It is always a blessing to get an endorsement from those you are serving.

To set this up, we got an invitation to record in the Mixteco: Yosoyua through a third party.  This was surprising because we did not even know of this language.  It turned out to be a very robust language group of over a thousand people.  Looking at the map we could see we had driven through this group of towns on the way to record Mixteco: San Pedro El Alto.  Marcos and Nathaniel recorded the Good News in that language and unknown to us the word got out to some believers with the Yosoyua.  The pastor Eusibeo Lopez Vasques let a mutual friend know that they needed what their neighbors got.

Between a couple of our other recording assignments Francisco and I did a fishing trip and indeed found that this language in the middle of several recorded languages was less than 90% intelligible with the nearest neighbors.  We asked for the Pastor and were told that he was out preaching in other villages but if we wanted to meet him we were invited to the evening service the next day.

When we arrived Pastor Eusibeo welcomed us warmly and gave us a meal plus a duplex to live and record in.  At the evening service he introduced us to several dozen believers with the following explanation.  “These people have come to give us the Gospel in our own language.  Years ago a Canadian came here talking about translating the New Testament.  He left and never came back.  He left a piece of paper that none of us could read and now we can’t even find it.  These people have come to put our speech into a sound that we will never lose.  It will be ours forever.”

Thus was set up a couple of days of intensive recording which was in effect recording practice for Patti and for Francisco.  After several weeks of very successful “fishing” Francisco had asked if he could upgrade to be a recordist.  We recorded two programs  with a total of over two hours of Bible Stories  from the series of 50 stories published by the Unfolding Word.

During the time with Eusibeo’s godly family we ate, harvested corn, and helped manage the burros, cattle, goats, and turkeys which were moved far enough away to not interrupt  the recordings.  We completed recording here after a couple of nearly all-night sessions.  We left feeling like we were very much part of the family.  This was a pre-Thanksgiving celebration for us all.