Greetings to the Saints broken by the Fire of his Word,

Bang! Then there was a shattering of glass. Running outside we found that the windshield of our van was smashed to smithereens. The gun powder explosions of imbedded rock on our hillside construction site had launched a big rock through the air which landed on the windshield as if precisely aimed. The construction workers gathered around Dad and they decided on a different mode of extracting the boulders: rubber tires and wood were lit on fire around them, then when thoroughly heated, pails of cold water were poured on - splitting the rocks to pieces.

The other day we were pondering over puzzling verses about God being a consuming fire, and Reece reminded us of this fire and boulder instance a few years ago. He was reading Jeremiah during that time, and 23:39 “came alive” to him. God’s Word like fire burns our hard hearts, then like cooling water pours over and breaks apart our stubbornness toward Him. The removed rocks were used in the foundation and walls of a new building. The rock is the same rock, just situated and used totally differently. Once yielded to His will He takes our same lives and integrates us into His building. I thought that fire was only in Hell. Wow! We will dwell with that consuming fire in Heaven!

RECENT PAST

Mom, Dad and Reece are all home from recording the New Testament in Tarahumara April-June (Grandma came and they toured the Copper Canyon by train! - see cover) Now the project is in the post-production process to be placed on a MegaVoice player: a $35 solar powered MP3 ipod-like device controlled by MegaVoice that will only play what is programmed. “ Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings? He that walketh righteously, and speaketh uprightly...He shall dwell on high.” Isa 33:14 - 16 This is a more economical way to distribute Bible recordings than cassettes or CD’s which cost more and a lot of people don’t have devices to play them. I’m home now after being in Ohio from Feb-May helping care for a missionary friend of ours and mother of five who was suddenly very sick. Sandy is not all the way better yet and certainly needs to be encircled with prayer.

IN THE OFFICE

It is exciting to be done with a two year complex process of re-mastering and digitizing the 62 Indigenous Mexican languages of the Jesus film. Apart from these, at our disposal are 13 major languages. Each DVD can have one to eight languages, which are combined to geographically “fit” language areas or custom made according to the need. One of our weirdest combos to date has been French, Spanish, English, and Mè¦phàà. Here’s a real mind boggler: 62 languages grouped by eights in all the possible combinations would make 3,381,098,545 varieties. We already have 140 different combos, each of which requires a custom made menu. Reece’s question is: What size of hard drive does he need to save 3+ billion DVD menus in his folder? Answer: unknown. Dad has figured that the possible combinations of 62 languages with just four on a disc would take 8 terabytes of hardrive. BUT if people order five-language-combos or six-language-combos we would need about….my mind is tired! How does Campus Crusade do custom made language-combos with over 1,000 languages? They don’t do it! The Lord has provided the way for us to do these custom combos for $4.50 per DVD, and supplied volunteer child (“slave”) labor to manuallychange each DVD out of the printers. As He tarries the goal is to get the Jesus video into the remaining 120 indigenous languages of Mexico.

In the past two weeks 83 DVD’s of various combinations of Indian languages of the Jesus, Luke and Genesis videos were sent out from the office. If you are interested in reading about some of these people groups you can look them up on the internet at http://www.ethnologue.com by their language codes: CNL, CNT, CUX, CYA, MAU, MOS, MXV, MXY, OTE, OTM, OTQ, TAR, TPT, TRC, TOJ, TZC, VMC, and ZTP.

Every year a missionary brother organizes a VBS teachers’ training conference supplying materials and curriculum free to reach 20,000 kids. He asked Leah to produce 230 CD’s of the scripted puppet shows with children’s voices, sound effects and music. Benji (9) and Prisci (12) enthusiastically volunteered more “child labor” lending their cute, expressive voices to record the puppet characters. May the many teachers be faithful in reaching the kids this summer and be blessed with much fruit! Another missionary visiting us from Baja Calif. bought a copy of Created to be His Help Meet by Debbie Pearl – an excellent book for wives. When he got home it impacted his wife so much they quickly wrote asking for more. Friends gave us one and it has blessed our family – we couldn’t recommend any better book on the subject!

ROSI and ANITA (her precious little daughter)

Many of you remember Rosi, the lady recovering from TB. She has the all too-common “I’m a poor person” mentality which hinders her learning new things she could do (besides being a maid) to support herself. She’s now spending time between a few Christian families living in their homes to learn practical trades and work ethic. Learning to read has not been a priority for her, but she loves copying the Bible with a neat hand!

ROSA SUFFERING WITH CANCER

The family of Margarita (our maid) has been so against the gospel that her father (though very loving) has not allowed any of the family to stay with her for extended visits. Her sister Rosa (40ish) has advanced cancer and has come into town from her Tzotzil village to get medical help, and Margarita’s little mud floor, wood house is the only place to stay! She has received loving, sacrificial care and now her family all visit her there listening to the Word and receiving prayer from many Christians!

For the past month Rosa has been extremely swollen and in pain. This has taken me (Renee) down to the hospital regularly to help “intercede”for them in jumping through the hoops in the health care system. She doesn’t speak Spanish, so Margarita has to be there to translate. The doctors said hers is a difficult, urgent case that would have to go to a better equipped hospital 5 hours away.

Their parents arrived at the hospital one day fearfully suggesting to Rosa that she go to a witch doctor. Instead we started reading her a tract full of Bible verses and she confirmed that her trust is in the Lord. Her mother asked me for a copy of the tracts so their younger children can read them out loud to them at home! I don’t think that Rosa understands clearly but she does have some measure of faith in Him.

A few Christian friends passed by who were sharing the gospel with the Evangicube. After thoroughly presenting the Gospel through Margarita’s interpretation into Tzotzil, they exhorted Rosa to pray the prayer. It was uncomfortable and very foreign for her as a timid Indian, but it was neat that while they were sharing, two Indian men stopped to listen and stayed all the waythrough the prayer! The Lord brings fruit through His Word being shared even despite our stumbles and bumbles.

HOME LIFE

Sarah Hooley from Indiana is staying with us for up to six months to help with....well, everything! She works on formatting discipleship material and is a blessing.

Margarita’s daughter Ceci also works for us. She is full of the Word and growing since she recognized her bitterness against God, her mom, and absentee dad and now is born again – a beautiful transformation in her! It is a joy to study Creation to Christ with her.

Ceci’s 10 year old sister Lety, who is “filling in” for her mom who’s sick again, came to help clean up the dishes after fifteen Sunday guests and joined our study about Adam and Eve. Lety does not know for sure if she’s saved and has strong animist ideas to confront. Like a viper bit a little girl and she died – every one said it was Satan. So we talked about fi gures/analogies/pictures that God uses to help us understand who He is (Christ is not actually a lamb).

CHURCH NEWS

People here in “mañana land”are open and have time to sit and talk, or pause in the street to listen to someone present the gospel (and sometimes being a foreigner fosters more interest). Relationships, family and people are of utmost importance. This is not to say that in the US it isn’t, but just in a different way. Other things are a challenge here such as leading people on to deeper understanding of the truth. It seems that economics, the day-to-day struggle of life, culture and education hamper them, even though they have lots of time. Like when Leah and Dad did an in-depth teaching and celebration of Passover, it was more than what most of the believers could grasp, when they didn’t even know where Israel was on the map. Reece taught from Mark 12 last week in church about loving the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind and then strength. May we love the Lord with the entire self in the order He ordained – heart fi rst and strength as the result.

UP COMING: “TU PALABRA CANTARE” CD RECORDING

Last year the door closed for recording the “Thy Word Will I Sing” CD of scripture songs with voice and piano. After Claudia, the soloist and visionary for the project, prayerfully waited, the Lord opened a much better way providing composers, an arranger and a youth orchestra! Now we look to Him again as the reserved recording site in a public music school just cancelled us, and the recording starts next week! The goal is to produce the CD at as little cost possible (ie: non royalty songs) and put it on the internet for free download. It will then be available even in South America where borders make distribution difficult. Our family will be in Monterrey for one week of orchestra recording (Leah on harp and me violin), 10 days in “the States” around Dallas, then Our house church with six other families back again to record the choir. Possibly we will attend the big annual home school conference near Monterrey afterwards. Reece will stay home to keep up on the abundant office work. I’ll stay on in Brownsville, Texas until September 3rd to take a missionary dental training course called ART (Atraumatic Restorative Treatment) for use in Indian communities. Sing the word to memorize scripture and keep it in your long term memory! If any one has info on Spanish scripture songs, especially entire passages, please let me know. Check out these sites:

1. www.pursuinglife.com (Free download of 21 Psalms in song in beautiful 4 pt. harmony and Ps. 119!)

2. www.songsofscripture.com (offers a CD of Romans 6-8 in song!)

3. www.thywordcreations.com (entire chapters in child’s version)

4. www.scripturesongs.com (many CDs of selected verses - folk style)

PRAY FOR

*Bearers of the Word in Tarahumara

*Balance of all we could do with what the Lord wants us to do

*Wisdom for how to streamline the DVD printing and burning

*Fruit in many VBS’s this summer

* Rosa’s & Lety’s growing faith to gain a clearer understanding of salvation.

PRAISE FOR

* His amazing provision of many computers, printers and equipment to be able to do this technical work and for keeping them updated!

* Encouraging co-workers who reproduce & distribute material.

* The volunteer aid of several friends over the years (right now it is Sarah & two boys from a Mexican missionary doctor’s family.)