South of the Border 

“South of the border, down Mexico way.” I remember hearing that song when I was younger, and also remembering a sort of nostalgic and romantic feeling about Mexico, especially because of Walt Disney’s “Zorro” series when I was younger. Well, “Mexico way” was the direction of my trip in January to work with the Tenek translation team in Pockchich, San Luis Potosí, México. The Tenek project and the Haitian Creole project are the only two BI projects in North America, and the Tenek project requires less flying over water than going to Haiti. We could even drive to it if necessary. 

Our Tenek translator, Fernando Angeles, has made great progress on the translation work, and he has finished the Gospels of Matthew and Mark. Part of this trip was attending and participating in a dedication service for the printed Gospel of Mark in Tenek. But there were a lot more parts of this trip, including training three other assistant translators and training read-and-review committee members so that the work can go on more rapidly. I am eager to see what these new translators will be able to do. 

The area around Pockchich, the homeland of the Tenek people, is fertile farmland and rolling hills. There are horses and cowboys riding them, farmers raising corn and farm wives making tortillas. There is poverty, but not a lot of hunger. The hunger we have come to meet, and the hunger for which our Bible translation advances, is the hunger for the Word of God, the message that God knows who we are and cares about us. Would you pray for Fernando and Christy Angeles, for the new assistant translators Laura and Juan and Clementina, for the impact of the recently printed Gospel of Mark, for the small churches in Santa Martha and near Pockchich, that these people will feed on God’s Word and become strong and faithful? Would you pray for Bibles International and its projects in Mexico and throughout the world, that we would be faithful to our responsibilities?