This is an incredible moment. Two Kuna Indians, pastor and missiologist , Laurencio Montero to my left and Lino Smith (PhD linguist and Bible translator trained by SIL in Texas (second from right) and two Terraba indians Venicio Navas center and Chepito right. The Kuna Baptists are taking seriously their responsibility to help a brother tribe revitalize their language and culture. They are returning in May with a bigger group in full tribal dress to stimulate the Terraba Indians to restore healthy tribal customs (foods, tribal governance, and celebrations). This is all being done from a Christian worldview perspective and established on a solid foundation of Christ as King over all things. The whole project amazingly enough was birthed out of our Terraba Indian Coffee project.
“What do these feeble Jews? will they fortify themselves? will they sacrifice? will they make an end in a day? will they revive the stones out of the heaps of the rubbish which are burned?” (Neh. 4:2)
The third week of March I travelled once again to San Francisco de Térraba and the up to Tiger Paw village in the Térraba Indian Reservation near Buenos Aires, Costa Rica. My team included Xinia Herrera recent graduate from Wycliffe’s translation and literacy program for Latin American missionary candidates in Perú and a missionary candidate Melvin Rojas. Our goal was to join two distinguished Kuna Indian friends and colleagues from Panama, Laurencio Montero, pastor, theologian and missiologist and Lino Smith linguist and Bible translator for the Kuna Language New Testament. Lino is also a member of the Kuna Congress, the ruling body of the Kuna Yala tribal lands along the north eastern coast of Panama. Our strategy? Link one of Latin America’s most vital tribal groups that has maintained its language and culture and that has a strong movement towards Christ to a sister tribe, the Térrabas, in danger of extinction. Our mission was to meet with Tribal elders and leaders to seek God’s wisdom and a strategy on how to revitalize their almost extinct language (only eight fluent speakers of Térraba survive and they are all very old. There are many partially fluent language speakers and most have totally lost their native language). We also met to seek wisdom on how to reorganize tribal life and culture within the parameters of a revitalization movement structured under Christ’s Sovereign Lordship and sound Biblical Theology. The beauty of this project is that the inspiration has arisen from within the tribe through a Térraba tribal leader who was recently converted through a miraculous healing. It is noteworthy and very significant that this project has grown out of our Térraba Organic Coffee Project done under Green Earth Coffee… coffee with a purpose.
The first day together we met to work on strategies for revitalizing the language to eventually see a literacy movement in the native tongue. As we met Lino Smith reminded us that God did not only revitalize the Hebrew language he resurrected it after hundreds of years of being a dead language as far as being spoken! If He can do it with the Hebrews, He can do with the Térrabas. Xinia helped us see that literacy in the native language cannot happen until people begin to relearn how speak the language. We also were much encouraged to learn that a new translation of the New Testament exists in Teribe a sister language in Panama that may be similar enough to Térraba to allow us to rapidly produce texts of God’s word in the Térraba language. What is urgently needed is a language survey and comparative linguistics analysis in order to determine similarities and differences. It may be that the two languages are really the same language with minor or major dialectical differences. That will make our work must easier and quicker. Time is of the essence.
The second day we worked on cultural revitalization issues and on various organizational and structural aspects of tribal government and administration. The Kunas were very helpful since the Kuna tribe has a very strong tribal government and were able to contribute many ideas.
The third day we concentrated on details for finishing up the Térraba clean water project and for establishing a small micro ecological coffee processing plant in the month of July.
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