Update from Valerie and Nicasio - nov '21

​Update and Prayer Requests: November 2021
Valerie and Nicasio Martinez
Translating God's Word with and for the people
who speak Quiatoni Zapotec
​
We hope you had a lovely Thanksgiving and had lots to thank God for!
Since Nicasio and I have basically been doing the same ole stuff this month, we thought we’d share some about Beto, who is Nicasio’s right hand man, and his wife Candi.

Beto translated the Psalms and continues to work on revising them. He’s beginning to use a translation resource that now has commentaries on the Psalms in Spanish.  He’s also been recording Acts for people to be able to listen to it on their cell phones.

Beto is also starting to translate Exodus. (He’s already done Genesis.) He said, “I’ve started reading about the names of God. This is what seems hardest to me: if we should use ‘God’ or if we should use ‘Yahweh’ or ‘YHWH.’ In some places, I’ve used ‘Yahweh,’ but this will make it necessary to use it everywhere. This is hard to decide.”

When Beto and Candi came to visit last week, Candi told us how she’s been recording the Gospel of John in Zapotec and sending short bits via Whatsapp to two groups of family members. Two people from those groups want to join our Zapotec church service!

Candi also told us how grieving her mother’s death has been made even harder by some very unkind (and untrue) things her uncle has said to her and her siblings. Candi said that she’s grateful that we are studying whole books of the Bible because it helps her deal with these things. Her brother, who also attends Zapotec church, is having a harder time. Candi and Beto have been praying for and counseling him.

We are so thankful for Beto and Candi, for their love for Jesus, for how they initiate projects, for how they are sharing the Good News of Jesus, for their wisdom is counseling family and friends who come to them with problems. As you thank God with us for them, will you also pray for solutions to Candi’s medical problems?*

A few small things out of the ordinary for us: Nicasio and I spent some time this month on filling out year end and next year forms as well as updating our emergency information. We are also working on getting all the information together to make our wills. (All this reminds me of how my dad used to say, “Why does everything have to be so complicated?!”)

Family news:
Nicasio’s sister and her husband came from Mexico City to spend a week with Mom and Dad. Nicasio gladly took his brother-in-law’s offer to help with fix-it jobs, so besides fixing some things for Mom and Dad, he and Nicasio spent a day fixing the roof on our storage shed. All the other kids came to visit while Alicia was here, too!

We are very thankful that what was suspected to be covid again turned out to be that Mom had bronchitis. We’re thankful that the medicine has been effective and she’s feeling much better.

In other family news, Grandbaby Royan had his first birthday on Thanks­giving Day! Rusty joined Tara and Mike for a family Thanksgiving dinner and we were treated to a nice, long video call with all of them. So fun to see Royan walking and so busy with his toys! It’s fun to interact with him via video calls but we would so like to hug him—and the big kids, too!

Thank you for your interest, prayers and support making God’s Word available in Quiatoni Zapotec. We appreciate you!
​
Looking forward to celebrating our Savior’s birth!
love, Valerie and Nicasio
www.cten.org/NicasioMartinez
*We had been planning on helping Candi with her medical problems just before the covid restrictions started. So it’s been on hold since then; now that things are improving, she’s moving ahead with seeing the doctor. We thank God that there was extra money given to pay for their daughter’s emergency appendectomy, which will be put towards Candi’s medical expenses.