This morning, a friend and colleague wrote to ask for my input on a translation he was doing. Virgil was one of the guys who invited us to help the field of Mexico get their training program going in ’94. We worked together on training staff in Chihuahua for several years.
He was consulting with several people about the Spanish term to use for the concept of a “high god” in animism. I liked the term “dios superior” but I wanted to make sure I wasn’t the only one with that idea, so (as I often do) I checked to see if anyone else was using that term in the same context.
Using Google, I searched for animismo concepto del “dios superior” and I could not believe what came out at the top of the search result list!
It was my Spanish translation of a Tom Steffen article, titled “Tribal Animism.” We’d published it in Colombia back in January of 1987 in our little in-house field publication for church planters called “El Plantador,” which I edited.
Wow, that was over 29 years ago! That explains the hair on my head in the picture above from Nov ’86. 🙂 We’ve been doing this for quite awhile, haven’t we?
And you all have been with us ALL THE WAY, making it possible for us to dedicate ourselves to equipping Latin American cross-cultural church planters. Words aren’t adequate to thank you for your faithful partnership.
That paper is on a Romanian Christian site. I wonder how in the world they ended up with a copy of it? I don’t think I even had a copy of it myself, either digital or on paper… but I do now!
What other resources that we’ve translated to Spanish might be out there somewhere in cyberspace? Only God knows. May the Lord get that material into the hands of people who will use it to grow His kingdom.
In Christ,
Steve & Eida Irwin
New Tribes Mission
Spanish Language Resources
steve_irwin@ntm.org
Voice & Text: 408-515-1721
Mail: 7132 Night Hawk Dr., El Paso TX 79912
Leave a Reply