September 2005 Our dear praying friends,
We have just come back from three weeks in the US for our son Dan's wedding. It was a joy to meet Jenny and her family and to be there to be part of their wedding. Most of our closest relatives were able to be with them for this special day of joy for us all. We also had time to visit with our daughter and her family. A wonderful time for all! This time in Nueva Luz, Dick and his co-translators Tufí and Edmundo will anticipate translating major portions of Job and then completing about 12 more chapters of Proverbs in rough drafts. My co-translators, Roberto and Waldemar and I expect to finish the remaining 12 or so chapters of Isaiah, and then polish Dick's drafts of Jonah, Job, Proverbs, and whatever else they may have completed. We have a new solar panel and an additional battery, which have made a tremendous difference in my being able to use the computer 8 hours a day! We praise the Lord for the provision of these. Rainy season will start again toward the end of our stay, and there should now be enough power to work for several days with cloud coverage. Next comes another trip to Lima in mid-November for Roberto, Waldemar, Tufí, Dick and me to work for five weeks. While my team works with our translation consultant in checking all that we have completed, Dick and Tuff will continue on with rough drafts of more Old Testament books. That will leave us just one more stay in Nueva Luz to complete the translation of what will be "Selected Old Testament Portions". We expect to be back in the Kashinawa village before Christmas to continue on and complete this project. And after that is completed, it will be back to Lima for another time of checking our translation with the consultant. When it is approved, we will begin making the computer adaptation for the second edition, for the Brazilian "Kaxinawá". Then several Brazilian Kaxinawá will come about four days upriver to work with us in Nueva Luz for two to three months, finalizing both editions at the same time. We are anticipating this will be during April, May and possibly part of June. That will be our last time with the Kashinawas, a time mixed with joy and sadness! When we have returned to Yarinacocha-Pucallpa, we will be moving out of our house for the last time. Then we will go on to Lima to begin our manuscript preparations for the publication process. The Bible League will be publishing the "Selected Old Testament Portions", for which we are very grateful. All of the details of where and when we will complete both editions have not been finalized, so we will just "keep on keeping on" until the plans are firmed up.
Our daily lives continue to be full. We have Kashinawas with us almost all the time, for both in Nueva Luz and in our little house in Yarinacocha-Pucallpa we have a bedroom for them. However, they are as committed as we are to finishing up the "Selected Old Testament Portions", and they look forward to returning to their respective villages, pastorates, and to being available for missionary work and also to teaching at the Kashinawa Bible Institute. Their time in revising the New Testament and in translating 40% of the Old Testament has certainly been like seminary training for them all. How many times we remember what we translated in Isaiah 40:8:
but the word of God remains forever. When we arrived in the Kashinawa villages in April of 2001, we found that the about 12 believers whom we had left in 1981 with 700 New Testaments had multiplied into over 700 believers with worn out New Testaments. We are praying that the Lord continue to strengthen the Kashinawa church in both Peru and Brazil, and provide those who will go to the far reaches of their territories in Brazil to evangelize them and provide them with the Scriptures. Please do join us in these prayers. None of us can leave this world with any of our worldly goods, and the Kashinawa church is realizing more and more that they, too, must leave an inheritance of believers through their teaching and living before their people. We have already received a number of gifts to help with the costs of publishing the Old Testament Selected Portions, for we need to provide about half of the total cost. The Bible League will solicit the remaining funds. If you would like to help with our part of the funding, please consider it now. You might want to clip off the bottom of this page to use with a gift. I trust that the Lord will bring in what is lacking and this will be the last time I make this request. We remain your faithful ambassadors to the Kashinawas, "standin' in the need of prayer". Please do continue to keep us and our translation team and plans in your regular prayers. And please accept this as my personal letter to each of you. The days are just not long enough for me to write to all the individuals I would like to. We are very grateful for each and every one of you.
Yours in Christ,
I would like to help in the support of the Bible League's publication of Richard and Susan Montags' "Selected Old Testament Portions" for the Kashinawa in Peru and the Kaxinawá in Brazil:
I understand that I will receive a tax deductible receipt for my gift(s) from SIL International for my gift. Signed: ______________________________
The check should be made out in US dollars to "SIL International" and
sent to:
International Publishing Services Coordinator
- September 15, 2005 |
By the time this letter arrives, we trust we will again be in the Kashinawa village of Nueva Luz. Fortunately we were able to get our cargo sent out ahead of us, and it is awaiting us in a store near the Port in Esperanza. That means we don't have to haul it the long distance from the cargo plane to the Port. From there we will hopefully leave right away to begin a trip that will take the better part of two days and include a night of sleeping on a beach.