Missions Around the World
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Update and Prayer Requests: November 2022 Valerie and Nicasio Martinez Translating God's Word with and for the people who speak Quiatoni Zapotec We told you in our last update about receiving samples of a small solar-powered audio device. (You can see them and read about them here: https://kulumi.org/) Besides the started package of 15 devices, the ministry has offered to send us more at no cost, other than the duty on them! We have been talking a lot about how to distribute them: give them away? charge a small amount? You might remember that we sell our books in Zapotec for what it costs us to print them; we see that the people buying them value them more because of buying them. (Think about when you are given something vs having to spend money on something. Which do you value more?) There’s always the tension between wanting people to value the “package” their Zapotec comes in and wanting people to hear God’s Word in their own language without any cost. We appreciate your prayers and we figure out how to distribute these devices. We are also working on the audio files that will go on the devices. Beto has been some of the New Testament books (John, Acts, Romans, Philippians, Galatians, and Hebrews), an explanation of the Tabernacle and the Temple and The Birth of Jesus. We also have three volumes of songs and hymns in Zapotec. I’ve sent these to the ministry to put on the devices before they send them to us. Beto is also coordinating recording the 16 Old Testament stories that Candy has taught in the Zapotec Sunday School. Beto will record some of them and he’s also asking Candy, her brother, and his wife to record some of them. Since they want to practice reading their stories before recording them, Beto says he will put these Old Testament stories on the devices when they arrive. These Old Testament stories will be very helpful to believers who speak Quiatoni Zapotec since they usually don’t know much about the Old Testament. As a result of the translating Proverbs workshop Beto attended, he’s making a book called “Learning How We Can Be Good Parents and Good Children” with verses from Proverbs. We are so blessed by the way Beto and Candy find ways to share what they are learning and the Quiatoni Zapotec translation with others! Nicasio was invited to sing a couple of songs in Zapotec at the inauguration of new murals at the Mitla center. Never one to do by himself what he can involve others in J, he invited our Zapotec music group to participate with him. Everyone really enjoyed it! (Picture below.) We have had two sessions with the bilingual teachers in one of the schools in Quiatoni’s second largest town. It’s been neat to see how they are so interested in learning the Quiatoni Zapotec sounds and alphabet as well as writing in their own languages about themselves from prompts Nicasio gives them. Helping the teachers be proud of their indigenous heritages is a big step towards them helping their students in the same way. (Indigenous people here have suffered a lot of discrimination and prejudice.) We are thankful for opportunities to work with the bilingual teachers. Think how many will be able to read the Quiatoni Zapotec New Testament when it’s finished! Rusty celebrated six months at his new job (The Lilly Center for Lakes and Streams https://lakes.grace.edu/) He says he’s settling in and making it his own! Mike and Tara are thankful for another year of life for Royan, who had his second birthday this month, and are looking forward to watching him grow over the next year. They’d appreciate prayers as they continue to investigate his hearig loss and delayed speech; the therapist has been a great help. Nicasio’s parents moved home to Quiatoni the end of September. His dad is not doing well; it’s probably prostate cancer but because of his age and physical weakneed, they can’t do much for him. We would appreciate prayers for his parents during this hard time and for Nicasio’s sister who is caring for them. Thank you for your part in making these things—and many others!—possible so that the people who speak Quiatoni Zapotec will have God’s Word in their own language. Your interest, prayers and support are so important to us. Thank you! love, Valerie and Nicasio www.cten.org/NicasioMartinez  Valerie and Nicasio Martinez Translating God's Word with and for the people who speak Quiatoni Zapotec We began October by participating in a four day missions conference and ended October by participating in a four day conference in Spanish on Scripture engagement and digital distribution. The Global Missions Conference, hosted by The Chapel (Sandusky, OH), was an amazing experience! They used great creativity, variety, and organization in all the “public” events (church services, family night, 60+ folks, etc.). Each mission that was represented was encouraged and enabled to tell what they do for God’s Kingdom. The Chapel treated all of us missionaries like royalty: Besides the public events, there were meetings for just the missionaries, the missionaries with the church staff, with their host families, etc. The Chapel packed in so much during those four days—and still gave us time to rest and relax. We are so thankful for The Chapel, for allowing us to participate, and for The Chapel being so missions-minded. We had ended September by going from Rusty’s home (Winona Lake, IN) to northern Ohio to visit family, friends and supporters before the missions conference started. After the missions conference ended, we returned to Rusty’s home and visited a few more people as well as spending time with Mike, Tara and Royan. Those were special times! This trip was such a blessing to us! (For those of you who like statistics: in the eight days we were in Ohio, we visited 15 different sets of people, had amazing amounts of ice cream as well as many delicious meals, participated in the missions conference with seven “public” and four “private” events, with lots of visiting before, during and after the events, and drove more than 630 miles. Nicasio participated in his on-line Master’s degree class and gave his live, 10 minute presentation for UNESCO, too.) Beto told us that he learned so much during the Proverbs workshop. He said that he had learned from Nicasio to read through the whole book and follow the thread through it, looking at the context of each part, but that didn’t work for Proverbs! He learned about Hebrew poetry, parallelism, and how to translate the harder verses in Proverbs. Candy has been recording about two minutes of Scripture in Zapotec and sending them via WhatsApp to family and friends. When she finished the Gospel of John, she asked Beto what she should do next. He suggested Proverbs so she’s been sending that. She told us that she’s learned a lot from reading and recording them in Zapotec! October 22 Beto graduated from college with a degree in Teaching Foreign Languages, with a specialization in English! Last Monday (Oct. 24), Beto, Candy, Nicasio and I drove to a small town north of Mexico City to attend a four day conference in Spanish on Scripture engagement and digital distribution. We all learned so much! Each day there were a devotional and a plenary presentation for everyone. Nicasio gave the plenary on Friday and did an excellent job exploring indigenous identity, what it means to be a Christian when the church (building) isn’t available (covid restrictions), and how we need to remember that people are more important than the church building and all our programs. We also chose workshops to attend for two hours each morning: Candy chose “I am indigenous and a follower of Christ;” Beto attended the audio recording workshop; Nicasio and I learned how to better use the translation program. In the afternoon, there was a variety of mini-workshops for each participant to choose a different one each day. We learned a lot from each of these, too! Different ministries had exhibition tables to tell about their focus of ministry. We were delighted to receive two samples of small devices for audio recordings. People usually get these when their New Testaments are completed so that people can easily listen to God’s Word in their own language. We are excited that Kulumi ministry (kulumi.org) offered to send us a starter package of 15 devices, five like the samples we were given as well as five each of their two other models. We look forward to sharing these with people we know will use them! And we look forward to the day when we can buy lots of them to share with many other people to listen to God’s Word in Quiatoni Zapotec. Each evening there was a free time for anyone who wanted to sing a song, share a testimony or something that encouraged them. The first night, Beto, Candy and Nicasio sang a song in Zapotec. Thursday evening, Beto shared how the Zapotec church service is changing people and Candy shared how she has been recording and sharing the translation with family and friends via WhatsApp. We are so proud of them! Candy had been saying that she wasn’t going to talk to so many people (about 180 people attended the conference) but when the time came, she went up with Beto. She said that she had told Beto she wasn’t going to but when a family went up to sing a song and their young daughter (maybe 8 years old) sang a solo, Candy felt that if that little girl could do it, she could, too! People really enjoyed their presentation, which they ended with a song in Zapotec. Thank you for praying for us with all this traveling. We are so thankful that our car started making an odd noise when Nicasio was moving it to the parking lot at the conference. One of the cooks took him to a local mechanic, who found that a bolt hadn’t been tightened when our local mechanics had worked on the car the week before the conference. We are thankful it didn’t come loose on our way there or on our way home. We are thankful for God’s protection then as well as many other times. November 8 we will go to Quiatoni’s second largest town to teach a group of bilingual teachers how to hear and write Quiatoni Zapotec. There will be four sessions all together in November and December. We appreciate your prayers as we travel there (1.5 hours each way) and as we interact with the teachers. Thank you for being part of our team, making all this possible through your prayers, interest and support. We thank God for YOU! love, Valerie and Nicasio www.cten.org/NicasioMartinez PS Here’s a picture of all of us!  Update and Prayer Requests: September 2022
Valerie and Nicasio Martinez Translating God's Word with and for the people who speak Quiatoni Zapotec September seems to have been consumed with preparations! --Preparations to fly to the US to participate in a missions conference hosted by one of our supporting churches and preparations for our participation in it. (I flew to the US on Sept. 22, Nicasio on the 26th. Nicasio’s visa did arrive in good time. Thank you for praying.) I’m so late in sending this out, I can tell you that the conference started yesterday; we’ve been busy and having fun! --Preparations to visit people in the area where the missions conference will be held. (We’ve seen quite a few people and hope to see more in the next few days!) --Preparations for a presentation for UNESCO. The university that Nicasio has been teaching in and coordinating classes for asked him to do the presentation about the Master’s programs that have to do with indigenous languages. Nicasio received the invitation about 10 days before the presentation date. His presentation went very well! He is encouraged by all the nice comments people have made about it. Friends that invited us for dinner two days before the presentation said afterwards that they couldn’t believe that the man making a presentation to UNESCO had had dinner with them! Meanwhile, Beto is in a workshop about translating Proverbs, which he’s been working on translating. We haven’t heard much from him but I heard from a friend that some in the class have gotten food poisoning. We’d appreciate your prayers for them to get it over it soon and for protection and lots of learning during the remaining two weeks of the workshop. We are thankful for the wonderful co-worker we have in Beto. While we are in the US, he will take care of the Zapotec church service. Two weeks after we get home, we’ll be driving to another conference a little north of Mexico City. This four day conference (Oct 25-28) will be all in Spanish and is on reaching people with the Gospel through diverse media. Nicasio will be making a presentation on Indigenous Identity and the Use of Digital Strategies. He appreciates your prayers as he finishes his presentation. Beto and Candy will be attending, too, and driving there with us. We appreciate your prayers for safety for the trip and that we learn a lot. Rusty had his tests for his year and a half check-up after his testicular cancer surgery. We rejoice that there is no evidence of cancer. We thank God for that and we thank you for your prayers for him. Mike, Tara and Royan will be coming to the missions conference today! And we will stop to see them on the way from the missions conference to Rusty’s home. They’ve done a lot of improvements on their house and we look forward to seeing that as well as visiting with them. Nicasio’s parents decided that they wanted to move home to Quiatoni so their daughter who lives in Quiatoni came for them the day before I flew to the US. Their daughter who lives in Mexico City had planned on coming to stay with them while we are gone, so she went to Quiatoni to be with them there. Nicasio’s dad’s health is not very good; we are hoping the change will be good for him. Thank you for praying for them. As always, we thank you for your interest and support of our ministry of the Quiatoni Zapotec translation, for us, and for our family. God has blessed us with you on our team! love, Valerie and Nicasio www.cten.org/NicasioMartinez Dear Friends, Attached you'll find our September 2022 newsletter. We hope it's an encouragement to you. Your interest in our ministry of Bible translation for those who speak Quiatoni Zapotec is an encouragement to us! We also want to let those of you who are in or near the northern Ohio area that we will be participating in a missions conference in The Chapel, Sandusky, Ohio, from October 1 to October 4. See their website for more information about events that you can attend: https://www.thechapel.family/post/weekly-update (scroll down a bit for two announcements about the Global Missions Conference.) We would love to see you there! love, Valerie and Nicasio www.cten.org/NicasioMartinez See newsletter in pdf file below: 
Update and Prayer Requests: August 2022
Valerie and Nicasio Martinez Translating God's Word with and for the people who speak Quiatoni Zapotec The end of July a lady from the small Quiatoni town that we had been visiting pre-pandemic every month (we’d take our Zapotec music group and Nicasio would preach in Zapotec) contacted Nicasio asking him for songs in Zapotec. She said that her son is in the hospital recuperating from surgery and she wanted the songs to share with him. Nicasio was happy to send them to her. Isn’t it a joy to see how God makes the seeds grow?! (You can hear and read a translation of two songs here: https://youtu.be/-mSUdVE7z0k) Our church council asked us (those who attend the Zapotec service and who didn’t go to church for two years during the pandemic) to meet with them on August 7. It was a long but a good meeting. Some points were cleared up and we are once again members in good standing in the church. The best news is that we started in-person Zapotec services the following Thursday evening! We were surprised and pleased that the pastor, the assistant pastor and one of the men on the council have attended the service. Thank you for praying about this; please continue to pray as we reintegrate into the church and for the Zapotec service to once again be a normal service. Nicasio and Beto have figured out a way to pay for internet service and rig up a cell phone so that those who are too far away to join in-person can still attend via zoom since our church doesn’t have internet. (One lady is in Mexico City and one couple is in Quiatoni.) One of the good things that God has made out of the pandemic is that these folks can attend the service; we are thankful for technology that allows them to join us! Just last night, Nicasio found out that his US visa should arrive in 10 business days! We have been invited to participate in a missions conference Oct. 1 to 4 at the church that my parents belonged to (The Chapel, Sandusky, OH). We plan on visiting folks in the area (let us know if you’d like a visit!) and seeing our kids while we’re there. I’ve bought my ticket for Sept 22 to Oct 10, and we’ll buy Nicasio’s as soon as his visa arrives. Thank you for praying for his visa and for safe travels for us. Two weeks after we get back from that trip, we’ll be driving to another conference a little north of Mexico City. This four day conference (Oct 25-28) is on reaching people with the Gospel through diverse media. Nicasio will be making a presentation on Indigenous Identity and the Use of Digital Strategies. He appreciates your prayers as he prepares his presentation. Beto’s trip to Salinas (Quiatoni’s second largest town) turned out very well! Thank you for praying for him. The trip in the new-to-them car went well as did his participation in the church service. They asked him to reading the opening Psalm in Zapotec (good thing he’s been working on translating them!) and pray for the offering as well as preach. He had told his brother-in-law, who arranged for Beto to preach, how the car had been given to them. The brother-in-law was very surprised when Beto didn’t preach about how God gave them the car and instead gave a clear presentation of the Gospel in Zapotec. They would like him to preach again some time. Nicasio and Beto have finished going through all the comments and questions that were brought up by the back-translation of the Book of Acts. Please pray that a consultant will have time to check our translation of Acts soon. (The consultant who said he would check has had to say that he won’t be able to after all.) This will be a big step towards finishing the New Testament translation. (Acts is a long book!) Beto has also been working on translating and revising the book of Proverbs since he will be in a workshop from Sept 19 to Oct 7 on translating Proverbs, focusing especially on problem areas. Thank you for your prayers for Beto and his family! Nicasio is coordinating another course for the Master’s program in Translation and Interpretation in Oaxaca City’s university. The first class was this morning (August 25). It’s very encouraging that the university and the students want to have Nicasio and the SIL teachers continue teaching them. Mike and Tara say that they are doing really well. They’ve seen a lot of improvement in Royan even with the first couple of visits with the therapist (for his speech delay). They appreciate your prayers as they make adjustments through his therapy. Rusty would like you to pray for his CT scans on Sept 23 and his doctor’s appointment the following Friday. (He had surgery for testicular cancer in March 2021.) He’s been cancer free for 1.5 year and wants it to go for 2 years! We thank you for taking our prayer requests and praises to our heavenly Father. We appreciate your faithfulness and interest in seeing that the people who speak Quiatoni Zapotec hear God’s Word in their own language. Thank you! love, Valerie and Nicasio www.cten.org/NicasioMartinez Dear Friends, I can hardly believe that July is almost over--and that last Monday, our Mike turned 26! Where has the time gone?! I'm attaching our update as a PDF. (If you have trouble with it, let me know and I'll send it another way.) Even though there's not much about Bible translation in this update, we continue working on it and other related activities. A lot of Bible translation is slow going (and boring to the outsider) but we see God's Word affecting those who are studying it in their own language! Thank you for making God's Word available to them through your interest, prayers and support. love, Valerie and Nicasio Update Document attached below:
Update and Prayer Requests: June 2022
Valerie and Nicasio Martinez Translating God's Word with and for the people who speak Quiatoni Zapotec Nicasio and Beto have checking the translation of the Book of Acts in Zapotec as well as the back translation, to see what parts the back translator didn’t understand. This is in preparation for the consultant to check it. We want it to be the best it can be so all this checking is worth it! Beto has finished a first draft of the book of Proverbs. He has been revising it for a three week workshop in September on translating Proverbs. Beto also recently dubbed a evangelistic video. You can see it here: https://www.facebook.com/AnsbertoGonlz/videos/1171192090327368 and the English version is here: http://www.freecartoontract.com/animation/ While Nicasio stayed home, doing all his regular things of working on the translation, his doctoral thesis, coordinating the translation class for the Translation and Interpretation Master’s Degree program, teaching the young people, etc., I went to the US for two and a half weeks! I was to fly on May 31st to Fort Wayne to attend a memorial service for two very dear friends, spend time with our kids and do some visiting. My flight from Oaxaca to Mexico City was cancelled the night before, we assume because of the hurricane heading towards Oaxaca. Within two hours, Nicasio had taken me to Oaxaca and I had bought a bus ticket for Mexico City. I got to the airport in plenty of time for my 1 pm flight. I had a great time with Mike, Tara and Royan for ten days. It was so fun to see Royan (a year and a half old!) investigate things at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis and the Children’s Zoo in Fort Wayne. Celebrating Tara’s birthday with her family and Rusty was another highlight. We (mostly Mike and his truck) helped Rusty move into his new apartment with no apartment mates! Rusty says he was glad to be able to host me while I was in Indiana. He is also learning lots about algae, watersheds, and lakes at his new job at the Lilly Center for Lakes & Streams! A highlight of my time with Rusty was his accompanying me to my home church, the Federated Church of Grass Lake, MI, to give an update there on our ministry of Bible translation. Then we visited two of my cousins and then we went to visit the Federated Church’s retired pastor and his wife. Another fun thing was to make a presentation to Rusty’s Bible study group on the Sunday morning that I flew home. (One of the perks of a 1 pm flight!) It was a delightful group with lots of interest and good questions. I just wish we didn’t have to rush off to the airport! I’m so thankful that I was able to visit quite a few people in the area since I/we hadn’t been able to visit during the covid restrictions. It was a lot of driving (and oh! the gas prices!) but I was encouraged and blessed by every visit. (For those of you in the northern Ohio area, Nicasio and I will be visiting there in late September and early October; dates to be confirmed.) Please pray for Nicasio’s dad. He hasn’t been feeling well for a while and some blood tests show that he might have prostate cancer. (He’d had prostate surgery more than 10 years ago.) We appreciate your prayers for both his parents. They are quite content living pretty independently next door to us. Would you pray, too, for Pastor Delfino and the other Quiatoni pastors to see the benefits of having God’s Word in their own language? Thank you. Thank you for standing with us in so many ways as we work towards God’s Word in Quiatoni Zapotec and the people being able to read and listen to it in their own language. love, Valerie and Nicasio www.cten.org/NicasioMartinez Update and Prayer Requests: May 2022
Valerie and Nicasio Martinez Translating God's Word with and for the people who speak Quiatoni Zapotec May started off with a bang! We asked for prayer last month for the Zapotec music group and their first event since the pandemic started. The short, untangled version of the long, tangled back-story: A lady from Quiatoni’s second largest town had asked Nicasio to sing Zapotec songs while she and her family prepared food for her son’s wedding (which would be the next day). She said that non-believing family members would be there and she wanted them to hear Christian songs in Zapotec. Nicasio got permission from our pastor (another long and involved story), the Zapotec music group got busy and spent a day and a half practicing—the first time together in two years! Nicasio was impressed by how quickly they got back into it and that they didn’t need as much practice as he’d anticipated. When we got there and the group got all set up and were singing, a lady came to me and asked what we had available on CDs because her mother couldn’t read. She already had our song CDs and was happy to get the Gospel of Mark, Galatians and the Birth of Jesus on CDs. When she paid me for them, she didn’t want her change, saying, “You keep it. Y’all are doing a good work and an important work!” Five or six more people bought all three song CDs and none of them wanted their change! (One man’s change was one and a half times what he was buying!) When the food preparations were winding down because it was almost time to go to the bride’s house for part of the traditional wedding, the lady who had invited the group asked Nicasio if we could go with them to the bride’s house and provide music there, too! Even though that meant packing up everything, driving to the next town (happily it was on our way home!) and setting everything up again, Nicasio agreed. The songs and the parts that Nicasio read out of the Gospel of John in Zapotec were very well received at both places. Different ones of our group overheard things like, “He was reading out of the Bible in Zapotec and we could really understand it!” and “We really like the songs because they are in Zapotec!” The lady who invited the group had asked Nicasio what they charge for an event; he told her there wouldn’t be any charge but if she’d like to give something to help with expenses, that would be accepted. She was very generous with her “something” and a few other people, including the groom, also gave Nicasio “somethings” to help. Nicasio was pleased to share it with everyone who had gone with us and helped make it a success. Later in the month, we went to the closing program that Beto had for his reading and writing in Zapotec class in that same town. It was a very small program, the eight students and their families, but it was given a lot of prestige because the town mayor and his men arrived in response to Beto’s invitation. Later, the town hall’s big van came to take the students and their families across town to where Candy (Beto’s wife), her sister, Beto’s mom, and Rogelio’s family (he started the project to rescue Quiatoni Zapotec’s numbers) had prepared a meal. The closing program went really well. Beto had focused his reading and writing program on riddles and tongue twisters. The students were from 3rd to 9th grades, one gal was just learning to speak Zapotec! Each one confidently took the microphone and read from his large “book” the tongue-twister and the two riddles that he had written. Each one waited for someone to guess the answer to the riddles—even though a couple of them had written the answer large enough for everyone to see! The mayor gave a nice speech about how we know how to speak Zapotec but don’t know how to write it so it’s good that the children are learning to write in Zapotec. Beto had asked Nicasio to speak, too, and he emphasized how important it is for people to use their minority languages even though they can speak the national language, too. This was a big project to Beto to undertake and even though the classes are done, he still needs to analyze his results and write it all up to present as part of his requirements to graduate with his bachelor’s degree. We are very proud of him and of how Candy and their daughters have supported him through his college years. (My dad often said, “I wonder how many more Nicasios there are out there in the Quiatoni mountains.” Beto is one of them, and I know my parents would have been just as proud of Beto as they were of Nicasio.) Everything else that happened in May pales in comparison to these events! We did keep on with our regular stuff, jobs, and studies this month, though. I also attended a five day (online) seminar on verbs; the participants will be making presentations about some facet of verbs in the language they are studying on June 16th. Please continue to pray that Nicasio’s US visa will be granted, and we’d be delighted if the required interview in Mexico City were waived. And please pray for me as I travel to and around Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan, from May 31 to June 19. Thank you for your interest in our ministry of Bible translation. You are an encouragement to us and we hope that we encourage you with these glimpses of what’s happening in the Quiatoni area. love, Valerie and Nicasio https://www.cten.org/NicasioMartinez I know we just sent out our newsletter and hope that you are interested in what we did in April. So here’s our:
Update and Prayer Requests: April 2022 Valerie and Nicasio Martinez Translating God's Word with and for the people who speak Quiatoni Zapotec Last month we told you about the back-translators and why we need people to translate the Zapotec back into Spanish.* The back-translator writes the Spanish meaning under the Zapotec, not word for word but by thoughts or phrases. When the back-translator returns the book to us, Beto types the hand-written back-translation into the program that we use for the translation. Then the back-translation and the Zapotec translation can be easily sent over the internet to the colleague who will check the book. If the colleague is familar with Zapotec, seeing the Zapotec sometimes will answer questions—or bring up new ones! Since Esmeralda finished and sent us the back-translation of the book of Acts, Beto typed it all into the translation program. So the next step is to sent it to a colleague to check it. Please pray that one of our colleagues who checks translations will have time to check Acts for us. Acts is a long book! Beto and Nicasio have been working on revising and improving the scripts for dubbing the Deditos videos, (https://deditos.org/en/home) which are Old Testament children’s videos, although we are sure adults will enjoy them, too! Old Testament information is so important for understanding the New Testament. We hope to record the voices as soon as covid restrictions relax some more here. When we were studying Acts 21:27-29, about the Jews accusing Paul of taking a Gentile into the Temple, Beto saw that “word pictures” of the Temple and its courts wasn’t enough, so he made a short video in Zapotec explaining the history of the Temple and its courts. We are thankful for Beto’s creativity and love of digital things! Nicasio has applied for his US visa to be renewed. We’d appreciate your prayers that it will be granted and that he won’t have to go to Mexico City for the interview. (Apparently interviews are often waived for people of his age.) Would you also pray for our internet during the (online) Zapotec church service? It often goes off during our prayer time and sometimes during the study time. The Zapotec music group has been invited to play and sing at a wedding reception in Quiaton’s second largest town! Let the practicing begin! They haven’t played or practiced together since we stopped meeting together in March 2020. Nicasio has received permission from our pastor to accept this invitation (necessary since we are under discipline) so the group will be practicing this weekend and maybe evenings next week since the wedding is on May 8th. Thank you for praying for this, too. I (Valerie) will be in (NW) Ohio and (NE) Indiana for two weeks, the beginning of May, with our kids. I hope to be able to do some visiting so if you’d like to be on the list of potential visits, let me know! (Nicasio and I are planning on attending a missions week in Sandusky, Ohio, the first week of October, so we hope to see people in that area then.) We appreciate your interest in and your prayers for us and for our ministry of Bible translation for those who speak Quiatoni Zapotec. love, Valerie and Nicasio https://www.cten.org/NicasioMartinez *In case you’ve forgotten or missed that, back-translations allow a colleague with more translation experience to check our translation so it will be the best it can be. Correction: I will be in the US the beginning of JUNE! April 26, 2022 Dear Brothers and Sisters, Thank you for your generous gift in February. We so appreciate your generosity and your desire to see God’s Word translated into Quiatoni Zapotec. You make it possible! Thank you! Good Friday morning, just when we were about to have breakfast, Rebeca called and asked if we could come to their house to have memelas for breakfast. Memelas are smaller and thicker than regular tortillas; after they are cooked on the griddle, some pork rendering is spread on each one and then some crumbled, fresh cheese and they go back on the griddle to get warm and melty. So delicious when you are sitting there, near the griddle and you eat them hot, with some delicious home made salsa on them! We said “Yes!” and then got busy figuring out a birthday present for Rebeca because Nicasio had seen on FaceBook that it was her birthday. We decided on a small, pretty bowl that I had bought on a trip to Puebla City. We had a delicious breakfast (including hot chocolate and/or coffee and a sweet roll) and a delightful time visiting with Rebeca and her mom, Sofía. Rebeca and Sofía are very faithful about attending the Zapotec church service and tell us that they learn so much by studying God’s Word in their own language. Rebeca told us that her mom had asked if we should do like the Catholics do during Lent and Holy Week: not eat meat. That led into a discussion about how most churches (Catholic and protestant) in our area tend to have special services on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday but Easter Sunday is “business as usual.” Sofía said, “Yes, that doesn’t seem right, does it? It’s like Jesus died on Good Friday and He stayed dead until next year when Palm Sunday and Holy Week come around again. We should be celebrating on Resurrection Sunday that He came back to life!” We hope you had a happy Easter celebrating our risen Savior! Our April 2022 Quiatoni Crier is attached. We trust it will be an encouragement to you. Thank you again for your financial support, prayers and interest in translating God’s Word into Quiatoni Zapotec. May God richly bless you! love, Valerie and Nicasio www.cten.org/NicasioMartinez Download the Quiatoni Crier Newsletter below:
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