Oaxaca, Oaxaca, Mexico
March, 2008
Dear Friends and Family,
Important notice
The mail service in Miami, Florida whose address we gave you in our last letter has not worked out and it’s use is being discontinued. We apologize for the inconvenience many of you have experienced with letters being returned. Please do not use that Miami address. Please send all correspondence to one of the addresses given at the end of this letter.
Also, we now have a VOIP phone, that goes through the internet. Instead of calling us at international rates, you can make a long-distance phone call to this Chicago number at the bottom of the letter and reach us here in Oaxaca. We’d enjoy hearing from you.
Where and What
Since our letter in November we’ve made four trips to the small town of Tierra Azul (Blue Earth) in the township of Santiago Nuyoo. We spent a week with our coworkers Juan and Basilica working on revising the first six chapters of John.
Norma distributing clothing; The dentist’s chair; An eye exam
On the same trip we spent two days helping the Mexican medical team ministry called Amigos Sin Frontera, “Friends Without Borders”, who visit towns and do medical and dental work, give donated medicine and clothes, and witness to the patients. We sorted clothes, translated, even held a little boy down while his tooth was being drilled. We were really made aware of how isolated the older people are from the Gospel, especially the older women. They can’t read, they know very little Spanish, and the Gospel is foreign to their thinking, so strongly shaped by their traditions and customs. How could they be reached except for them to hear it in Mixtec in recorded form?
As I began writing this letter we were in the village. For two weeks we worked on the Book of Ephesians, getting it ready for revising it in the Ephesians translation workshop in April. We completed four and a half chapters. It contains some amazing, powerful truths, but it is one of the hardest books we’ve had to translate. After this week back home, we will return for another week in the village to complete the remaining chapters. At the end of that week we would like to take several of the believers to the celebration of the arrival of the New Testament in another Mixtec language spoken in an area about six hours drive away. Our hope and prayer is that God will work in the hearts of our Mixtec friends to receive a vision of what it will mean to have God’s word in their language.
During these past months Mary has been revising and updating some of our older literacy materials and working on new ones as she has time from homemaking duties. After the workshop in April we will have a month before our branch conference at the beginning of June. Mary is in charge of arranging housing for the conference so that will be her focus in May. We are looking forward to having friends from our home church in Tucson come down to run the childcare program during the conference and then having the chance to show them around a bit before they return home.
Blessing
The Christmas holidays were a special blessing for us as we had both Christina and Daniel down from college. It was special for them too, to see sights around home again and see many of their friends, also down from college for the holidays.
You are a blessing to us too. You who pray for us, support us financially, and just send us encouragement is what God uses to make it possible for us to be here and do this work. Thank you.
Larry
Larry Harris and for Mary
Prayer and Praise
Ø Praise God for the progress made on John and Ephesians, pray for the continued progress on them and other books.
Ø Praise God that after much new paperwork we now have new visas for staying here in Mexico.
Ø Praise God for the special time with our kids at Christmas time and for their safe travel. Pray for their summer plans.
Ø Pray for the believers in the Nuyoo area that seem discouraged right now and haven’t meet for a couple of weeks. Pray for us to know how we may best encourage them in the use of the Scriptures in their language.
Ø Pray for the protection of our Language associates, Juan and Basilica, and their family. Pray for the future plans of their children
Contributions and inquiries: U.S. address(always reaches us eventually): Address in Oaxaca, Mexico (requires foreign postage):
Wycliffe Bible Translators c/o SIL Larry and Mary Harris
P.O. Box 628200 16131 N. Vernon Dr. Apdo. # 4
Orlando, Florida 32862-8200 Tucson AZ 85739-9395 70430 Mitla, Oaxaca Mexico
E-mail: Oaxaca phone:
larry_harris@sil.org <mailto:larry_harris@sil.org> mary_harris@sil.org <mailto:mary_harris@sil.org> 011-52-951-549-0007 VOIP phone 630-517-0317
March 3, 2008
An update on our trip to the village for you, our praying friends:
We enjoyed a good 2 weeks in the village at Juan and Basilica’s home. Larry worked daily for about 6 hours with Basilica on Ephesians and they got through the middle of chapter 4. We plan to return next week Monday or Tuesday ( March 10 or 11) to try to finish up Ephesians by the end of that week. At that time there is a dedication of another Mixtec New Testament in a place about 6 hours away. We hope to encourage a group from Nuyoo to attend it with us.
We were disappointed to learn that the believers had not met the Sunday before our arrival and were disappointed again when they didn’t meet while we were there. They seem to be discouraged. Please pray that the Lord will lead us in the best way we be a part of his encouragment to them as well as help them to learn to study the Scriptures together.
We did not get to meet with any teachers. Mary was able to revise several literacy books with a young lady and begin work on a new book with traditional rhymes or maybe we’d call them tongue twisters. It could be a good literacy tool because the word plays are based on tones and other features of pronounciation that are hard to read. They also lend themselves to humorous pictures. When she talked to people about them asking for more examples there was always a positive humorous reaction like we have for a dear memory for our childhood so we’re thinking the book has good potential. When we go out again we’d like to meet with a man who is said to be a good artist as well as an older man who might know more word plays.
Thanks for your continued prayers and prayers for next week’s trips,
Sincerely,
\Mary and Larry Harris