Valerie and Nicasio Martinez wrote:

Dear Father Mike,

Thank you for your and your church's interest in our ministry! Here is what we are about:

We are translating God's Word into Quiatoni Zapotec (pronounced key-ah-TOE-ny SAP-of-tek), which is Nicasio's first language. One of the more than 350 indigenous languages spoken in Mexico, it was being spoken before the Spanish arrived so it is completely unrelated to Spanish. (Like all living languages, Quiatoni Zapotec borrows words from Spanish and other languages.) There are about 14,000 people who speak Quiatoni Zapotec, which is located in southern Mexico in the state of Oaxaca (wah-HAH-ka).

Our main goal is Bible translation but since Quiatoni Zapotec doesn't have a written tradition, we also are involved in literacy activities so that when the translation is published people will be able to read it. We are thankful for the bilingual teachers and other individuals who are interested in writing and teaching reading and writing in Quiatoni Zapotec.

We have produced four volumes of songs in QZ, a small Bible dictionary, a workbook for studying the Gospel of John, some Bible story books, and we have dubbed the Jesus film into QZ.

We also work on documenting the language and culture by writing a grammar explaining how the language works (for example, QZ has no equivalents for "yes" and "no"), by compiling a bilingual (QZ and Spanish) dictionary as well as writing up aspects of the culture.

Thank you for your interest in our ministry of Bible translation!

Father Mike, if you would like to include links to materials in QZ:
Scripture Earth gives a list of all the QZ materials available: https://www.scriptureearth.org/00i-Scripture_Index.php?sortby=lang&ISO_ROD_index=252

You'll find links there to read and listen to the Book of Galatians, the Jesus film (also available directly at: https://www.jesusfilm.org/watch/jesus.html/zapotec-san-pedro-quiatoni.html), a link to the SIL site where you can find our literacy books, and links to other information.

We have posted two videos on youtube of QZ songs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCPWvYwuYgo&ab_channel=VNRMMTZ (Nicasio, our sons and a friend)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mSUdVE7z0k&ab_channel=VNRMMTZ (with photos of the Quiatoni area and the words to the song in Zapotec, Spanish and English)
Thank you again!