Can you find me in the crowd up there? I’m one of the bald guys on the floor in front. I won’t go through the list of attendees, but there were church planters from all over the hemisphere and also from other parts of the world, some of which would prefer not to be identified for security concerns.
In the shot below of one of the sessions, you can see me at my “interpreting station” on the left (pea green polo). Nearly everyone in this picture speaks at least one language in addition to their own native tongue, and many have learned two or more — all for the purpose of sharing the Good News of eternal life in Christ with unreached people groups.
As you can see below, we had two ways of broadcasting my translation of the speaker’s words. The little boom microphone by my mouth connected to the transmitter (by my hand) which transmitted to about 20 dedicated receivers. As I translated to English, between 10 and 15 of those receivers were being used by those who didn’t understand Spanish (see the earpiece being used by Doug in the white shirt on the far left).
Notice the little black unit with the antenna extended up, sitting next to my water bottle. That is another transmitter which allowed us to choose a FM frequency not being used by nearby radio stations and transmit my voice from a hand-held microphone to portable FM radios which the attendees brought with them. We used both systems simultaneously when they needed translation to Spanish, since there weren’t enough receiving units in the first set for all the Spanish speakers who didn’t understand English.
The light brown book in front of me is my English Bible and the darker maroon book on the near corner is my Spanish Bible. The Spanish Bible has tabs — very handy for quick look-ups of passages quoted by the speaker. My English Bible has no tabs, so it was more of a challenge, especially for speakers who like to take Scripture quotes from all over. In some cases I just did my best at pulling the verse from my memory banks.
As at any conference, many of the best times of fellowship take place around the dining table, where you get a chance to find out about each other’s lives, families and work. The typical Colombian food was “interesting” to some but delicious to most of us, and the conversation was fascinating.
After the Forum, I was able to go to Fusa, where Eida and I had served on the Instituto Misionero training staff. It was a joy to have the opportunity to visit the current staff and some dear old friends. Marina Rojas (far left) worked in our home and taught Eida the ropes of Colombian cooking and house-keeping. Her husband, Erley, (next to her) worked with his brother in an auto body shop and can do or fix nearly anything. We learned much of our Colombian Spanish from them. They also hosted a home church where I did the bulk of the preaching that I’ve ever done — actually, it was more teaching, from Genesis through Jesus’ life, as well as other topics. Their daughter Rosa and her daughter are on the right.
After a couple of days in Fusa, I travelled to Bogotá (the capital) by bus, an experience which brought back a flood of memories. Before returning to El Paso, I wanted to be sure to get in a visit with Israel Gualtero and his wife Nidia (below). Israel had been a student of ours in the Missions Institute and he went on to serve among a tribe of hunter-gatherers in the Colombian jungle. He taught himself to read English very well, and now he does a lot of translation work for our SLR team. We had a great visit over a home-cooked dinner.
I’m sure I could bore you to tears with more pictures and regale you with endless stories about each person in every one, but in Heaven, we’ll have eternity to enjoy all those testimonies of God’s grace. Right now it’s likely that you have more pressing things to do with your day.
Let me just say in closing that whatever investment God allowed us to make in the lives of these precious children of His, you had a big part in it as our support team. We will be forever grateful to you for standing with us in prayer and for your financial partnership.
May God richly bless you!
Steve & Eida Irwin
Spanish Language Resources
New Tribes Mission
steve_irwin@ntm.org
Leave a Reply