September 17, 2004

Dear Praying Friends,

Proofreading, proofreading, proofreading... It is again finished for now. Yesterday I finished the final proofreading of the Brazilian edition of the Kaxinawá New Testament, and will soon leave for São Paulo, Brazil with this precious cargo. The Brazilian Bible Society will be publishing this New Testament edition so the final manuscript preparation will be done at their office. Did you hear the loud "Halleluiah's" when I finally finished reading it again? If was significantly harder than the proofreading of the Peruvian edition, because of the changes in the alphabets used, but especially because of the reversal of two letters. Three years ago, at the request of the Peruvian Bilingual School teachers, we had changed some of their letters, and one change was to divide the "x" into "x" and "sh". They have slightly different sounds, and I now know pretty well which word has which of the two sounds and thus, the corresponding letter. But all my proofreading of the Brazilian edition had these two letters reversed, for that is how they write them in Brazil! It is like learning that "Me and him went to the park" is correct! And then change it to "Mi end hem went ta tha pak"... I had to almost mouth each word to be sure that the changes were all made. Yes, it was a bit of a challenge to be sure, but I am very pleased with how it came out, for I picked up a number of one or two letter mistakes that the co-translators and the two men from Brazil had not caught.

Every time we study God's Word, there should be fresh lessons jump out at us. This time, as I proofread for maybe the equivalence of three weeks straight, I was very impressed with how Peter was transformed from an "unschooled and ordinary" fisherman (Acts 4:13) to one who could stand boldly before the prestigious Jewish Sanhedrin and confess for all these important leaders to hear that they had really missed the boat, and that it was "by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom YOU crucified but by whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed...Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:10-12). Let each of us live daily in this boldness, and never shrink from our duty to be faithful to our Lord Jesus, whatever be the cost. Most of you who receive this letter are on our weekly (at least) prayer lists, and we pray this way for you, that you will count nothing as important as boldly living for God's glory and pleasing Him in all you do.

As I fly from Lima, Peru to Brazil at dawn on September 24, Dick will be getting ready to return to Nueva Luz on a flight of the 25th. He wants to help a bit in the continuing construction of the Kashinawa Bible Institute, and then will return to translation of the Old Testament. We are hoping to complete the translation of the 40% of the Old Testament that the Peruvian Bible Society considers the most important for the understanding of the New Testament. The entire book of Genesis is close to being completed and checked by a translation consultant, and Dick has done a revision of the suggested portions through the beginning of Joshua with co-translators TufÌ and Edmundo. Roberto, Waldemar and I have also gone over Genesis and half of Exodus and will continue to do a second check on Dick's translation, and then continue on with Psalms during our next stay in Nueva Luz. That should give us a good amount of Scripture ready for final translation consultant checking.

We anticipate being in Nueva Luz until maybe the first week or so of January, working with the two teams of co-translators for 8-9 hour days. Then we are to go to Lima for our annual Mission to the World Conference, which we have missed the last two years!

HOW YOU CAN PRAY

• For the Lord's daily joy, wisdom, grace, patience and strength to be upon Dick and me as we work in on the preparation of the Brazilian Kaxinaw· New Testament and then as much of the Old Testament as we can in the time available;
• For the Kashinawas in Peru and Brazil to be hungry for God's Word in their own language and to receive it with joy, and for more and more to come to faith in Christ;
• For the Brazilian NT to be printed and arrive in the hands of the Kaxinaw· without delay, and for those who will be missionaries to the Brazilian Kaxinawás, who have had very little contact with the Gospel;
• For a translation consultant to be available to work with us as there are portions to check. It was really hard to finish up the New Testament checking with the last 60% being checked all at once. We don't want to put that strain on a translation consultant or ourselves again.
• Thank the Lord for continuing to meet all our spiritual and physical needs and ask Him to fence our co-translators and us in from the attacks of Satan, that we might serve Him with all our hearts, and strength and minds, and do so boldly. Two years from now we need to be ready to take the Old Testament portions for publication. Much needs to be done before we are ready for that.

Again, I wish this were a personal letter to each of you. Please accept it as if it were just that, however. We wonder how so many of you are and would love to get a few lines from you. As you are in our prayers, we have many wonderings about how the Lord is answering our prayers for you.

We deeply appreciate your faithful prayers for us and your financial support. You are God's wonderful provision to keep us here and keep on preparing the Scriptures for our dear brothers and sisters among the Kashinawas.

May the Lord's overflowing blessings be upon each of you. And remember with us as I John 2:6 says: "Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did."

Yours because of Calvary,

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