Nueva Luz
December 24, 2003

Dear Praying Friends and Family,

When Jesus sent out the seventy out into "the harvest", he told them to "beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest". As we celebrate this the time of the birth of our Lord Jesus, let us do this and ask Him to raise up from our own families and churches those who will take His Gospel to those who have not yet had the opportunity to hear it. How many churches are there in your town? And in the neighboring ones? Let's pray that the Lord will send out committed men and women from our own fellowships to share in bringing the lost to Him.... And when those seventy returned, they had many wonderful stories to tell of "how even the demons are subject to us in Your name." But Jesus' response was very different from what they expected: "but rejoice that YOUR NAMES ARE RECORDED IN HEAVEN". So, as we all now celebrate Christ's birth, let each one of us who has received Christ as Savior truly rejoice that our names are written in heaven, and think a bit less of the lovely Christmas tree, the gifts being shared and the fun family times. This will please and honor our King.

LIFE IN NUEVA LUZ
As rainy season settles in with its full quota of rain and clouds, we are battling to keep enough power in our battery powered solar cells so we can keep working all day. One day we used three different batteries, but we kept at it all day. We are still working on following through on the suggestions made by our translation consultant in Huanuco. In that this noble man took on 60% of the New Testament to check at one time, the follow-up has been prolonged for us all, for he has written out suggestions and has e-mailed them to us, and we work them through and revise the passages and then e-mail them back. We have been very fortunate to be able to rent a Satellite phone for this month in Nueva Luz and can e-mail this way. We are only using it at the minimum and our e-mail regular mail will still be awaiting us when we return to Yarinacocha-Pucallpa about January 10. You younger folks would be impressed to see how this woman who celebrated her 62nd birthday yesterday, is "burning disks" and "zipping" and "unzipping" files. Who say that an old dog can't learn new tricks! Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would be doing this, but it sure makes it possible to get the job done.

We continue with six-day workweeks and have not missed a day. We are deeply grateful for the good progress that the Lord has given our co-translators and us. These dear and committed men joyfully keep to this schedule, and Dick and I both are thankful to be doing what the Lord has put before us. There is no other place we would rather be and nothing that we would rather be doing at this time in our lives.

PLEASE PRAY

• We expect to remain in Nueva Luz until about January 8, with the following goals:
  1. Complete the processing of our translation consultant's suggestions, so the New Testament is approved for publication;
  2. Review the parallel passages in the New Testament and make any adjustments necessary.
• After traveling downriver by canoe on January 8, we are scheduled to fly to Pucallpa either January 9 or 10 with Roberto and Waldemar and their families, eleven of us in total. And on January 12 we are to begin our final read-through of the New Testament with Roberto, Waldemar and Waldemar's son Abel. We will look for anything that doesn't seem clear or natural and any "typos" which we still haven't picked up. And then that will be about it! Please pray for good health, alertness, endurance and discernment for us all as we read for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week.
• As of now, Dick and I are scheduled to be in Cochabamba, Bolivia on March 12, and begin our manuscript layout work on the 15th with the Bolivian Bible Society personnel, who will be preparing our New Testament to be printed by the Peruvian Bible Society. We have been told we will probably be in Cochabamba for 6-8 weeks. Then back to Nueva Luz as soon as possible.
• We had asked you to pray for the plans to start a second edition of the New Testament for the Brazilian Kashinawas: the where, when and with whom. Well, the Lord has answered better than we could have even imagined asking. There is a group of Brazilian Kashinawas who have agreed to come to Nueva Luz and work with us here. They have relatives near-by that they haven't seen in maybe 25 years, and are glad to be paid to come and see them! These are deeply committed Christian leaders, one of whom we met when we first worked with the Kashinawas, and he was part of the final read-through of the original Kashinawa New Testament. WOW! We praise the Lord for this and ask you to keep the whole project in your prayers. I will have made computer adaptations of the needed alphabet and proper name changes that are required for Brazil and our main concern will be any dialectical changes we need to be alerted to.
• And pray for us and for yourselves to remember that man's chief aim is to honor God and glorify Him forever.

Because of the intensity of our work, my personal mail is going to be really limited. So please accept my "generic thanks" and remember that our spiritual and financial needs will continue even though we cannot write personally as much as we would like to. We regularly pray for most of you weekly, spending an hour each morning in prayer for about 300 people a week. And we deeply appreciate your part in praying and supporting us financially. I cannot insist too strongly on our own helplessness apart from the grace of God. There is nothing we can do when God does not go before us and prepare the way.

There is still the need for about $10,000 for the cost of the printing of the New Testament in the Peruvian edition. If you could help, we would sure appreciate it.

May our dear Lord bless each of you with a joyful time of celebrating the birth of our King.

Yours in Christ,
Sue for Dick and Sue Montag

Write to us at:
Mr. and Mrs. Richard Montag
ILV, Apartado 52
Pucallpa, Peru, SA
RMontag@mtwla.org or dick-sue_montag@sil.org

If you would like to send financial donations:
Indicate our names and send them to:
Mission to the World
Box 11625
Atlanta, GA 30368-6484

(To indicate it a gift specifically for the Kashinawa New Testament project fund, add the #094778 to the information.)