From Katie: Do you do that?

I meet at least twice a week with my language helper, a lady named Andrea.  She teaches me the Nahuatl language and answers a lot of my questions about how things work in this community.  Every time she explains something to me about her culture she asks, “And you guys?  Is it the same for you?  Do you do that?”  Many times I answer yes.  Yes, we have dances in our culture.  Yes, sometimes boys and girls start liking each other in school and then get married.  Yes, babies grow in our bellies, too.  Sometimes, however, the answer is more complicated.

A few weeks ago, Andrea was explaining to me about the local gods of the mountains.  She said that they are “clean” while the people around here are sinners.  Because of that, the spirits can help you if you make them a promise or bring them gifts.  If you bring them corn and fish and peaches after a good harvest, for example, they will make sure you have rain for the next season.  She went on to explain things in more depth and then asked me her standard question: “And you guys…do you do that?”  I told her that some people in my land thought like that, but that I didn’t.  I said that soon I was going to sit down and tell her what I thought in her own language, just like she had told me.  But first I had to study.  A lot.

Andrea, like many of the Nahuatl, do not communicate well in Spanish.  I know that she cannot understand the gospel well in Spanish and so I am trusting God’s timing as I continue to learn.

Please pray that our team will be diligent students while we work at learning how to communicate the Word to the Nahuatl.

Pray that the Nahuatl will begin to have questions and doubts about their beliefs that can only be met by the truth of the Bible.