Dear Family and Friends,

We are in the countdown to Christmas, although we don’t see or hear announcements of how many shopping days it is till then.  A favorite decoration around here seems to be icicle lights (in spite of the 90 degree weather)! We are also in the countdown—now three days away—to the start of our trip north for the holidays and for Dad’s birthday celebration.  We plan to bus up to Asunción on Tuesday, the 20^th and fly out early on the 21^st.  We will see if we can get supper and a bed at the Mennonite House in Asunción.  This will be the reverse of our trip down—leaving in snow and arriving in a furnace.  So we have had our parkas laundered and will carry them aboard to be able to use them as we deplane in Chicago.  Willie and Bertie Horst arrived on Thursday and reported that a foot of snow fell in Northern Indiana the day they left. Two de-icing trucks were busy on their plane before it took off from South Bend.  We look forward to spending time with Dad and the rest of the family, as well as our church family.

This was the last week of work for the Bible revision team before their hot season vacation.  We said goodbye to them until January 30.  At the translation seminar held here in Formosa the beginning of this month, the folks were told in no uncertain terms that they would have to change their mode of operation.  They would need to stop doing such a careful job of understanding the text and making changes.  Rather they should do as many across the board changes as they can, using Find and Replace functions and other checking aids of the translation program.  But there is no replacement for at least a quick read-through, which they have done to make sure the text is understandable to the younger generation, who will be benefiting from this revision.  During July, August, September and October, they carefully went over the 14 chapters of Mark and 8 ½ of Luke.  They were told to set a goal of finishing all the gospels and Acts by June or July next year.  Now in one week, they have finished the 24 chapters of Luke and gotten 8 chapters into Matthew!  They want to fulfill the expectations of the Bible Society, but they are also very conscious of a great personal loss.  A more careful study as they went along, they found, was very enriching and provided a multitude of ideas for sermons flowing from the translation work.  They particularly felt nourished by our devotional times at the start of the work day, during which the three of them and the two of us took turns leading thoughts on a scripture passage they were working on.  Only the last two days of the week did they start to share thoughts again during the devotional time.  The new way of operating is more mechanical and less stimulating, involving mostly a word or a spelling change here and there.  Esteban Voth, the translation coordinator from the United Bible Societies, told them that they should plan to speed through the narrative books and be ready to slow down some and do a more careful job with the theology of the Pauline Epistles.

With the hot weather, we have been eating a great deal of delicious watermelon.  The mango trees, including those lining the streets, are heavy with fruit, and the first mangoes are ripening.  Willie and Bertie offered us some from their yard last evening, but we forgot to take them up on the offer as we were heading home.  We went to a welcome party for them Thurs. evening.  Keith and Gretchen Kingsley carried in the other food that is definitely in season in Formosa—two tubs of assorted ice cream from one of the 50 some (?) local ice cream shops.

We now have two year papers to be in Argentina, which we will need to carry along with our passports.  We were told to go apply for our national identity cards at the civil registry.  But we need to jump through a couple more hoops before that is a possibility.  We need to get another original police certification of our address.  And Ruth Anne’s birth certificate was not authenticated with a stamp by the Argentine consulate in the United States, because of Pennsylvania’s delay in issuing the certificate before our departure.  The discovery of that necessity comes at a good time, as we will be in the States shortly, Lord willing, and we will try to visit the consulate in Chicago.  We also need to renew our international drivers’ licenses.  Eventually, when we have our Argentine ID cards, we will be able to apply for local licenses here.

Many blessings to all as Christmas and the New Year approach and we find our hope again renewed in the presence of Jesus among us!

Love and Blessings,

top

10 Dec. 05

Dear Family & Friends,

Greetings!  We had a very concentrated weekend last week and didn’t have much chance for reflection, so here is a view of the last two weeks.  Starting in the middle of last week there was a Bible Society workshop for the two teams—the Old Testament team and the New Testament team gathered together.  Following that we left early Sat. morning for an Equipo Menonita (Mennonite Team) meeting and retreat together in Castelli, about four hours west.  On the way home we stopped in to the worship happening in the San Carlos community at the Iglesia Unida where Rafael Mansilla is pastor.  We experienced how far out in the countryside San Carlos really is!  Since then we’ve been recuperating from late night travel Sun. night, giving attention to various financial reports, studying Toba with Rosenda and Domiciano, visiting immigration for our two-year temporary visas for Argentina, and soliciting three-month, multiple-entry Paraguay visas so we can travel from Asunción on Dec. 21!  :-)

The first big unknown for the Bible Society workshop was just how Esteban Voth (director of the United Bible Society) and Marlon Winedt (a N.T. expert) would make it from Buenos Aires to Formosa in the midst of an Argentine Airline pilot and maintenance slow-down strike!  Amazingly enough they decided to come by bus and arrived Wed. morning, a little late for their scheduled start for the workshop, but ready to go after a bite of breakfast in the hotel where they had reservations.  Now these are two persons who had just been in meetings in Phila., PA, and then Esteban had traveled to Calif. and Marlon to Miami before they next had flights to Buenos Aires.  Perhaps the bus slowed them down a bit!  But if so, Marlon, who led most of the sessions, was used to talking very fast.  It was good he had outlines that were flashed on the wall from a laptop computer, so that Tobas could at least see what the topics and themes were.  Perhaps most important from the sessions was the serious challenge to the N.T. team to do only revision (not translation) and to finish the work in three years because that was the initial plan and there are really only funds to cover three years!  It was hard to hear and receive because the team has been so excited about their work and commenting that they want to do a good job so that the N.T. really is understood; they are proud of their work!  But Esteban was very clear that three years is the expectation, and the final morning of the workshop, Marlon scheduled out the various books of the N.T. to show what order they could be approached and how much time should be given to various groupings of books.  For example, the gospels and Acts should be considered in a six-month period from Feb. through July because some very difficult Pauline material needs to be looked at after that.  The team was encouraged to look at key words, parallel passages in the Gospels, metaphors, instead of doing word by word translation.  Probably they will need to look at larger passages or paragraphs and be satisfied with fewer changes.  It will mean some different approach as the team gathers in this next week.  We pray for their adapting to the new possibilities for approaching this whole revision process.  There really is a good team working together; they need good encouragement as new ways are tried. 

As our Mennonite Team gathered, we are all aware that different couples on the team are facing some hard challenges.  The weekend of the meeting, Esteban and Susana were in Buenos Aires, and she was giving birth by cesarean section to a premature little boy who has now been diagnosed with Down’s syndrome.  Little Bernabé has been struggling to stay alive.  We pray for the extra measure of love that God gives in the midst of need and stress.  Frank and Ute are still wondering what is next and how soon the legal case will be heard because of the death of Teodoro, the elderly man who was hit by Frank’s motorcycle.  Alfonsina and José are awaiting news in Feb. about whether she will have a job in the same school or whether she will need to look for another teaching job to support their family.   There are many unknowns as we look ahead….perhaps that is usual for most of us.  We pray for God’s special grace to be poured out lavishly over the Mennonite Team in these days and protect each family from discouragement.  Holding on to hope in these days of advent seems to be quite an important theme.

The worship at San Carlos was exhilarating!  We were welcomed so warmly!  It seemed like everyone in the church knew about the N.T. revision process, so it was quite an opportunity to get to meet various families and their relatives.  What a treat!  It was fun to meet Rafael’s wife even before we traveled back the long dusty country road that led to the church.  It was great to meet Rubén’s wife and some of their children after the worship.  Rosenda’s brother enthusiastically came to greet us as we settled into our seats at the worship, and afterward her sister, who looks so much like Rosenda, also appeared to talk.  Rafael’s elderly mother very much wanted to give us her greetings, too!  It was an important time of fellowship with people who really wanted to greet us and get to know us!  It was a good gift to be treated with such special warmth and love.  We happened to be there the first Sunday of the month when they celebrate communion together, so that was an additional highlight of the service, and it meant that the members of the Cuadrangular church where Rubén attends were also present at the worship.  Rubén heartily sang and played guitar!   There had been 15 baptisms in the morning worship, so it had been quite a lively day at San Carlos!  There were youth and children of all ages actively involved.  And there were little bottles of oil that were blessed so that women could take them home and use the oil for anointing when family members became ill.  It was Rubén’s father, who is pastor of the Cuadrangular church, who prayed the blessing over the oil.  And in the worship Gretchen shared some sheets of Christmas texts (in Spanish and Toba) so that a youth worker could gather the young folks to prepare a Christmas drama.  It was really a very special time at San Carlos!!!

We have also realized the importance of holding on to hope as we’ve been visiting at the hospital this week!  It looks like Albertina will be transferred soon to a hospital in Buenos Aires for a transplant (as close as we can tell, it perhaps is a bone marrow transplant).  A Toba woman from Lote 68 Veronica was very discouraged the last few times we saw her.  She lost her ability to walk after a gall bladder surgery in Oct.  When we returned to visit on Thurs. late afternoon, we found she was not in the bed where we expected her to be!  We talked with a nurse and found that she had died early Tues. morning after we had last visited her Monday evening!  It was a shock!  Perhaps the Lord had graciously taken her home when life became too impossible.

We now have two-year temporary residence visas for Argentina.  We still need to take these papers to the Civil Registry yet this next week.  Richard understands that this is to apply for our DNI, the national identity card.  Hopefully, that will mean that immigration details are cared for at this juncture.  Roberto Obelar, the immigration official who has been working patiently with us recently, said that we would need to come back two months before the two years expire in order to continue the next steps in the process.  That means that in Oct. 2007, we likely need to start jumping through some more hoops, but meantime we are grateful to have some official paper for Argentina!  The Lord is good!

Blessings,

Ruth Anne and Richard
Ricardo y Ruth Friesen

P.S.  We heard from Esteban Voth a bit of humor about the U.S: Apparently there will be no official nativity scenes in Washington D.C. this year!  They couldn’t find even three wise men nor a virgin anywhere! :-)   :-(

And we keep praying for the prisoners of war in Iraq and the four CPTers, as well!
top

20 Nov. 2005

Dear Family and Friends,

Greetings!  It has been an eventful week here in Formosa, and Richard has written e-mails to recount his adventures in Lima (the first letter I forwarded to our support team & family). 

After various contacts with the Federal police here and with OCA, a mail service, Rosenda’s passport finally did arrive in Formosa on Wed.!  The last I knew she was heading to pick it up Wed. late afternoon!!!  On Monday morning, she arrived at the door expecting a week of translation, since she had not received any communication from Rubén who indicated that he would tell her about a change of plans for the week of translation.  No matter…she was glad to head off to the nearby hospital for mothers and children where her second grandchild was about to be born!!  We heard later that Monday afternoon a grandson was born!!  Rosenda was able to be at the hospital since she was not in Lima, Peru nor was she here translating/revising the 6th chapter of Luke!!  Somehow the Lord cared for all the details and Rosenda seemed to be as happy as a lark through the week when she passed through here several times.  On Friday an e-mail came through from the secretary of the Argentine Bible Society saying that Rubén’s passport and identity document had arrived.  She later said that she would send it to Formosa on Mon through OCA.  It looks like we need some celebration with the translators this week…with passports finally having materialized, a new grandson arriving in Rosenda’s family, Rubén graduating from 4 years of Bible school on Friday (he was able to be present since he was not in Lima, Peru), and Rafael celebrating a birthday on Nov. 10!!  I am awed how the Lord cared for each of us in this week, having our best interests at heart and working out details for the good of each one. 

It was a good adventure finding my way on bicycle to the new hospital here in Formosa—about 22 blocks away—at the end of the morning on Tues. when it was HOT!  When I finally found my way to Albertina’s room, I needed to put on a white gown, gloves, and mask (no matter how sweaty I felt from a hot bicycle ride) to enter and visit with her and her husband Juan Manuel (who didn’t have all the garb on that I was instructed to wear).  After reading about the woman who touched Jesus’ cloak for healing and praying together, I saw that Albertina was in tears, so I commented that she must be feeling sad.  She talked to her husband in Wichí and he said that she feels sooooo alone.  The new hospital is quite a show place.  It looks like a bit of the U.S. transplanted to Formosa—with a lot of white, cleanliness, neatly dressed staff, and wide hallways…the works!!  But it was clear that Albertina did not feel very impressed!  She was covered by a white gown and her hair was all disheveled.  Actually, when I again visited at the Central Hospital on Thurs. afternoon, there was Albertina, all happily dressed in her own unmatching clothes, sitting on her bed in a supposed isolation room where she had earlier been during her previous hospitalization a few months ago.  What a changed woman she was just transferring her back to a place that seemed familiar and simpler.  Somehow the Lord alone knows our needs and cares for us in ways far beyond what looks best from someone else’s perspective. 

Another interesting adventure this week was hosting a young Toba woman here at the house over night on Wed. with her very small baby, part of the Machagaix family whom Gretchen and Keith have come to know so well.  Mirta needed to take her daughter Erica back to the hospital for mothers and children for a check-up on Thurs.  This little girl was born in the sixth month of her mom’s pregnancy and at first was in a coma, so the mom was not even told that she was still alive until about two weeks later when she came out of the coma.  Erica is a miracle child if there ever was one!  What a small bundle of life that is pure gift from the Lord!   Now, we’ll see what happens next.  There’s another appointment set for Mon., Nov. 28 at the hospital, so Mirta will likely ask for hosting again. 

Somehow, it struck me this week that we have been trying for some time at the local hospital to jump over gulfs between cultures as we visit with and attempt to support an illiterate Wichí fisherman and his son whose back was badly burned.  Our perspectives and our responses are so different.  What a challenge to find a common ground and try to communicate something meaningful about life!  I’ve taken bananas to give to Jose Miguel and if a piece of banana falls to the floor while he’s eating, his dad simply picks it up and hands it back to Jose.  That hospital floor is not the cleanest place I’ve ever seen!  We’ve taken some Bible stories to them in comic book form, expecting that they could “read” the pictures.  It’s challenging to keep Jose’s attention, especially if the story gets long.  We’ve taken paper and pencil for drawing.  The dad Nicasio has drawn some suggested places—their house, a fire, an algarroba tree, some canoes and a river.  He put his name in the middle of these various drawings.  So we tried showing Jose how to write his name.  He stared at the paper for long periods.  I suspect his dad loses patience with such a process since Jose is not school material, he’s somehow mentally slow.  Wonder what manual activities we might try next or whether it’s best to just be there and talk.  We are whole worlds apart in what we do and how we communicate and what’s important to us!  Yet here we are in the mystery of God’s action, trying to relate and become friends and pray together that God’s will be released and become reality for the healing of Jose Miguel!

How small we are in God’s plan and how little control we have over anything!  A very poor old lady from Lote 68 has her 22 year-old retarded and disabled son hospitalized again.  She is now worried that they want to send him to a children’s home when he’s released.  His dad was the shaman we visited at the hospital before he died.  A woman we’re visiting in the last couple weeks lost her ability to walk after spinal anesthesia for a gall bladder surgery the end of Oct.  Wonder how the Lord will be at work for the good of these folks and bring good to seemingly impossible situations.  It takes eyes of faith!

Yesterday through the various events, it became clear that the Lord does care for even the smallest details of our lives.  The comment about the hairs on our heads being counted didn’t seem so far out after I realized some of the amazing ways the Lord provided.  As Gretchen was leaving through the front gate, Juan Manuel happened to be walking past.  We had just been discussing the Wichí words for the seasons that he and his daughter had written down at the hospital the evening before.  Amazing that he should have showed up at that moment to offer clarification!  Later as the computer began having what seemed to be serious problems, I realized it was beyond what I could figure out to do, so I called Keith and said HELP.  In the time I waited for Keith’s help, I realized there were some further options, as well.  I could go use a computer at one of the many shops around.  So I did that and then went over to see Keith and Gretchen.  We decided to go get some ice cream, a balm for most problems, and then Gretchen and I continued on to a cyber shop.  It happened to be the place that Marcelo, the man who sold Richard our computer, has recently moved to.  I didn’t have the vaguest notion how to be in touch with Marcelo (I didn’t even know his last name), but Keith and Gretchen had walked past this shop about a week ago and realized that it was likely Marcelo’s new place!  It was nothing short of a miracle that Marcelo was actually there, that he heard the problems, and that he agreed to come look at the computer yet last night!!!!  So I came home and asked the neighbor lady Olga to come over if Marcelo actually came.  She was delighted to come, since Richard is not home.  About 9 p.m. Marcelo showed up….cleared up the errors on the machine…and noted that the electricity was varying quite a lot.  He finally ended up calling Edefor, the electric company, and leaving a note for them, as well.  Just before 11 p.m., two electric company personnel showed up (Olga and Walter popped their heads in once more and even provided a flashlight when I had to turn off the main electricity switch in the house).  After their repair up on the roof, they showed me a badly burned piece of metal the size of an “A” battery.  It’s here in the kitchen for show and tell when Richard returns next Saturday! J  How amazing that Marcelo diagnosed the problem so well and that even the electric company responded with amazing speed for Argentina!!  Praise God who cares for big and little problems, grants us ideas to pursue, and leads us along each step of the way!!!  I give hearty thanks for all the ways the Lord incredibly ordered the details of the day and met the needs beyond imagining!  God is good!

Blessings,

RA
Ricardo y Ruth Friesen
top

13 Nov. 2005

Dear Family and Friends,

Greetings!  We send each of you hearty thanks for your prayers on behalf of Rosenda and Rubén as they needed passports to travel to a United Bible Society workshop in Peru!  The trip started yesterday from the airport here in Formosa.  The Kingsleys took Richard and me to the airport to see Richard off to Buenos Aires (where he was to meet Alfredo Arce from the Old Testament team) and on to Peru this morning.  The passports for Rosenda and Rubén are yet to come….we expect that Rosenda’s will likely arrive tomorrow through OCA, a mail service, from Buenos Aires.  It’s not clear how soon Rubén’s will arrive at the SBA (Sociedad Biblica Argentina) in Buenos Aires….perhaps on Tues. or Wed.

About mid-Oct. Esteban Voth, who directs the United Bible Society, wrote to Richard that the themes to be covered in Lima, Peru are the geography and culture of Israel as well as an introduction to linguistics.  He went on to say that it is very important for the translators to attend these workshops.  They are introductory and basic.  If they can go, they will later be able to take better advantage of the workshop about the New Testament that is scheduled for three days from Nov. 30 – Dec. 2 in Formosa.  (This is a workshop planned for both the Old Testament and New Testament teams together.)

If some of you saw the MMN Prayer Vine this week, on Wed. there was a request, “Pray for indigenous Toba translators Rosenda Diarte and Rubén Alvarez who, along with mission worker Richard Friesen, will travel outside their home country of Argentina to Lima, Peru, for a United Bible Society two-week translation workshop beginning Nov. 13.”  Perhaps it is Anglo perspective to expect that when a trip is planned for the future, that, of course it will happen.  Perhaps it was a matter of faith to expect that the trip would happen as it was hoped.  But even with all of our prayers combined and with all of our hopes that Rosenda and Rubén would travel, they had to stay behind because their passports did not arrive on time for travel outside of the country.  Now, everything is not all lost because we understand that the two will be able to participate in this workshop sometime in the future when it comes up again in the cycle of workshops.  But with all the encouragement from Esteban and the hope that Rosenda and Rubén would be able to travel together with Richard, we sure were trying to get those passports pushed through the system.  It is likely that this is the only workshop abroad that Richard will attend.  So we are disappointed and wondering what the Lord has up his sleeve for this whole scene, but we expect that our prayers are not in vain.  We simply don’t understand what the Lord is doing with us and with the translators.

Throughout the week the Federal Police here in Formosa were in daily contact with Richard about the progress of Rosenda’s passport in Buenos Aires.  It was great to hear from the documentation department in that office.  There was one woman especially who seemed to take on the responsibility of insisting by phone with the personnel in Buenos Aires.  Rosenda’s passport and new federal cedula (identity document) were finally put in the mail with OCA on Thurs.!  But on Friday afternoon as the mail was received, the documents were still not available from OCA.  Nevertheless, Richard wrote a good thank you to the Formosa Federal Police for their kind work on behalf of an indigenous woman.  And the secretary at the SBA had sent us a note mid week that Rubén’s passport would be available, so we all went on assuming that at least Rubén would be able to go.  But Friday afternoon we received a note from the secretary again saying that sadly Ruben’s identity document was not yet done and that it would still be up to four days until the SBA would receive the documents!  Documents are often very difficult to process in Argentina.  It almost always takes long, long amounts of time for documents to be processed. 

So…..the three translators—Rafael, Rubén, and Rosenda—are now planning on coming for a regular week of translation starting Nov. 21 (when Richard is still in Peru).  Oh well!  Rubén was here yesterday afternoon and he indicated that he would not travel home after that week of revision because he would only be home two days until he would need to return for the Formosa workshop scheduled for Nov. 30.  That’s life in Formosa!

Last weekend we went with the Kingsleys north to Clorinda to visit a worship service on Saturday evening.  At this church there has been a renewal among the youth, so it was exciting to see all ages—children, youth, and adults—together singing, dancing, playing instruments, praying and sharing their faith!  There was also a birthday celebration for a young woman who had just turned 18, so there was a soup and birthday cake served after the worship.  We must have arrived home about 2 a.m., but it was invigorating to have participated in the worship when people were so enthusiastically giving thanks and praising God!

Today I went with the Kingsleys south to Laishi where there are three Toba communities.  We did not find a Sunday morning worship, but we had a great time visiting with Esteban Lopez, an older man who has been very faithful to the Unida Church.  He told us about different leaders in the church, about having served in the military, and about the Bible now being his flag of importance rather than the flag of war!  It was good to hear his sharing/sermon; it is clear that faith is certainly his anchor!

Later we visited with several pastors and their families, including one older man, Gerbacio Docoidi, whom Richard and I visited when he had gall bladder surgery in May at the Central Hospital a block away.  A fun highlight of the day was seeing all the Ceibo trees in bloom with wonderful coral-colored flowers.  Actually, we have a quite bent Ceibo tree right in front of our house; it is blooming with scarlet flowers!

Well, that is the week, in short.  It has been full of prayers and emotions and changes!  It feels sad to have seen Rubén and Rosenda stay behind.  We’ll see what the Lord has in store as the next days unfold.  I look forward to some garden work in our back patio, some visiting with our neighbors, some sewing projects, more chance to read, and some time to study Toba.  Oh yes, visits to the local hospital will be important, too.  Albertina has just come back this week.  Wonder what is next for her.

Blessings,

Ruth Anne
top

November 5, 2005

Dear Friends and Family,

I would suppose that you all have had your eyes turned toward Argentina and coverage of the summit and the violent reactions it has brought forth from both the leaders and the people of this part of the world.  The union that has a local office just three doors down from us has been responsible for some of the publicized protests in the capital.  They have also painted graffiti on blank walls in several places in town here.  There is one down our street a couple of blocks that says something to the effect of assassin Bush out of Argentina.  I think there is an Argentine human rights court that wants to try the United States for crimes against humanity.

Meanwhile we sent Rosenda, our woman translator, to Buenos Aires to speed up her documentation with the hopes of getting it completed by the date of our departure from Formosa on the 12th—just one week from today at 7 p.m.  Luckily she didn’t arrive at the train station, where protesters were burning a number of train coaches.  Poor Rosenda!  Apparently the problem with her fingerprints was not the prints taken by the police, but by the civil registry.  They were having a hard time identifying her as the person whose smudgy prints were on her civil registry ID card.  For that, she had to do two overnight bus rides, to and from, for a few minutes of official time to get things cleared up.  She was all alone as her guide had to go find a place to park.  As she nervously piled things out of and back into her purse in the middle of the crowded office, she ended up losing the envelope with 130 pesos which was to pay her return ticket and any emergencies along the way.  It sounds as though she was mortified since she was trying so hard to be responsible with it.  But her Bible society guide was able to buy her ticket and give her 10 pesos for the trip home.  We were hoping that, due to the late date, they would immediately send her passport to the printer and have her pick it up that afternoon.  But they insisted that her application was made out for it to be delivered to her residence by mail and she would have to wait a week or ten days.  She says that she let them know her time frame.  But I am not clear if that was before or after they said how long to expect for delivery.  As she arrived back on Thursday, we immediately went to the local National Police office, where she had applied.  They probably also had expected her document would be delivered in the capital.  They agreed to keep the pressure on starting on Monday if nothing was showing up yet.  They would be in contact with the private mail service which would be doing the delivery.  We left our phone number with the police in case there was any word.  We also went to the OCA mail service and left our phone number, advising them that it would be much faster for us to pick it up in town than to wait for a delivery out to her neighborhood 10 kilometers out of town.  The last OCA message to her from the passport office was dated September 29 and wasn’t delivered until a week or more into October!  But keep praying with us that her document can arrive in time to go ahead with the trip.  The Bible Society secretary has started to ask me if even I will be traveling if the passports for Rubén and Rosenda don’t come through on time.  If all works out, we will be gone from the 12th to the 26th.  This will be the first time out of the country for the translators, to say nothing of the first time in the capital recently for Rosenda.  We appreciate your prayers for that time, too.  Ruth Anne will be home alone and maybe staying nights at the Kingsleys’ house.

The afternoon of Rosenda’s return a terrific wind, rain and hail storm hit.  Strong gusts from the north were bowing the tops of the trees here in town. Our north windows were wet from top to bottom, and a huge puddle of water came into the office through the closed windows.  We were wondering what it was like in Rosenda and Domiciano’s house.  They have one room shaped a little like a Christmas crèche with the open side facing north.  Domiciano came by yesterday with a document from the social security office the Bible society was asking him to send on Rosenda’s behalf.  He stated that the hail out there wasn’t marble sized as it was here, but big enough to perforate their corrugated cardboard roof with holes the size of golf balls or bigger.  The cardboard is the shape of metal roofing and is impregnated with tar to make it waterproof.  He says they were thoroughly drenched.  The paper states that there were 500 Toba homes that suffered similar damage in their neighborhood!  The state came up with some emergency aid in the form of more cardboard roofing.  But we hear that the neighbors have set up a protest by stopping highway traffic on the main route past their neighborhood to make known that the amount of aid given was insufficient.  These days it is still threatening rain, and there are a lot of folks who have no way to stop the rain from coming in.

This afternoon, “if it don’t rain,” and if we can get past a roadblock, we plan to head north with the Kingsleys to the border town of Clorinda to attend evening services.  A Pilagá woman in town for a workshop asked Keith and Gretchen if they would take her to a worship service, so she will also be going along.  It will be a little tight in their mini-SUV Daihatsu going and coming, but we have had a few more folks aboard in an emergency!

This week we need to make preparations for another workshop the end of the month—November 30 to December 2 for the translators here in town.  That means checking with the retreat center about the numbers for sleeping space and meals and the conference room needed.  The United Bible Society folks are asking to be put up in a “good hotel,” so that needs looking into as well.

We’ll see how the Lord works out the details for the two planned Bible Society workshops ahead!

Blessings,

Richard and Ruth Anne
top

October 29, 2005

Dear friends and family,

This week, in spite of interruptions to work on travel documents, the three translators have advanced into Luke 6.  It is enlightening to read the book of Luke through Toba glasses.  In the presence of Tobas, we notice how doggedly the author concentrates on Jesus’ ministry of lifting up the forgotten, sidelined and despised members of society.  Some of the highlights of this theme in the chapters they have worked on so far have been Mary’s song, Jesus’ humble birth announced to humble shepherds, his teaching in Nazareth announcing that his ministry was to be to the afflicted, the captives, the blind, the oppressed and even to outsiders, not of the house of Israel.  Jesus eats with tax collectors and touches the untouchables to heal them.  And now in chapter 6, Luke’s beatitudes are not spiritualized like Matthew’s are.  They focus on the poor, the hungry, and the sorrowful, as well as those who are persecuted.  He then has woes, the other side of the coin, as does Mary’s song—woe to the rich, to those who have plenty, those whose life seems to be all fun, and those whom everyone speaks well of.  Together we have noted the part women play in this book.  When Rosenda led our morning devotions on Friday, she picked out Luke 5:2, which in the Spanish popular version says that the boats on the beach were empty.  She felt devastated, empty and abandoned when her youngest son died at the age of six.  She stopped attending church for an extended period of time, though her husband still participated.  But God gently called her back, and now she has a boat full to overflowing with responsibilities as vice-president of the women’s organization of the denomination and now with the honor of participating on the translation team.

It is surprising to see those in power and seemingly enjoying impunity in the U.S. now facing humiliation and negative consequences.  Rafael at one point expressed his impatience that there are many places where we still do not see justice for the poor and oppressed.  He tried very hard to work for change of the status quo through the electoral process this past Sunday, and was able to turn out 400 of 700 votes in his community for a candidate who was interested in indigenous peoples’ rights, a person who has spent time visiting in many Toba communities.  In spite of efforts like his and of widespread protests against the entrenched Peronist party in Formosa province, the governing party has won an even more resounding victory than before. 

A national evening TV news program ran special coverage two nights in a row of voting irregularities here in Formosa province during the elections last Sunday.  They showed clips they had filmed during the last elections and footage from last week, particularly as it related to first nation people.  This was apparently immediately picked up by other channels and also came out as front page reporting in one of the local newspapers here.

In various localities, the Peronist party bought the votes of the indigenous peoples and forced folks to vote for them by various means.  Some were obliged to post Peronist posters on their homes to discourage workers from other parties from visiting their homes.  People were gathered together and their ID documents taken away.  For Argentines these serve as their voter registration and are stamped each time they vote to show they have complied with this obligatory duty of citizenship.  The folks were kept overnight isolated from contact with any other party, and then the morning of the voting only delivered their documents as they filed in to vote with only a Peronist ballot tucked inside.  Other tactics used, according to the news report, were gifts of goods and promises of more later if they complied, the threats of cutting off their electricity and water, and down to even physical pushing.

We appreciate your continued prayers for travel documents for Rubén and Rosenda to travel to the workshop in mid-November in Lima, Peru.  Rubén finally does have his ID document after a trip to Buenos Aires to pick it up.  He did apply for his passport on the same trip, and it should be delivered to the Bible Society address, hopefully a few days before our departure.  After having a first set of fingerprints taken back when she first applied for her passport on August 18, Rosenda was asked to have another set done the end of September.  Now the word is that this set was also unsatisfactory.  The only solution visible now to get her passport in time is for her to make the overnight bus trip to Buenos Aires to complete this last detail!  Too bad she didn’t apply for her passport in Sáenz Peña, where the other translation team is working.  There they digitally scan your fingerprints as the finger is placed on glass and transmitted by e-mail rather than taking prints with printer’s ink and mailing them in.  Most likely she will give digital prints in the national capital as well.  The shame is that the original application for the passport and the accompanying international ID card cost 130 pesos (about $45 US).  The round trip to Buenos Aires will cost about 170 pesos (around $57), and all for just a few minutes of paperwork.  Rosenda, as an indigenous woman, is very unhappy about making two nightlong trips all by herself, and was lamenting that it hadn’t worked out for her to travel down with Rubén when he went.  Maybe we should check to see if there is some way she can get the digital prints done in Resistencia, the next provincial capital to the south and only two hours away by bus.  So far, though, she is to seek out a particular officer in the Buenos Aires office who has agreed to deal with her case and finish up everything.  We don’t know whether they will still delay the delivery of the document 10-14 days or not.

There won’t be any translation happening here from now until the 12th of December!  Things will be a little quiet.  For Rosenda and Rubén, their two weeks of work in November will be the two weeks we spend traveling together to the workshop in Lima from the 12th to the 26th, Lord willing.  Rafael will go to Sáenz Peña to work with the Old Testament team in November to replace the new team member there who will be traveling with us.  Rafael has been to the complete series of 12 workshops already.  The men are already searching for other housing possibilities.  They won’t even be using their rented room in November and only will need a place to sleep five days in December before they are off for a vacation in January for the worst of the hot season.  You could pray for a new housing situation for them.  Rubén already prefers traveling out to Lote 68 with Rosenda and sleeping at his sister’s place there.

Blessings to you all as you head into fall.

Richard and Ruth Anne
top

10-22-05

Dear Family and Friends,

Greetings!  We’re glad our house is clean again!!   Lately we’ve had a young woman help us with the cleaning, but last evening when I called her, I found that she’s been sick with the flu all week!  It was clear that with translators coming on Monday that we needed to spend some energy cleaning this morning.  There are three smaller rooms for translators at the front of the house, and five rooms in the main living area.  That means quite a lot of floor space to sweep and mop with a rag over a squeegee.  In addition, Ruth Anne suggested that the front office space needed the windows washed outside and inside.  There are two big windows with plate glass.  That was also a big job since they were full of dust and the bars covering them were also quite dirty!  Then the front middle room where the translators relax also needed the front windows washed.  (There are more windows that need attention, but you can’t do everything in one day!)  Richard did some errands in addition, buying some “zócalos” or weather seals for under two doors, visiting his carpenter friends for a piece of wood for the bottom of the kitchen door (which along with some bicycle tire rubber should keep out water when it rains), and buying some fruit.  But till we finished the whole job, including cleaning two bathrooms and some of the patio so the kitchen has a chance of staying clean for a bit, it was 1 p.m.!  Oh well, hopefully Herme, the young woman who has been helping for two hours on a Saturday usually, will be able to come again next cleaning day!!!!

The hard news of the week is that the older man that Frank and Ute Paul (the German couple on our Mennonite Team) hit with the motorcycle on Oct. 11 just died on Friday morning after a week and a half in the hospital.  He had been in a coma with serious head and lung damage.  Gretchen called this morning with the news and said that now that Teodoro has died, Frank has been charged with “homicidio culposo” (reckless manslaughter?).  Somehow the Lord is at work in the whole process….it’s hard to see how that’s happening at present.  By faith we claim that the Lord is accompanying them in this nightmare.  Pray with us for the well being of all, including the family of Teodoro Acevedo (the man who died).  Frank and Ute have been visiting at the hospital every afternoon, so they’ve come to know the family some.  Apparently at the beginning they were very accusing, but somewhere in the process, they told family stories and even prayed together with Frank and Ute.  It appears that there could be a long legal process ahead.

It should be interesting to see how the Lord works out the details of travel documents for Rosenda and Rubén.  This coming week is the last translation time before the workshop in Lima, Peru that’s scheduled to start Nov. 14.  Rosenda, Rubén, Alfredo (a new person on the Old Testament team), and Richard would leave on Nov. 13.  That is, they would all go if Rosenda and Rubén are able to get their passports.  Rubén first needs his DNI (identity document) and then he will need to travel to Buenos Aires to solicit his passport.  Hopefully, Rosenda’s passport will show up sometime soon here in Formosa.  Pray with us that the passports will be forthcoming or that it is made clear that the trip should be canceled because the travel documents have not been available in time.  Rubén is probably the most capable of making travel decisions calmly and remembering details, so it would be great if he were along on the trip, so he could be alert in doing such a trip in the future without having Richard along.  We trust the Lord to be faithful in all the details of this trip!  But we do wonder just how in the world all the details can possibly fit together. J J J  Rafael has said that he attended 12 workshops, apparently in Lima, Peru and in Costa Rica, so there are quite a few trips to be made in the future!

On Thursday morning Gretchen and Ruth Anne went by bus to visit Raquel in Barrio Villa Rosario (about a 15 or 20 minute ride).  She just experienced the deaths of two family members last week, and she still has two others in nearby hospitals!  It’s quite amazing to hear her recount the details and the dreams and songs that she was given in the process.  The Spirit is certainly at work in her life and in her sharing.  She came to the Kingsleys for help when her brother-in-law died last Friday morning.  She needed to get the casket to the grave site.  Gretchen figured out that ICA, a government organization that assists the indigenous, could probably use their truck for the transport, but it was already late morning and ICA closed at noon!  Amazingly Keith came home in time to get the arrangements made at ICA and the details seemed to work together for good from there.

As we visited on Thursday, Raquel asked for help with the lock on her front door.  It wasn’t immediately clear how to respond, but we agreed that Mr. Fix-It, Richard, could look into the details and see what was needed.  Richard and I rode bicycle back to Villa Rosario on Friday morning, and after a couple of jaunts to hardware stores, Richard found a lock that would work and installed it.  The new lock was 22.50 (just over $7 U.S.).  After installing it, Richard said that if she wanted to collaborate, she might contribute $5 pesos (about $1.65 U.S.), so she went to find her money and did pull out $5 pesos.  Meanwhile she shared stories over mate with Ruth Anne about how the Lord had answered her prayers for children, gifting her with two.  Amazing to hear her stories of faith!  We pray for comfort as she has experienced two family deaths in one week and for the Lord to bring healing as other family is hospitalized.  Life is never simple, but never without hope for people of faith!

Glad to have you pray with us, as well, for Gretchen’s painful right elbow (apparently injured a year or two ago as she was doing some porch painting in Elkhart)…..for Ruth Anne’s right foot that seems to rebelling after jumping off the back of Richard’s bicycle a few weeks ago, and for a urinary infection that has been troublesome for Ruth Anne in this week.  Richard has also experienced a nagging respiratory hack in recent time.  Your prayers are welcome!

Blessings,

Ruth Anne and Richard

P.S.  We’re remembering that Plow Creek is hosting a visitation team this weekend; we’ve been thinking of you in our prayers.

Today, Sunday, is election day here in Argentina.  Gretchen has told us that it is against the law for a church to hold worship and it is the law that one does vote!  The government even pays transportation back to the town where you are registered.  How convenient to get to visit your family if you don’t change your registration when you move.  We hear that politicians even corral the Indians and hand them the ballots for their own candidates!  Then the ballots are folded in certain ways to know how the Indians from a certain colony voted.
top

Formosa, Argentina

September 3, 2005

Dear Family and Friends,

We expect that the weather will continue to warm up from now on.  Think spring and the beginning of March in the northern hemisphere.  It is still best to wear sweaters in the house and around town.  But truthfully, we have not had to use our space heater many weeks at all, and that only for a few days at a stretch. 

This was again a week when the translators were here.  It seems the paperwork never ends.  This week we needed to work on opening bank accounts for two of the translators.  Rosenda was indeed successful, and from now on she will get her salary deposited directly into her account.  Rubén, however, was turned away because he didn’t have proof of a local residence.  He will need to open his account in the banking town nearest to him—30 or 40 kilometers away.  When he manages to open his account, he will then inform the Bible Society so he can also get his salary deposited in his account.

I am continually amazed at the awareness and intelligence of the folks on the translation team.  They were translating the portion of Mark where Peter makes his “great confession” in Caesarea Philippi.  They correctly assumed that the town had something to do with Philip, the brother of Herod or some other ruler.  But they needed to know for their translation whether this Philip who had given his name to the town was living at the time that Mark was writing the story.  We found out that this ruler was still alive at the time of the visit to the area, but not at the time that Mark was reporting the event, because that would be reflected in their translation.  Since we didn’t need to be running around so much with needed paperwork in offices in town, they made a great deal more progress.  This is also partly due to the fact that they are more confident of what they are doing and the level of typing skill is improving.

With all the pavement pounding Rubén and I did the last round, walking blocks here and there between offices, Rubén’s heels had become extremely sore, and he was still sore after a week at home.  He even asked when we went to the bank if he could use my bicycle for the four or five blocks each way to the bank to save his heels.  So Rosenda and I walked and he rode.  We gave him some insoles that we had lying around and Gretchen Kingsley gave him some rubber heel protectors that she wasn’t using anymore.  Ruth Anne also gave him some Epsom salts to soak his feet in the night and recommended using coarse salt when that was gone.  By the end of the week, he was willing to take longer hikes to go shopping.

Our paperwork is also moving ahead, but not without some hitches.  On Tuesday, we took a pile of documents in to Immigration.  The young man attending us then extended permits to us for a month while we fill some requirements he asked for—a local police letter, certification with the police of our address, AND Richard’s birth certificate.  This was translated here in Argentina back in the ‘70s.  But he did not approve it.  Apparently, it was not necessary back then to have a certification with a signature of the certifying official and the date of certification.  But Mr. Ovelar will have it no other way, so I had to take it to the one and only certified English-Spanish translator in town, as we had done with all the rest of our documents.  But, praise God, there has been progress after eight months of being here in the country!

This morning Ruth Anne asked a young woman to come in and help us with the cleaning after a week of concentrating on translation.  Ruth Anne has been very busy as well, because it is fun to host the translators for meals and interact with them around the table.  So far, they have been quite appreciative of our foreign food and have seemed to appreciate the menus even though they are mostly vegetarian.  When Herme finished up with the floors, she went to work on the patio.  She moved the pots with dead plants back into hiding and brought the pots with plants worth looking at out of the forest of vines from the arbor above and lined them up against the wall where they can catch a little sunshine and be noticed in their beauty.  Why didn’t we think of that before?  The patio is much more beautiful now.

We are also enjoying the visit of Marcela Metz, a young woman who works with the Mennonite team on matters of securing rights to land for the indigenous brothers and sisters.  She is working, for example, on the matter of a large tract of land which was set aside by the legislature as a reserve for the major indigenous tribes of the Chaco Province, but which the government has never bothered to title to them.  Apparently titling it is no easy thing and will likely take a long time to achieve.  She feels like a misfit in the Baptist churches where she was converted because her work is not teaching Sunday school or winning souls for Christ.  Accompanying folks and helping them with the needs of their body hardly seems like Christian work in the churches where she received her Christian formation.  She asked us if she could stay on after an anthropology conference she attended in town and then attend Toba church with us on Sunday before heading home to Resistencia, about two hours to the south of here.

This weekend Gretchen and Keith are across the border near Asunción, Paraguay where she is leading a women’s Bible study circle in a Toba colony there on the subject of Christian marriage.  Very few Toba couples have been formally married, even among pastors.  We are hoping that they will be able to take a personal check from us to the travel agency in Asunción on Monday to purchase our tickets in December arriving on AA1973 either on December 24 or 21—most likely the 21st.  But after hearing how petroleum prices have risen suddenly after the hurricane in the States, we are worried that the cost of the tickets will go skyrocketing by the time they get there on Monday.  Oh well, as close as the world is to running out of petroleum reserves, we should probably by all rights be paying high prices already and slowing down our use of it.

Blessings,

R & RA

top