Update and Prayer Requests: August 2023
Valerie and Nicasio Martinez
Translating God's Word with and for the people who speak Quiatoni Zapotec
 
You may remember that Beto was the head of the Quiatoni Zapotec team who attended a three-week workshop on translating 1 Corinthians. The three new folks were surprised by how many “gringos” (foreigners in general) have left their homes to come to Mexico to translate God’s Word for people like themselves. Rebeca said, “I see these people like Paul, traveling all over to share God’s Word with people.” All three new ones commented on how they would spend an hour or more understanding one verse and then each would work on how they thought it should be translated. Then they would come together and share their ideas. Eloisa said, “Now I realize that God’s Word in Zapotec is important, that we understand it better in Zapotec than in Spanish.” Fernando said, “So many things we think we understand (in Spanish) and sometimes we want the Bible to say what we want it to say!” Nicasio is impressed with Fernando’s abilities and hopes that he will be able to work with Beto to continue revising 1 Corinthians, when Beto finishes teaching in the Native Authors Workshop and when Fernando can take time off his job.

August 5th was our last meeting with the Quiatoni pastors where they learned to read and write in Zapotec, sing Zapotec songs, and how to evangelize others in Zapotec. We are very glad for all the pastors and others who arrived. We are also very thankful for The Cahaya Foundation (www.thecahayafoundation.org) who gave us 200 small Kulumi audio devices, already filled with our Zapotec materials! The pastors and assistant pastors were delighted to get their own devices and then additional devices to share with church members who would be interested in listening to them. We haven’t heard much from the pastors yet but Josefina, who has been using “big books” in Zapotec to teach Sunday School, said that she would like 10 more to share in her church! Those in our church (in Tlacolula) have really been enjoying listening to them and that they are so portable. God and The Cahaya Foundation are blessing us with another 500 devices in a few months! Please pray for wisdom for Nicasio as he decides what is the best method to distribute them.

Last Friday (Aug. 25), was the first day of classes for the Master’s Degree program of translation and interpretation that Nicasio will be teaching at “his” university. Then on Saturday, he went to Quiatoni with Beto and the youth music group to give an introduction to apologetics to the youth in Quiatoni’s largest church. Beto was invited to preach at the evening service. We are thankful for all the ways God is providing to encourage people to use Zapotec in church and to provide them with the tools to do that.

We would appreciate your prayers for Nicasio as he participates in the UN International Decade of Indigenous Languages event that will be held in Mitla on Sept. 19. He has been part of the organizing committee and will be one of the emcees for the event. He will also give a talk on how indigenous people’s identity has been damaged over the years since the Europeans arrived in the Americas. He has also invited Candy and Beto to give a talk about the “big books” they make and use with children. He is also arranging for a lady from Quiatoni to have a table where she will be embroidering a traditional Quiatoni blouse. People will have the opportunity to buy something and ask her questions. Our Zapotec music group will also be participating with some songs in Quiatoni Zapotec.

Then on Sept. 20, there is a similar event in Mexico City. Beto and Candy will be participating there, sharing about the effects and impact of having God’s Word in their own language. This is a major event, and something new for Candy and Beto, so we appreciate your prayers for them, too.

Please pray, too, for our relationship, especially Nicasio’s, with our local church. It has been a little rocky.

A week ago (Aug. 22), at Mike and Tara’s request, I flew up to help them with Royan (now 2.5 years old!) so they can finish up stuff to sell their house in preparation of moving to Oaxaca. Royan and I have been getting to know each other and I’m learning his language. (You might remember that his speech has been delayed. His speech is improving a lot and he uses a lot of methods to communicate.)
On September 9th, Rusty will celebrate another year of being cancer free and will celebrate his 29th birthday!

We appreciate your interest, prayers and support for our ministry of Bible translation. We are blessed to see God working in so many ways right now among those who speak Quiatoni Zapotec. Thank you for your part in making it possible!

 love, Valerie and Nicasio                                                      
www.cten.org/NicasioMartinez​

Update and Prayer Requests: May 2023
Valerie and Nicasio Martinez
Translating God's Word with and for the people who speak Quiatoni Zapotec
​
We thank you for praying for our church during this time of so many changes. Tomorrow (Saturday, May 27) there will be a service for the denomination to install Max as our pastor and Eduardo as the assistant pastor. We are thankful that all this has been settled without too many problems.

In the church meeting when the assistant pastor was voted on, Beto was also elected to be the church business secretary, Nicasio was elected to be the youth pastor, Fernando and his wife were elected to be deacons. (Four of the five people elected faithfully attend the Zapotec service!)

You may remember that Nicasio has been the youth pastor for many years; he enjoys it and has a wonderful rapport with the youth. During the pandemic, when we weren’t attending church, Nicasio continued the youth group online. Then our (then) pastor decided that there should be an in-person youth group and so the youth of families who were attending church in-person dropped the online group and started attending the in-person group. So even though Nicasio has just been elected to be the youth pastor, he has continued to be one! He would appareciate your prayers as he molds the two groups into one; their first meeting will be on June 11.

The new deacons, Fernando and Elizabet, were elected to aide the deacon couple that is responsible for unlocking and locking the church for services, setting up chairs, reminding parents to quiet their children, and waking those who have nodded off. Since Fernando plays bass for the Zapotec service, he suggested that they take care of the Wednesday night service and that the other couple cover the Thursday (Zapotec) service. We are so pleased at how this is working out: the other couple have resisted attending the Zapotec service but now that they have to, are happily participating in the Zapotec Bible study! Last night, as Nicasio was closing the service, Angel said, “We could go til dawn—and that would be ok!” Someone also heard him say that there wasn’t any need to be waking people up during the Zapotec service, since no one dozed off!

A few other people are also starting to regularly attend the Zapotec service; we are thankful for them and for the Zapotec service being announced during other services to encourage people to attend.

In our last update, we asked you to pray for the classes we’d be having with several Quiatoni pastors, to teach them to read and write in Zapotec, to learn songs and hymns in Zapotec, and to learn how to evangelize. Even though not everyone attended, the seven pastors and leaders and the two teens that attended really seemed to enjoy the day long class. For their writing assignment, Nicasio asked them to write about why they had left the Catholic church or why they had stayed in the protestant church. A couple of the older men gave verbal answers, instead. We were saddened and not very surprised that no one said it was because they’d believed in Jesus as their Savior. The lack of truly understanding the Gospel is a direct result of church always being in Spanish. They heard the Gospel clearly in Zapotec several times during the day, when Beto taught about how Jesus used parables to share the Gospel and when Candy told how she’d become involved in spreading the Gospel in Zapotec, especially teaching the children. (She told us later that her dad had asked for the day off work so he could attend the class! He videoed her reading a large, classroom sized book about creation and the need for a Savior.)

There were many highlights to that day—but it was long! The pastor had asked Nicasio to preach in the evening service and then we had supper before leaving. We had left home at 5 am to be there for breakfast and got home at midnight. I took a nap in the truck between class and church, so I could drive home since Nicasio was “on” all day long.

The second day of classes was scheduled for May 27—before that day was selected for Max’s installation service. Nicasio told them that the date would have to be changed (several of those pastors will also be at the installation service, too) and for them to let him know what date they decided on. He didn’t hear anything from them and was thinking that they were not wanting more classes. Rather depressing! But he got a call yesterday, could we come on June 3rd? Yes! We’ll be there! Once again, we ask for your prayers for the classes, for open minds and hearts for those who attend. (We’ll be leaving again at 5 am; I don’t know if there’ll be an evening service or not.)

One of the two teens who attended the first day of classes is interested in attending a Bible school. Nicasio talked with her, and because she wants to study the Bible, suggested that she attend the four week workshop on 1 Corinthians that SIL will be giving in mid-July. She agreed and will join Beto and Fernando in the workshop. Fernando, besides playing bass for the Zapotec service, also alternates with Beto doing the opening part of the service. We are going through the Gospel of Mark for that part and we have been amazed at Fernando’s abilities in teaching as well as the studying he does in preparation. So Nicasio thought it would be good to “stretch” him a bit and invited him to attend the 1 Corinthians workshop, which he agreed to.

Beto suggested to Nicasio that he have an online class with Eloisa and Fernando to prepare them for the workshop. He taught them the difference hermeneutics (interpreting the Bible, usually through one’s own point of view) and exegesis (studying the background, culture, language, etc. of a book of the Bible). Beto used the parable of the prodigal son and asked them how they imagined the prodigal was dressed when he returned home. They answered “dirty” “ragged” “stinky.” Beto said, “When I imagine him, I see him dressed in ragged pants and a ragged shirt—but that’s not how they dressed in Jesus’ time.” Fernando said, “That’s looking at it hermeneutically!” Please pray for them attening the workshop and thank God with us for Fernando and Eloisa as well as Beto, Candy and Elizabeth. Thank God also for a very generous gift that will pay the expenses for them to attend the workhop.

Thank you for your interest, prayers and support of our ministry of Bible translation. Your part in making all these things happen is a real blessing to us!
love, Valerie and Nicasio
www.cten.org/NicasioMartinez
​

Update and Prayer Requests: March 2023
Valerie and Nicasio Martinez
Translating God's Word with and for the people who speak Quiatoni Zapotec
March brought another death and another disagreeable surprise. Our pastor passed away on March 21st; he was 83 years old and diabetic. He was the first protestant in the Quiatoni area and was persecuted in the early days when he was evangelizing in the area. He was the spiritual father and grandfather of most believers in the Quiatoni area. He has pastored our local church for more than 30 years; we were the first couple to be married by him in our church. ♥
Max, who had started the church after becoming a believer in Jesus, was named by Pastor Delfino as assistant pastor some years ago, and we all assumed he would become the pastor when Pastor Delfino wasn’t able to continue. So imagine our surprise when during the funeral, the national-level man from the denomination said that the denomination is giving us an interim pastor for three months while the church finds a new pastor! The denomination has many rules about how this will happen, who are the possible candidates, how the voting will happen, etc. Almost everyone in our church is resistant to the idea of an “outsider” (not someone from Quiatoni) being the pastor; almost everyone wants Max to be the pastor. (You might remember that all the church members are from Quiatoni or married into a Quiatoni family. One non-Quiatoni family recently joined the church.) We appreciate your prayers for this very difficult situation.
To add to the general upheaval at church, this Thursday and Friday (March 30 and 31), our church is hosting the state-wide pastors convention. We are expecting 150 pastors and whoever they bring (wives, assistant pastors?) so there is lots of cooking and organizing going on, as well as physical work getting the church and area ready for so many people. We appreciate your prayers for this to go well.
Nicasio has been going over the Gospel of Mark (which we started translating in the early 1990s!), especially going over notes left by others on the translation team. We are going through Mark at the beginning of each Zapotec church service; Nicasio or Fernando read a section and then give a short lesson on it.
We are finally finishing up studying the Book of Acts in the Zapotec service! We started studying it in April 2018, had one year off during covid, and are now seeing Paul in Rome. It’s been an amazing journey and we’ve all learned a lot. Nicasio has chosen Peter’s letters for us to study next, so he’s been going over and revising 1st Peter in preparation for that.
Beto has been busy with his regular jobs and now has another job: teaching English to 6th graders. This is for the community service that each university graduate is required to do in the area of his degree. We all are thankful that his service is here in Tlacolula and that he will be able to complete his hours fairly quickly since it’s three classes of 6th graders three times a week.
Beto has also been going over the “key terms” in our translation. Key terms are words that are important in Bible translation like glory, redemption, kingdom of God, salvation, and Gospel. These get refined over time and also when they occur in different settings in the New Testament. Beto considers how each one is translated and how it’s used in each place in the New Testament, and puts notes for Nicasio where he thinks it might be improved. He looks especially at words that have different meanings in different contexts. (Look up “glory” in a concordance and see how many different meanings it has!)
The end of February, I had my computer completely reset. It’s running much better now but it took about two weeks to get all my data up to date and in the places it should be. It was a very frustrating time but I learned a lot and am glad that it’s pretty much back to normal.
We haven’t heard anything more about Nicasio having to do town service. He’s considering going to talk to the town authorities and see if he can be given a town job that he can pay someone to do for him. This would allow him greater freedom and solidarity with the Quiatoni community in the future. We appreciate your prayers for wisdom and timing for this.
Nicasio’s mom is doing as well as can be expected; she’s missing Dad, of course. She continues to live with their daughter and her family in Quiatoni.
Mike writes, “We're doing well and excited about Royan continuing to expand his vocabulary. Tara wrapped up vision therapy and her eyes are doing great.”
Rusty writes, “I am happy to share that I recently had my 2 year post diagnosis cancer screenings, and so far everything looks good! I'll meet with my oncologist on April 10th to get the official all clear. Two years down, three to go! I continue to enjoy my job at the Lilly Center and spending time with friends and family.”
As always we appreciate your interest, support, and prayers for our ministry of Bible translation into Quiatoni Zapotec. Your prayers sustain us and encourage us. Thank you!
love, Valerie and Nicasio
www.cten.org/NicasioMartinez
​

​Update and Prayer Requests: February 2023
Valerie and Nicasio Martinez
Translating God's Word with and for the people who speak Quiatoni Zapotec

February has been a busy and a hard month. The sad news first: Nicasio’s dad passed away on Feb. 18th. Even though we knew it was coming since he’d been declining for months, it’s still a big adjustment. Nicasio, Beto and another young man from church went that night to be with his mom and help get things ready for people visiting his mom. Since everyone is given a meal when they visit, an outdoor kitchen was set up, a room was set up as a dining room as well as Mom and Dad’s bedroom made into the visitation room. I went the next morning, after picking up Nicasio’s sister and her husband in Oaxaca City, who had come from Mexico City.

We stayed until about 2 pm, not waiting to walk with everyone to the cemetery, which is across town, because the town hall is often on the look out for people (men, especially) who haven’t done town service. (You can think of “town service” as “city taxes” except that it’s paid in work and time rather than money.)

Nicasio has never done town service, which starts the calendar year a male turns 16, because he hasn’t lived in Quiatoni since he was in his early teens. Apparently his dad’s death brought Nicasio to the mind of someone in the town hall, so Nicasio’s brother-in-law was told that he wouldn’t receive Dad’s death certificate until they’d contacted Nicasio. We spent more than a week waiting, wondering, and discussing options but finally heard that the certificate has been given to his sister and brother-in-law. (See below if you’re interested what “town service” would have meant.) So it seems that Nicasio won’t be called for town service but he will need to continue to keep a low profile while in Quiatoni.

Just days after Dad’s passing, we went to Quiatoni’s second largest town for the closing program with the bilingual teachers we’ve been working with. What a delightful time! The teachers had done so much work and it showed in the presentations that their students did. It is, of course, a special challenge for the teachers who don’t speak Quiatoni Zapotec but the results were so good!

All the students were anxious to buy our Zapotec books. This school has another school smack-dab next to it and when the other school’s children came out for recess, they wanted to buy books, too! We sold about $110 worth of books, which is a lot considering that most of our books cost 30 cents, 55 cents or 85 cents. (We sell the books to give them more worth to those who want them. The price is how much it costs us to print the book.)

We are very encouraged because the town hall people (from this town) that attended the closing program were really happy with what the teachers have been doing. They told Nicasio that they’d be happy to cooperate with him with other programs that he’d like to do. They and the PTO served us a delicious dinner after the program. They said that we’d come so far (it’s about 2 hours away) that the least they could do was give us a meal!

Nicasio has done a couple of special things for the university. The head of the Department of Languages asked him to make a video about how Quiatoni Zapotec would express the idea of “collaborative” and what I expect from someone who asks me to collaborate with them. He also did a presentation for the International Day of the Mother Tongue (Feb. 21) on Indigenous Linguistic Identity. And he facilitated an SIL colleague to help the upcoming students for the Translation and Interpretation Master’s Degree have keyboards where they could easily type in the special characters required by their indigenous languages. Previously, they had been copying and pasting each special character each time they needed to use it.

I (Valerie) have been busy with getting the children’s library, the homeschooling resource room and the three classrooms used by the homeschoolers for their classroom experiences, ready to be reroofed. I’m thankful for being able to work with my buddy (and who was the director of the classroom experiences) Marge, sorting out stuff, what to keep, what to get rid off. We’re thankful for four gals that helped in boxing everything up and labeling it, ready for storage. Thank you for your prayers about this.

Those are the highlights from February. We did have some normal (whatever that is!) days during the month. Our Zapotec church service is always a delight and so great to see how much people are learning and applying. One day we visited with the new pastoral care couple from Commission To Every Nation. We appreciated getting to know them. And we enjoyed a couple of visits with friends we haven’t seen in years: she and I taught together here in Oaxaca; she and her husband now serve Bible translation in the Solomon Islands.  

Thank you for your prayers, interest and support of us and our ministry of Bible translation with and for those who speak Quiatoni Zapotec. We appreciate you so much!

love, Valerie and Nicasio
www.cten.org/NicasioMartinez

Details about the town service:
Town service is a full time job for one to three years, depending on the service, or it could be a very expensive one, such as footing the bill for the town’s annual fiesta. Males whose births are registered in Quiatoni are required to participate in the system from 16 to 60 years of age, with years of “rest” between services.

Nicasio has always tried to keep a low profile when visiting Quiatoni. Had the town hall required him to do town service, he would have had two (main) options: just not do town service and not go to Quiatoni for the three years that this administration will be in the town hall, or he could negotiate with the town hall to do a service that he can pay someone else to do in his place. In that case he would also have had to pay for not attending town meetings and not doing town service all those years.