Dear Friends,
Greetings from Durango. We had a good 3 weeks in Lajas. Perhaps
we could almost say they were normal. Normal in the sense that we are becoming more used to staying out there, and people are getting used to us being there. It was a productive time of culture and language study. Anne Marie got to watch Irenia make clay pots and bowls from scratch and was able to learn more Tepehuan in the process.
Joseph, Madeline, Julian and Sophia are now more accustomed to life in the village, but it's still a challenge to try and fill in their days. Thankfully they have made some more Tepehuan friends which is helping a lot. A favourite time of day is game time with Barry of an afternoon. Whiffle ball is one of the games of choice. Whiffle for the Aussies is basically baseball with a plastic ball and bat.
There are a couple of rivers that flow through the canyons around Lajas. One takes a whole day just to walk there, and the other is an hour's walk away and a two hour return. That is, if you are Tepehuan. I had wanted to hike to this river for some time as it sounded like a promising place to take the boys fishing. Faustino and Marselo had been bugging me for a while to go fishing with them, but as this required staying the night there (this time of year the fish only bite at night), I had resisted. Now that we have completed most of the work on our house, it worked out for me to hike off for two days and go fishing. An hour hike might not sound too strenuous, that is till you do it with a Tepehuan. Add to that it is pretty much down hill - that would be straight down, 2000 feet down or thereabouts. The following photo was taken when Faustino said, "we're almost there." We still had a couple hundred feet to go of down.
It felt good to make it down to the river, managing to do it in an hour. It also felt good to plunge into the river as it was 40 degrees plus down there. Marselo showed me how to find bait, which is a small centipede-like animal that lives under rocks in the river. Bamboo grows wild by the river, so instant fishing poles are provided. We fished till late and managed to catch a few. Faustino below is cutting up one of the smaller ones that we ate.
The following day we made the completely uphill climb back to the village, and eventually I would like to take Joseph and Julian on fishing trips.
We're heading out to Lajas again in a few days and so would appreciate your prayers for productive language learning and safety. Continue to pray for our acceptance in the village. We just heard today that a team of NTM missionaries working in the neighboring dialect of Tepehuan were asked to leave the village and not to return. These villages communicate with one another and so we're hoping this doesn't influence our village. Pray for Kevin and Alina Beach and Steve and Kathryn Tibbetts as they contemplate their future and what the Lord has for them. Pray that we would be able to get the satellite system set up and working this trip. It would be great to be able to communicate from the village.
For Jesus,
Andrew and Anne Marie
...
May 2007 letter
