{"id":3987,"date":"2009-10-15T10:15:08","date_gmt":"2009-10-15T14:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/?p=3987"},"modified":"2009-10-15T10:30:00","modified_gmt":"2009-10-15T14:30:00","slug":"dioso-apotopibisiacuenetsi-penaneconitsia-exanaenexa-pibisiacuene-pexanaewi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/2009\/10\/15\/dioso-apotopibisiacuenetsi-penaneconitsia-exanaenexa-pibisiacuene-pexanaewi\/","title":{"rendered":"Dioso apotopibisiacuenetsi penaneconitsia-exanaenexa pibisiacuene pexanaewi"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Luis,
Luis, Selmira and their two daughters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Please don\u2019t ever doubt that your gifts are important.<\/p>\n

Luis was about to travel from his remote village in Colombia to the city to help missionary Mark Cain translate God\u2019s Word into the language of his people, the Guahibos. A couple in the USA heard about that, and decided they would give so that Luis\u2019 wife, Selmira, could go with him.<\/p>\n

By American standards, that wasn\u2019t a lot of money. Most of us would probably say it was a small gift. Some might also think that the purpose of the gift wasn\u2019t really important. But Luis and Selmira were very grateful to be able to make the trip together.<\/p>\n

In the coming days, Selmira often sat in as Luis and Mark went through the difficult task of translating and checking and revising. And she was there as they again discussed a difficult issue.<\/p>\n

In traditional Guahibo culture, all punishment is seen as evil. So for 30 years, the fact that God punishes the sinner, and is just in doing so, has been a stumbling block for the Guahibos. And now here they were translating Romans 1:18-3:20, and they needed to get across that God is just in punishing the sinner. And they still couldn\u2019t figure it out.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when Selmira said, \u201cDioso apotopibisiacuenetsi penaneconitsia-exanaenexa pibisiacuene pexanaewi.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Now I realize that answer may seem to you as plain as the nose on your face. Oh, sorry, the Guahibo isn\u2019t, is it? Here\u2019s how it translates: \u201cGod does not sin when He punishes the sinner.\u201d That may seem pretty simple, but it\u2019s a very precise, clear way of expressing a concept in the Guahibo language that is foreign to the Guahibo culture.<\/p>\n

It happened because of what you and I might call a small gift. It happened because a couple followed God\u2019s leading to give to something that might seem trivial to some folks.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s the key to understanding why every gift you make is important. Because it\u2019s important to God. Not because He needs the money. And not because missionaries or the people they work with need the money. But because God\u2019s name is glorified when you and I walk in obedience, when we give to Him as an act of worship.<\/p>\n

Your worship and obedience are always important \u2013 and sometimes they lead to exceptional results.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That\u2019s the answer to a problem that has hindered ministry among the Guahibo people for 30 years. And it was made possible by something that might seem small, perhaps even trivial.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[29,31,1233],"class_list":{"0":"post-3987","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ministry","7":"tag-bible","8":"tag-giving","9":"tag-guahibo","10":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3987\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}