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Nueva Luz Dear Praying Friends, On the river again Every trip to "Cashinahualand" is different, so we should not be surprised that this one was. Our departure from Pucallpa to Esperanza, which is usually by passage on a large cargo plane chartered from the Peruvian military, was delayed seven times. This time we finally went on a seven passenger twin engine plane chartered by the man who always takes us on his flights. We flew at a much lower altitude and could see all the rivers as they weave through what looks like a big field of broccoli. Many trees were in blossom and the jungle looked lovely from where we were flying. It was a good trip and the Cashinahuas were in Esperanza to meet us. Within two hours we had gathered up our supplies, which had gone on ahead space available and had them in Bautista's large wooden canoe. We wrap all our cargo in heavy bright yellow plastic so it is easy to count and keep track of, plus it is protected from the rain on the river. At 2:00 p.m., we were on our way upriver to pick up our co-translator Tufí, and after a meal with his family, we were heading to his son Bautista's village, to pick up his wife and children, for he was to be our "motorista". We traveled until about 5:30, and at which time we came to a nice dry beach, despite the high level of the water during rainy season. It gets dark at 6:00 so the men quickly cut poles and made a sleeping shelter for us and we hung our hammocks and mosquito nets under a roof of our big yellow tarp plus some palm leaves. Tufí's daughter-in-law and I fixed a little supper as we watched a gorgeous full moon rise at 6:00 p.m. directly across the river from where we were spending the night. WOW, was it gorgeous! Jacque Costeau never had it better! And we slept like rocks! Well, like sandy rocks, for the sand does get into everything. This was the first time I had slept on the beach during our travels. We had planned to do this because with all the cargo that we had, it was safer and easier than trying to carry it up to a village and then get it all down in the morning. Also very little time was spent in the morning getting something to eat and getting underway again.. The rest of the trip was rather uneventful, and we arrived in Nueva Luz at 4:00 p.m., and were able to get our things to the house before sunset. The wife of our co-translator Waldemar had some supper for us and we were in bed as fast as we could. Would I sleep on the beach again? You bet! Especially if it just happened to be the night of the full-moon! An awakening: When we arrived in Peru, it had been our plan to work on the revision of the New Testament for the Cashinahuas in Peru, but soon felt burdened to also get involved in revising one for the Cashinahuas of Brazil. In that Spanish is the national language in Peru and Portuguese is in Brazil, a lot of changes will be necessary in the alphabet. Most of this type of adaptation will be done on the computer, 1-2-3. However, we also know that the Brazilian Cashinahuas use some different vocabulary words and we have wanted to go and do a thorough check with those in Brazil, to make sure it was equally understandable. In the process of asking many people many questions about where we might gather a group of Cashinahuas from different rivers, for they are spread out over an area that takes two weeks to travel by boat, we learned some very good things. They have refused missionary contact with non-Cashinahuas, so the Cashinahua believers are doing the missionary work. One of the Peruvian Cashinahua pastors who was in Brazil some months ago on a missionary trip, gave up his Cashinahua New Testament so that one of the Brazilian believers could have 200 copies run off on a copy machine to share with his people. Has that ever happened in your church? Elias, an old friend from the 70's, when we first worked with the Cashinahuas, now lives in Brazil and we have spoken with him twice by radio and have sent him tentative copies of the revision of Genesis and the Gospel of John. When we last spoke with him, he said they were both very understandable. Elias then invited us to come and spend time with him and his family and do Scripture checking there. He has told us that there is finally a great interest in the Gospel among the Cashinahuas of Brazil and he and his sons have recently started a church. This is after many, many years of very little interest in anything spiritual. Our friend Elias would take very good care of us and we would not have to do anything but go. The believers really do take very good care of one another and they want very much to have their own New Testament in Brazil. So, rejoice with those who rejoice! And also pray with us that the paths for this step in our revision plan will open up clearly. We would not want to go to Brazil until after the New Testament for the Peruvian Cashinahuas is at least off for printing. It looks like we will have a bit of traveling ahead, for we expect to take our manuscripts of the Peruvian Cashinahua New Testament to Bolivia to be typeset. Then we will have our trip to Brazil to check for understandability, and when we finalize the New Testament for the Brazilian Cashinahuas, we will have to send that off for typeseting. Our revision progress: When we arrived in Nueva Luz this time, we had Genesis and about 65% of the New Testament revised and Matthew and Mark checked by a translation consultant. We have now completed II Corinthians and are in chapter 13 of Romans. Sometimes the progress is steady and we move right along, but both II Corinthians and Romans were very hard and we really progressed slowly. No one wants anything less than the best that the Lord will enable us to do and we pray earnestly daily for His guidance, wisdom and grace-- for who is sufficient for such a task without the Lord being in control? When we return to Yarinacocha, Waldemar and Roberto will go with us and live with us again. Out here in Nueva Luz they have been willing to work 5 to 6 days a week, and this is a great commitment for them. They have almost no free time to do the "honey do's" of life and are often off cutting firewood at 5:30 a.m. so we can all be ready to begin work at 7:30. By buying meat and some other food for them, they are free from most of the hunting and gardening they would otherwise have to do, thus providing us with full-time willing workers. Game is plentiful and there is always plenty to buy-- they like it three times a day. No bowl of Cheerios for these men in the morning! Please pray:
With sincerely thank you for your faithful prayers and financial gifts both personally and through your church giving. We pray that the Lord's blessing will be upon each of you as you are part of our Cashinahua ministry. It is especially exciting to hear of the interest in the Gospel in Brazil, for which the Peruvian Cashinahuas and we have prayed for for many years. As I am writing this letter from Nueva Luz, we have not received any mail or E-mail that any of you have sent to us since we left Yarinacocha in mid November, so I will answer that later. I want to have this Junglegram ready to send off to the Calvary Missionary Press by E-mail so they can send it out to you right away. Please do keep the letters and E-mails coming. Most of you who get this letter are on our prayer list and we pray for you at least weekly, so if you have some special requests, do let us know. We haven't heard from many of you for a long time, so I hope we have lots of mail waiting for us. ??? Yours in Christ, Sue for Dick and Sue Montag
- January 16, 2003 | ||||