, and they had two children, a son and a daughter.

Along the way, they worked with Achí speakers to teach literacy in their mother tongue. As with most minority languages, Achí is almost exclusively a spoken language with scant written materials. So the Barreras and their Achí co-laborers traveled the hills to teach Achí reading and writing.

Teaching a class once on someone’s inner patio, Rodrigo noticed an older, illiterate Achí man paying close attention to the instruction. The man sat transfixed as the teacher pronounced different syllables — “Ri, re, ra, ro, ru” — to show how sounds are put together and reduced to writing. “He jumped with the answer,” Rodrigo recalled. “I mean it was for kids, young kids, but he discovered that he could read. His face was so bright. It was an amazing thing to see this old man suddenly discover that he could do it.”

The Barreras have become convinced of the power of oral media to communicate the Gospel and impact lives. Many years ago, they asked Elías, an Achí translation partner, to record the Gospel of Luke on a simple tape recorder. Then they distributed the tapes. One evening, they visited a church in a small town. During the service, a young boy named Giovani of about 7 or 8 years began to speak from the altar.

“He started reciting by memory chapter after chapter after chapter — about seven chapters just by memory with the very same intonation as Elias on the tape,” Rodrigo said. “We just sat there in amazement. ... The people were just as amazed as we were.”

Achí believers have been eager to receive the Scripture translation. Over the years, the Barreras published several books of the Bible, including the Gospels of John and Luke, as well as Acts, Revelation and some epistles. “People would grab them and read them and say, ‘Wow this is so clear. I can really understand the Word of God,’” Rodrigo recalled.

“We enjoy the translation,” said Estér, a local Achí woman who for 15 years helped the Barreras translate God’s word. “There are a lot of people who come and ask us, ‘When will the translation be published?’ because they want to read the material.”

“We have always thought, ‘This year, this year’ it will be published, but it never happened,” Estér said, “but finally it will be.” Recent movement by the Guatemalan government to support indigenous languages may help the Scriptures’ acceptance and use, she said.

“There are many people who understand the Achí language better,” said Benedicto, an Achí Nazarene church pastor. “The men understand Spanish better, but there are many women who do not, and you can see them falling asleep during the preaching because they don’t understand Spanish.”

The Achí believers hope God’s word will be a blessing for their people. Estér noted that after having read God’s word several times in the Achí language her understanding of God has grown. “It put a love for God’s word in my heart,” she said. “They don’t understand the Spanish very well so we enjoy it in our language because there it’s all clear.”

Achí churches are ready to receive the Scriptures, Rodrigo believes. “They’ve been ready for a long time.”

Literacy work continues as some young believers are traveling the hills around San Miguel to teach Achí people to read and write their own language.

Meanwhile, the Barreras continue to wait on God’s direction for their future. They may remain in San Miguel to continue working with area believers, promoting the Scriptures, helping with an Old Testament translation, or they may move elsewhere, perhaps to India or Mexico to assist other translation projects.