Download a printable copy of the May-June Beans'talk with photos.

Rescheduled perfectly

Remember how I (Patti) was too feverish to make an administrative trip in February while in Peru? Well, it was SO obvious that God is the one who rearranged the schedule. When I traveled back to Peru in April, so many things fell into place. People were present who wouldn’t have been in February and events were happening that wouldn’t have been had I tried to visit in February. Praise God for his perfect timing!

Whoa!

I anticipated meeting with one or maybe two speakers of Huni Kuin (formerly Cashinahua) in a major jungle city. They are a remote language group that spills over into Brazil and are not easy to get to. Imagine my surprise when I arrived and discovered that we were eighteen people gathered together! Because of a conference that had just taken place, there were 11 Huni Kuin speakers and representatives from four other mission organizations. They told about bilingual education in their villages, their outreach to communities without the gospel, The Hope movie and accompanying Bible study they’re wrapping up and their desire to one day have the Old Testament.

 Language check-up

In another part of Peru, I joined some colleagues for an interactive day with Yanesha-speaking pastors and leaders. My colleagues Ade and Rachel challenged leaders through a series of exercises to discover how they are using their New Testaments that they’ve had for 40 years and what factors need to be in place for any new translation (i.e., the Old Testament) to be well used. (You may not realize from these photos that we are meeting in the local church!)

People visits

After two-plus years of virtual meetings with Marcel in my role as his language program manager (LPM), it was good to see him in action and how he’s getting along as a new-ish missionary. Additionally I was able to visit four single/widowed colleagues: two in the jungle that weren’t able to make it to our group retreat in February and two in the capital city.

The scary water bottle

Thank you for your prayers for safe travel. The scariest part of my trip was trying out a new-to-us water bottle that purifies water using ultra-violet light. It was a bit scary taking my first drink, but I refilled it many, many times and didn’t have any gut problems!

Continue to pray for me in this role as an LPM as I correspond with our administrators about observations from this trip. What new projects or changes to existing ones should we consider to better serve these language communities? How can we help our colleagues be more successful?

Triple delight

Our middle son, Eric, and family are newly arrived in the States for a couple of months. They have some paperwork to complete and people to see. We are delighted to have some time with all of them, particularly our grandchildren Malachi, Jenna, and Charis.

Praise and Prayer Requests

• Praise God for a safe and productive trip to Peru and for all the ways he orchestrated events. Pray for wisdom as I follow through with our administration.

 • Praise for the opportunity to get to know three of our grandchildren better this summer. (Remember that our children are spread out on four continents, with three grandchildren in each place. So, this is a treat!)

• Pray for Mark currently checking the book of Deuteronomy for the Panao team.

• Praise: our grandson Jeremiah, after battling leukemia for over a year, recently had his second cancer-free bone marrow biopsy.

We are so thankful for each of you! Thank you for your partnership with us. We hope that you are able to see God at work in and through you wherever you happen to be.

Mark & Patti