Update and Prayer Requests: Valerie and Nicasio - MARCH 2022

Dear Friends,
I have been reconstructing the email address list for our monthly updates because when my computer crashed at the beginning of February, my email took the brunt of the crash. If your name doesn’t appear correctly or you would prefer I use a different email address or anything else, please let me know! I appreciate your help with this.
love, Valerie

Update and Prayer Requests: March 2022 - Valerie and Nicasio Martinez
Translating God's Word with and for the people who speak Quiatoni Zapotec

Within a few days this month, several good things happened with some of our back-translations. You may remember that back-translations are the result of someone who speaks Quiatoni Zapotec and Spanish reading one of the New Testament books that has been translated into Zapotec and then he or she translates it back into Spanish. We then send the back-translation to be checked by a consultant, a colleague who’s had more experience in translation and some extra training. With the Spanish back-translation, the consultant can check our Zapotec translation even though he or she doesn’t speak our Zapotec.

It’s best to have back-translators who haven’t worked on the translation (because they would know what the translation should say) and who don’t know much about the Bible (again because they would know what the translation should say). Mingo has been one of our back-translators after I ran into him in our local market several years ago. He had been one of my first language teachers back in the mid 1980s and was willing to try back-translating. He did a fine job on Hebrews and really understood what Hebrews is all about. After he finished Hebrews, Nicasio asked him if he’d back-translate Matthew. Mingo asked, “Is it as hard as Hebrews?!” Nicasio told him, no, that it would be easier but much longer. He agreed to do it. During the time he was working on it, he began having trouble with his eyes and finally just couldn’t work on it any more. Please pray for Mingo, for his eyes, and for what he’s learned about Jesus from doing back-translations. The town he lives in is very resistant to “other religions,” meaning anything other than Catholic.

This month we drove out to see Mingo and pick up the Gospel of Matthew, however much he’d been able to do on it. He wasn’t home but his daughter gave us the book and her dad’s phone number, and said she’d give her dad the message that we’d picked it up and left some wages for him. Nicasio tried calling Mingo a few times to have some closure with him about Matthew but the calls didn’t go through. Then one day,  Mingo called Nicasio. They had a good visit and Mingo told Nicasio that he’s now using drops in his eyes, which were helping but not enough yet to do much writing. We are thankful to continue to have a good relationship with Mingo.

Our other back-translator is Esmeralda. She has been working on Acts, another very long book! We had been sending her a few chapters at a time as Nicasio finished revising them. Not long after Mingo called, Esmeralda called to say that she’d finished back-translating Acts! Nicasio asked her if she’d be willing to finish the Gospel of Matthew. She said yes but that she wouldn’t be able to work on it right away because she was going to have surgery. Esmeralda let Nicasio know when she’d be sending him the last chapters of Acts so he could pick them up from the bus driver and he told her that he’d send her Matthew back on the same bus. Please pray for Esmeralda’s surgery to go well and for her, too, to come to know Jesus as her Savior.

Beto is in his last semester for getting his Bachelor’s degree. To graduate, he has to do an investigative project and write a small thesis on it. He decided to investigate if using riddles and tongue twisters would improve students’ Zapotec reading ability. Interesting question, isn’t it? He has seven young people signed up to do his project and travels to Quiatoni’s second largest town each weekend to work on this. Please pray for travel safety for him (and Candi; she goes along as his helper) and good results from his project. Beto’s current project for our Zapotec church service is dubbing a short (seven minute) video about the tabernacle and the temple.

The translation course in the Master’s Program that Nicasio is coordinating is going well. He says that he’s learning a lot, too! He’s thankful for our colleagues who are giving their time to teach the classes and for the good relationship between the university and SIL.

We were delighted to have Rusty here for a week! It was a fun time of just being home with him and he and I going shopping together. The week after he got home to Indiana, he had blood work and scans done to check for any signs of the testicular cancer he had surgery for in March 2021. He says, “I’m happy to report that my 1 year post-op cancer screenings show no signs of cancer! I’ll see the doc again in September for another update. Thank you for praying alongside us.”

Mike, Tara, and Royan have been doing well. Royan (one year and four months old) is starting to get into everything and really developing his personality. They could use prayers as they handle end of life things for Tara's mom (she has had stage 4 lung cancer for 4 years).

 Nicasio’s parents are doing well, still living pretty independently next door to us. A while ago, we noticed that his dad had gotten very deaf so Nicasio took him to the doctor. The doctor prescribed some drops to soften and eliminate the wax build-up in his ears. We already see a difference in what he can hear!

Thank you for being a part of the New Testament translation into Quiatoni Zapotec! You are a big encouragement to us as you support us with your interest, prayers and gifts. Thank you!

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