We hope you enjoyed a special remembrance of Jesus’ sacrifice, burial and resurrection at Easter.
Tomorrow morning, I’ll be heading out to spend two weeks in Colombia. As I mentioned in our previous newsletter, I was asked by our regional leadership to serve as interpreter for a Church Planting Workshop and a Regional Leadership Forum.
This will be quite a challenge! It’s been a year or two since I’ve done simultaneous interpreting. I don’t remember ever doing it every day for two weeks straight. I guess we’ll find out real soon if I’m up to it!
I’ll be listening to the speaker in English or Spanish and talking into a microphone in the other language. The participants who don’t understand the speaker’s language will be using headsets to listen to my translation. The speaker will talk normally, he won’t be stopping and waiting for me to catch up. It can be quite taxing. Some people might be surprised that Steve Irwin would ever get tired of talking, but I imagine I’ll be ready for some quiet time when I get back.
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Just a little background info – The workshop and forum are for gringo missionaries and Latin American missionaries who serve in leadership positions on our Latin American NTM fields.
New Tribes Mission plants churches among tribal people who’ve never heard the gospel before, so the Church Planting Workshop will be focused on the challenges unique to establishing a church in a tribal village in the remote areas where the tribes are located.
As you may already be aware, the tribal people don’t speak Spanish; each people group has its own ethnic language. Some of the men speak “trading-post Spanish” but we want them to understand God’s Word in their mother tongue so that it speaks to them at a heart level. Like one of our veteran missionaries used to say, “You can’t preach like Paul if you talk like Tarzan.”
Just to be real clear, the participants in this Workshop and Forum will be gringo and Latin American missionary church planters, not tribal pastors. The purpose of the meetings is to equip cross-cultural missionaries and field leaders.
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I’m really looking forward to seeing some old friends in Colombia. After the Forum, I plan to visit the missionary training center campus where Eida and I served on staff from 1982 to 1996 (when we were young and better looking). I can’t deny that I’m eager to eat some delicious Colombian food, too.
We are very grateful to God for supplying for the expenses of this trip. The mission was able to pay for my plane ticket but the budget didn’t cover my lodging and meals and ground transportation in Colombia. When our Coronado Baptist Church family learned of this need, they generously stepped in to help us financially.
CBC also covered the cost of the airfare for last week’s annual SLR Team Meetings in Florida. It was a really good time of fellowship as a team, with opportunities to share and acquire valuable information that will enable us to be more effective in our ministry. What a tremendous provision that plane ticket was!
We thank our wonderful Savior for each of youwho form a part of this team that sustains us and the Spanish Language Resources ministry through prayer and giving.
May God bless you a whole lot!
Steve & Eida Irwin
NTM Spanish Language Resources
Cell: 408-515-1721
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