Photo journal of a summer team

To hear the recordings we've done....

Go to Scripture Earth and click on Mexico.  You can actually hear the scriptures in some of the Zapotec, Chinantec, Mixtec, Mixe, Chatino, Amuzco, Nahuatl dialects.  If you happen to meet someone in the U.S. who is from Oaxaca and speaks one of these languages, they can download the scriptures to listen on their ipods or other devices.  Pretty cool.  I just love modern technology, don't you?

For instance, you can hear a sample of Mixe of Atitlan, the language spoken by the man in side bar photo.

So far we have completed about 40 different New Testament recordings.

Remembering Oaxaca

 This is another blog post reprinted from In a Mirror Dimly, by Shannon McKee (with her permission).

“Please remember to pray for us when you return.” His voice is earnest,  his eyes searching our faces. He sends his son, the one in the family who can read and write, to go get paper. His instructions are simple: “Write our names down so that they’ll remember.” I take the paper, honored by his vulnerability.

And how could I forget them? Standing in the courtyard of their adobe home, praying together – some of us in English, one voice in Spanish, and another in their native tongue of Zapoteco.
How could I forget their tiny church, overflowing to standing-room-only as people gathered to watch a film about the life of Jesus? The only film ever translated into their own language. 

Their wonder as the book of Luke is lived out before them on screen. The way they cradle the MP3 players that have the words of Jesus in their own language – the first time they’ve had access to a Bible in their homes.

How could I forget one of the village leaders inviting us into his home and sitting with rapt attention as we listened to Jesus’ teaching on being born again in John 3? I couldn’t understand the words in his language but my heart was knit with his as I recalled Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus. I watched him as we listened in the quiet still of the evening. Words of life echoing around the room. Emotion across his face as he nodded and took them in.

How could I forget their hospitality and their warmth? Offering what they had to us and taking the leftovers for themselves. Warm pepitas; fresh seeds from their own garden bounty and cooked on their open fire stove that is so common in the mountain homes. Wrapped up  in paper and given with a wide, proud grin.

How could I forget the boy who saw Rick & me taking a walk and came running from his home with the MP3 player at his ear? He and his mother had been listening on their porch.


How could I forget walking through the cornfields and winding pathways  to get to the home of the 100-year-old woman who was my “hermana” in Christ? Her stooped back and tired eyes. Her toothless grin as she reminded us that she would see us again one day… in heaven.

These and many other images fill my mind as I try to take in last week’s trip. I turn the memories over in mind as my worlds collide and I try to get back to life here.

It’s amazing really. This capacity for relationship that God has built into our hearts. That I could come to love a people in a short span of days. Love their way of life and their language and their families. This range of emotions and experiences that we can have in such a brief time. That is a God-thing. A bit of His capacity for love, lived out in His people.

“God I do remember the people of Oaxaca. But, more importantly, You remember them. You have loved them with an everlasting love. Them and people in every nook and cranny of this vast world.  Help me to love like You do and to always remember that life is much bigger than my little world. Help me to remember them.”

Feeding the Hungry

The following testimony was written by Shannon McKee, a short-term team member, first published on her own blog.  Reprinted with the author's permission.  Go to In a Mirror Dimly for this and other interesting posts about her trip to Oaxaca.

(If you have a story about your trip to Oaxaca, please submit it to me via email. We'd love to hear your testimony, too.)

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The questions were sincere. I know they were.
“So, what will you be DOING there?”
“We’ll be giving them the Bible. For the first time in their own language. Ever.”

The Bible that had been 30-years-in-the-making. Thirty years of painstaking translation that one faithful couple had devoted their lives to. Learning the language of the mountain people. Creating a written language in a culture where none had ever existed. Making sure it captured the original Greek and Hebrew texts. The husband died before the work was ever completed. He spent his whole adult life living among this remote people and trying to give them God’s story. His wife finished the work alone.

The Bible that then had to be recorded and made portable for the villagers who couldn’t read. Hours upon hours of recording.

And we who, in the 11^th hour, were going to give it to them.
“Yes, but, what else? What will you be DOING?”
The inquiry was well-intentioned. The asker had visions of orphanages and building projects and food pantries. (All incredibly important and needed ministries.)
 
But this trip was about 10 Ohioans toting pre-recorded MP3 players up into the mountain villages of Oaxaca, Mexico. Back through winding roads that barely seemed passable and up to the people who were three or four hours from any major city. Places so tucked away that even Spanish is not their primary language. Places where the chickens roam free and the woman across the field makes tortillas fresh each day and walks them to her neighbors.

And I remember feeling a little uncomfortable as I answered. “Just praying with them and giving them the Bible. That’s what the local people there have asked us to come do. They need help getting the Bibles to the people who want them.”

I squirmed as I said it. As if giving them the Book of God was somehow second-rate. As if hammer and nails were the only way to mend the broken down places in a village. As if corn and eggs and papaya were the only foods that would satisfy their deep hunger. Or clean water the only way to quench their thirst.

Oh, friends, let’s not be uncomfortable about offering Jesus to hungry people. I fear that we Christians are in the midst of an identity crisis lately. Divisions now exist within the family of God over the role of social justice and the need for us to do more to right the wrongs around us. But, the proverbial pendulum always swings too far. Because we’re embarrassed that we have neglected social ills at times, we’re now ashamed when the Gospel is the primary thing we have to offer.
 D.A. Carson says it beautifully in his book, For the Love of God:

“We must always remember that the Gospel is not admired in Scripture primarily because of the social transformation it effects, but because it reconciles men and women to a holy God. Its purpose is not that we might feel fulfilled, but that we might be reconciled to the living and holy God.”

In that reconciling, transformation will certainly occur. Wrongs will be righted as we lovingly reach out to people and invest in their lives. We will mourn with those who mourn. We will tend to the sick. We will adopt the orphan. We will minister to the outcast. We will feed the hungry.

Let’s just not be embarrassed about giving them the Bread that will always fill them. Sometimes that will be our only offering for their neediness. And,oh, what an offering…

10/10/10

Dear praying friends,

This is just a lame excuse to write a letter on 10/10/10.  What an amazing date.  Mostly I just wanted to let you know that we have set up a new ministry website, Until All Have Heard, where we will be posting each of our updates and any urgent prayer requests.  You will also find some helpful information, photos, and links that explain a bit better what we actually do in Mexico and why.  For those who have only recently begun receiving our email updates, sometimes there are unanswered questions you might have.  However I never want our letters to sound like those awful sequels, incessantly retelling all the things you already know from prior books in the series. 

So... feel free to visit our blog, pass along the link to anyone who might be interested, and leave a comment from time to time.

While I was at it, I also resurrected my old personal blog, Memories and Musings from Mexico, where you will find a hodge-podge of stories from the early years up to the present, including my recent trip to Colorado.  In it, I mention Hannah's intention to begin school in Aurora, Colorado for a seven-month program in massage therapy, starting January 3rd.  If any of you know of a single or family in the Denver area who might take on a poor MK as a boarder for seven months, Hannah is looking for an inexpensive place to live.  Please contact her with any suggestions for housing.  Thanks!  We are trusting God to open the door for her there.

Since we've sent more than our quota of emails to you this past month, I will close with one simple prayer need.  Over the last two years, we have gradually lost a number of monthly donors due to divorce, death, job losses, and the economic downturn.  People who once gave are no longer able to continue.  Many are continuing to give as they are able, but a reduced amount.  Churches who have supported us since the beginning are having financial struggles and cutting back on their missions giving.  We are not going hungry, but we are feeling the pinch. 

• Please pray that God would provide an additional $1000 a month needed to bring our support back up to what it was two years ago.

• Please also pray for our friends and churches who are going through difficult times, that God would comfort and supply all their needs
  
• Praise the Lord that the rains have stopped, bridges are being rebuilt, and muddy roads (and laundry) are drying
• Pray for housing in Colorado for Hannah from Jan. - July 2011
  

Thanks so much for your continued friendship and concern for us.  We appreciate each and every one of you.

Partners in reaching the unreached of Oaxaca and beyond,
Jim and Jamie Loker

Urgent prayer need

September 28, 2010

Dear praying friends,

It is with a heavy heart and a torrent of tears that we bring news of devastation in Oaxaca.  Our hearts are aching and grieving for one particular people group that we have prayed for for many many years.  Just a few weeks ago we shared how the translated New Testament was finally being recorded for the Mixe people of Tlauhui, and how we still want to see this unreached people group come to salvation in Christ.

Sadly it is too late for perhaps 1000 of these people who are presumed dead after mudslides washed their homes away last night as they slept.  I am sitting here literally sobbing for those who are inevitably beginning their eternity of suffering and anguish without Christ.  How is it possible that there are no known believers in that region after all these years?  I pray that we are mistaken.  Please join us in fervent prayer that the survivors' hearts would be softened to the gospel, and that physical help would reach them soon (roads are completely impassable for now), and that we can complete formatting the New Testament to be distributed to the Mixe of Tlauhui.  Maybe this situation will open the door to ministry where we were forbidden to go before.  That is our prayer.

May God have mercy on these people who have remained fiercely resistant to the Good News which is their only hope in these dark times.

Here is a link to the news we just received: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39398543/ns/world_news-americas

Yesterday we visited with our neighbor, Juan, a Chinantec pastor many short-term teams have worked with or at least prayed with in the past.  His people, too, are isolated by mudslides, and food and supplies cannot reach them.  The old landing field is overgrown with weeds, so no airplanes can reach them.  Also the Mexican arm of MAF, Alas de Socorro (Wings of Help), has no permission to fly for now.  Please pray that the officials would restore their papers so that help might be at least air-dropped to those in need.

Another area we have invested in is the Mixe region of Atitlan, where several teams have ministered in recent years with medical outreaches, showing the Jesus film, and Megavoice distribution.  As far as we know, they are cut off from help as well.  Please pray for a miracle that their food supplies would hold out.  Their crops have all been washed away.  It is truly a desperate time for so many we have worked with.

For us it remains simply a laundry problem since we rely on solar-powered (clothes line) dryers.  It is almost inconceivable that these unrelenting rains have caused so much devastation.  We are fine where we live.  Jonny refused to take a shower yesterday afternoon, firmly expecting to get a phone call from neighbors needing help once their houses began to flood.  It had rained non-stop for over 24 hours, and we expected the homes further down the road to be in trouble.

In the night, I slept fitfully as the rains continued, having a very uneasy feeling about the plight of the folks living on hillsides in surrounding villages.  I am in agony now, realizing my fears had become a reality.  I dreamed about this.

Bless you as you stand with us in faithful prayer.  Thank you for passing this along to your churches and prayer groups.  We will let you know if there is anything you can do to help in a more physical way.  For now, please just pray.

Partners in reaching the unreached,
Jim and Jamie Loker

Here is a photo of the town, taking a few years ago by one of Quezadas' prayer teams.  

Thankfully later reports indicated that in fact only 11 people died from the mudslide, not 500-1000 as original news indicated.  We are amazed at all the prayer that resulted from this media hype, and thankful to God for sparing the lives of these people who have yet to hear the Good News.

Keep praying for Tlahui!

September Update

September 7, 2010

Dear praying friends,

Or as some missionaries we know would call you, "Knee-mail buddies."  We find ourselves again in need of prayer, not just for us, but for the people of Oaxaca.  Nothing urgent, but nonetheless important.

RECORDINGS

As far back as I can remember we have been targeting one Mixe language area for prayer.  Some of you have come on team trips where we prayed for the people of Tlahui, where the scriptures have been translated but unused for over twenty years.  This is truly an unreached people group.  There is no Christian witness in their villages.  In fact, they are very adamantly opposed to the gospel message, and will violently "encourage" outsiders to leave their area.  We have never taken prayer teams there, but have only prayed from a safe distance.

Since summer our technicians have been recording the Tlahui New Testament with one willing participant who speaks the language, but lives outside the target area.  One Christian Mixe from a neighboring dialect has a grandfather from Tlahui, so he is reading the text and having the native speaker repeat it for recording.  It is a laborious process as always, using this "non-reader" method. 

• Please pray with us that Hermano Luis will listen well and catch any mistakes in the recording, and that the man from Tlahui will persevere in this work, and perhaps come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ through his exposure to the scriptures.

• Most of all, please pray that the darkness will flee from Tlahui as people hear the gospel in their own language for the first time.  Pray for many to come to Christ.

• While you are at it, please pray for another Zapotec recording in process.  This dialect also was translated over twenty years ago, and never widely used.  This production, likewise, has a few interesting challenges.  Please pray that it would be completed, formatted, distributed, and used.

CHURCHES

Last week Jim made a trip down to the coast, along with all the recording technicians and representatives from the Bible League and Hosanna (Faith Comes by Hearing), to celebrate the 52nd anniversary of the Southern Baptist Church where they speak Huave.  The 87-year-old (still young) translator and some of his family were also able to attend.  Jim had also celebrated the dedication of the New Testament in Huave about ten years ago, and has worked with the church leaders in that area for all these years. 

• Praise the Lord for the Huave area where the gospel is being proclaimed. 

Jim's primary purpose for the trip was to distribute the audio New Testaments among the Huaves and a neighboring Zapotec language, and to instruct listening groups how to utilize them. 

• Pray that the Proclaimers (digital players) will bear much fruit among the Huaves. Click on the link to read more about this new format for the recordings.

This past weekend we celebrated with our local Mexican church, Dios es Amor, as they had their very first worship service in their new building.  We had provided a work team to initiate the building project four years ago, and finally it is completed.  Our recording technicians also serve as pastor and music leader, so it was a fun day to rejoice with them on Sunday.  Jim helped facilitate the completion of the building last week amid ridiculous amounts of mud and other obstacles.  Thankfully the rain stopped all day on Sunday during the service and the meal that followed.

• Praise the Lord for Dios es Amor Church, and pray for spiritual health and growth for this small group of believers in our town of Mitla

HOME FRONT

On the home front, well, it's been an interesting adjustment being back once again.  Our usual desert is green and muddy like never before.  It literally has rained daily since we got here three weeks ago.  Getting laundry dry was already an issue because of the rain, but now I can't even wash the clothes (or shower, or wash dishes very well) because our electric pump is broken.  We are contemplating what it would take to form a bucket brigade, hauling water up from the cistern.  (Just when I finally need a large family, half of them are gone!)  In the meantime, we are bringing buckets from the neighbor's house for washing dishes. 

• Please pray that our local mechanic can fix the pump soon!

The other glitch was that the internet modem decided to burn up last week.  Jim lost a day while trying to diagnose and remedy the problem.  Sadly that was our usual day for visiting with Chris and his bride, Amy, and I had neither access to Skype nor our Lingo phone. Now we are back up and running again.

Oh, and the garbage truck hasn't come by for a couple of weeks... but I'll stop here lest I sound whiny, when actually we are very glad to be home in spite of it all.

UPCOMING TRIPS

Both Jim and I have trips back to the states this month.  I am flying up to Denver September 14-20, and Jim is flying to Atlanta on the 20th.  (Yeah, I know.  Poor timing).  My purpose is to meet with my editor from Women of the Harvest (WOTH), and to speak briefly at a fund-raiser on Friday.  I am particularly excited about a side-trip to visit some long-time supporters I haven't seen once since we left for the mission field 24 years ago!  That has to be a record.  This family has faithfully given to our ministry from the very earliest days without even one personal visit to say thank you.  Patsy remembered that I used to play the piano, and asked if I'd like to play an offertory at their church that Sunday.  I jumped at the opportunity, and quickly panicked afterward. 

• Please pray that I will actually worship through music, and not just feel like I am performing, and pray for just the right words to communicate my appreciation for the ministry of Women of the Harvest as I represent thousands of women serving the Lord worldwide.
  

Jim is attending the ION (International Orality Network) annual conference.  He hasn't attended one for the past few years, but it is always an encouragement to meet with like-minded individuals and organizations who are trying to reach non-literate, oral learners. 

• Pray that he would return to Oaxaca inspired and challenged to persevere in this never-ending task of networking to reach the unreached.

• Please pray for the kids to continue in their studies, minus a substitute teacher, while I am away. 

I have written out detailed assignments for them, and trust to work double hard this week to keep them on track. 

• Again, please pray for Bekah and Jonny as they travel to and from the city three times a week, often by bus, to the Oaxaca Christian School, for safety and protection, that they would be hidden from any who would desire to hurt them. 

They are taking English and Science at OCS, so at least two classes will happen while I'm gone.  Debbie has Math and Spanish on the computer, so those classes should happen, too.

Bless you for your partnership with us!  Each prayer and gift does make a difference.  Together we are accomplishing great things with eternal rewards.

Partners in reaching the Unreached of Oaxaca and beyond,
Jim and Jamie Loker
Bekah, Jonny, and Debbie (at home)

Please continue to pray for our older children, too, as the Lord leads:
Mike and Hannah, in college in California
Tim and Heidi, in Moncton, New Brunswick (Canada)
Chris and Amy, in Worthington, Minnesota

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