ยกAdiรณs, amigos! I’m off to Camp Blue Haven in the mountains of New Mexico, and I’ll be gone for two weeks (now you know why I’ve been blogging so much lately!)
I hope you’re enjoying the series on my trip to Mexico, and if you would like to really make my day, leave a comment on one of the posts. It thrills me to get comments, and I get them so seldomly that when I do get one it really makes my day (hint, hint). :)
ยกTimupantise!
In the Huasteca of Mexico I had the opportunity to partake of much local cuisine, from Potosian enchiladas at the hotel, to chopped up nopal (that is, prickly pear cactus) at a preacherโs home. As Mr. Dugan told me, This is real Mexican food!
While in Mexico we attended the wedding of the son of a certain preacher, and after the ceremony they served all the guests a very singular dish dubbed zacahuil (sah-kah-WEEL). I think this is a Huastec food, but I could be wrong. At any rate, I was told that it resembles a gigantic tamale, and its method of cooking is quite fascinating. Read More
Cristo, yaya catli tenextilรญa Toteco ya ipa itztoya quema ayamo oncayaya nochi catli onca. Cristo senitztoya ihuaya Toteco huan yaya Toteco. Yaya itztoya ihuaya Toteco ipan ipejya nochi catli onca. Cristo quichijchijqui nochi tlamantli, huan niyon se tlamantli catli onca amo yolqui iseli. Yaya nopa nemislismacaquetl huan quinmaca nemilistli nochi catli itztoque. Yaya nopa tlahuili catli quintlahuilรญa masehualme ipan ininyolo. Ni tlahuili tlahuรญa campa onca tzintlayohuilotl huan nopa tzintlayohuilotl amo hueli quisehuรญa.
At El Caรฑรณn, the first congregation we visited in the Huasteca, I noticed that even though most all the members knew Nahuatl, the singing was done in Spanish and there was a noted absence of a Nahuatl Bible. I inquired about this there, and as far as I could tell the Bible had not been translated into Nahuatl.
However, at Tlapexmecayo I discovered from the preacher there that a Bible did indeed exist in their native tongue—but it was translated by some denomination, and had doctrinal errors in it. At La Soledad brother Macario Zuniga showed me his Nahuatl Bible, and even brother Pascual owned one.
I was full of questions. If a Nahuatl Bible does exist, why donโt people use them? Are there truly errors in the text that could potentially deceive someone seeking the truth? At the house of brother Pascual (the man who recently started a congregation in his home), Josรฉ Hernรกndez Fรฉlix and brother Nicolรกs clarified it all for us.
Quite simply, no one reads or writes Nahuatl. Everyone who knows how to read and write does so in Spanish, because Nahuatl is a spoken language only. Granted, it is fairly easy to write the language using the Roman alphabet, but it is not taught in schools and practically no one can do it with ease.
Although some Aztecs have Bibles written in their own language, by far most of them read from the Reina-Valera version in Spanish. Perhaps this situation will change in the future, and only time will tell whether a new Nahuatl translation will be needed to aid the spreading of the Gospel.
We now interrupt our regular programming to bring you this important message.
I’ve taken the ACT twice now: once last fall and then again earlier this month. The first time I got a score of 30, and today I got my second score in the mail. And it is… 31!
So what does this mean? Well, the ACT scoring system is a scale from 1 to 36, and 31 is quite an excellent score, if I say so myself. So again you may ask: What does this mean? Why is this so exciting? Well, it means that I would be able to get a free tuition scholarship at either one of the two colleges I am currently considering—pretty nifty.
So anyway, you know what I’ll be doing this summer: Scholarship essays! Free tuition is great, but room and board are pretty pricey at college these days as well.
Now, back to Mexico!
Matlapa municipality
After visiting the congregation of the Lord’s church at La Soledad Monday morning, we travelled to the town of Chalchocoyo (the name of which means “guava” in Nahuatl). The church at Chalchocoyo is one of the biggest in that region, and there was a great turnout considering it was Monday.
Upon arriving we were greeted by a bunch of children on the road, who were very interested to see us. We were soon led down the hill to where the church building was, and entering we saw Bienvenidos los hermanos de Aledo, Texas written on the chalkboard. It was here that we first met brother Nicolรกs (a local preacher) and Abraham Antonio, who led the welcome song when we were all assembled. After this Mr. Dugan introduced each of our company, and when this was accomplished Nicolรกs spoke in Nahuatl inviting anyone to come forward if they had something to say to us.
First a young man came up, and he was able to speak good Spanish. After him was an elderly man of 80 plus years who knew only Nahuatl. However, this did not hinder the message in any way, for what he said was translated to Spanish by Nicolรกs, and then brother Jesรบs translated into English. It was quite interesting to observe this process, and I was glad I didn’t have to rely on too much filtering. After that a monolingual Aztec lady came up and spoke to us; all of these thanked us for coming and gave us much encouragement.
A meal followed, with the regular fare. We ate in their old building, which was built on a higher level than the old one. It’s a smaller building, and one reason for its abandonment was foundation problems. It served us well as a fellowship hall, however! Read More