More than 7,960 verses to be written by hand by September 2012, the Month of the Bible: this is the challenge that the Chilean Bible Society has set the Mapuche people. Taking part will be dozens of Mapuche churches. The goals are ambitious: as well as bringing speakers of Mapudungun closer to the Scriptures, the project is designed to foster cultural development, by making the Mapuche people proud of their language, and social inclusion, by presenting the handwritten Mapudungun text alongside the Spanish translation.

Andres Casanueva, Bible Society board member, and Mapuche pastor Edgar Salamanca led a ceremony to launch the handwritten Mapudungun New Testament project. Among the guests were translators and Church leaders.

“Translating the Word of God into Mapudungun was a spiritual need that was met in 1998,” Mr Casanueva told them. “Today the challenge is to find ways to unite national society with Mapuche society. We believe that this is a great contribution which will benefit our entire country.”

On September 26, 1569 was printed the Bible of the Bear ((named for the drawing of a bear in the book’s cover), initial translation of the Bible called “Reina Valera”.

Photo: Pablo Alvarez, president of Bible Society, gave a Bible to Cristián Larroulet, ministry general secretariat of the presidency.

The meeting was attended by church leaders, Bible Society staff and government authorities.

Smiling children during a visit to The Ark, a home for children at risk, by the Chilean Bible Society. The visitors brought snacks, sweets, clothes and Bible-based children’s books

Photo: Staff of the Chilean Bible Society join with customers in its bookshop to pray on the United Bible Societies’ Day of Prayer.

Chilean Romani holding a Bible study meeting.

An interview by Javier García, Information Officer of the Chilean Bible Society, with Papusa, who is a Romani and a member of the Presbyterian Church

How did your faith begin? How did you come to know Jesus?
I went to one of the meetings that they hold in big tents and I heard Romani people and Carlos Hernandez  preaching. Carlos Hernandez is one of the men who translated the Bible into Romani; although he isn’t a Romani himself, he has a good relationship with us and is an expert in our language.

To start with I wasn’t all that taken with what I heard at the meeting; but afterwards I got to enjoy listening  – so much that I got baptised in the Presbyterian Church in los Chorrillos (a district in the popular resort of  Viña del Mar on central Chile’s Pacific coast), by Pastor Mario Candia. It was lovely – and that’s the way I came to know Jesus. Now I’m walking closely with the Lord.

This year, 2011, is the year of worldwide prayer for women in Chile. How would you describe Romani women?
Romani women are very long-suffering. They never –  ever! –  have a holiday. They have to do all the work and they never have a break.  They have to look after the children… get the meals… and just trust to luck that they’ll have enough money. They’re strong, though;  they’re not afraid of anything.

What are you doing at the moment?
At the moment we are here in La Serena (a city in northern Chile that is a popular with tourists in summer) gathering money so that we can move on.

What are your own personal dreams?
I’d like to go on enjoying good health and I’d like my children never to want for anything. Like other Romani, I’d like to have a house in Villa Alemana (a town in Central Chile known as a desirable area to live in)  where we could spend the winter without getting wet. And I pray that the Lord will be there to help us – always.

What was it like for you and the rest of your family last year when the earthquake happened – and during its aftermath?
I didn’t feel it because I was in La Serena and nothing happened to us. The Romani who were in the South felt it, though. They said that they couldn’t stand up and the shaking went on for a long time. Afterwards the sea overwhelmed the coastal areas  – but the Romani people managed to escape. I just hope it never happens again!

Could you tell us a verse from the Bible that has been important in your life?
I like the part where the woman asks Jesus for forgiveness for her sins. I like it because she was good and wanted to be right with the Lord. I think that, just as he forgave that country woman, he also forgives us because, like her, we want to set ourselves right with him.

What has it been like to have a New Testament in Romani? Has it been a help in your faith? Or to the Romani culture?
It has been very good, because before we had it, the Romani couldn’t understand when the Bible was being read to them in Spanish, but now they can understand clearly – particularly when they listen to the device like a radio** which speaks in Romani. When Romani people are listening to that they start crying and they want to be baptised. So having the New Testament in our own language has been lovely; I like it. What I enjoy most is in the evenings after our tea we sit and listen to the Word of God in Romani and I can understand what I hear.

What prayer topics would you like to mention for the Romani people?
I want the Lord to help some of the Romani not to be so bad: some go to the horse racing just to waste money. And then I want the children to be able to read and listen to the Bible but in our own language – because your language is very complicated.

I want Romani to be able to go anywhere and not have the police come and drive us away with no idea of where we might go.   I want them to offer us water and allow us to get on buses – because sometimes they don’t want to let us on board.

I want Romani to live in peace around the country and I would like them all to believe in the Lord.

Is there anything else you would like to add?
That when it is raining remember that we country people have no tents to help us . sometimes it rains so hard that our tents get soaking wet and you can’t go shopping and the poor people are hungry and cold.

**Mapusa is referring to the Faith Comes By Hearing digital audio player, the Proclaimer.

Photo : Men on their knees in prayer at the meeting in Colina's prison earlier this month. Among them (far left, dressed in black) is a prison guard. The meeting was led by Chilean Bible Society volunteers.

At the beginning of this month Messengers in Action, the volunteer group of the Chilean Bible Society, paid one of their regular visits to the prison in the city of Colina, 27 km (17 miles) north of Santiago.

The Society’s Production Coordinator, Eduardo Carrillo, who accompanied the volunteers, told the men that at one stage he himself had been under a death sentence and had it not been for an organ donor, he would not have been alive today.

The men heard a general call to pray to God, humbly acknowledging their sins and the more than 50 present got down on their knees to do so.

Prison chaplain Juan Quintanilla said, “I must emphasise the respect that these men display when they talk about the Lord. God knows men’s hearts and he can fill these men and give them hope so that they can sleep peacefully at night and can have a friend every day in him. They can also form associations with others here and, thanks to God, enjoy special fellowship. In spite of their backgrounds, they humbly accepted that God can forgive them for their sins.”

Photo (CHI10DJ-33): Women in the maternity unit of the Santiago women’s prison listening to a talk from a Bible Society visitor.

For several years the Chilean Bible Society has been paying monthly visits to prisons. One of the places that we go to most often is the maternity unit of the Santiago women’s prison, where women stay from when their children are born until they reach two years old.

During a visit by Bible Society volunteers to the maternity unit of the Santiago women’s prison, a woman holding a baby closes her eyes in prayer. When we visit a prison we fulfil a task which God commended to us in Hebrews 13:3: “Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them. Remember those who are suffering, as though you were suffering as they are.”

It is in prison that many people have found the faith that sets them free, because it changes their way of living and thinking. Even the guards comment on this.

The prisoners are not inside solely to pay the penalty for misdeeds they have committed. They are also there for rehabilitation, to get prepared for life out in society again or restored to the condition before they went off the rails.

Apply the Gospel to our own lives

For whatever reason, at some stage whilst outside the prisoners have learned the kind of behaviour that harms other people. Now they have to learn to work and share with their neighbours instead.

But if we are to be able to change the lives of such people we must apply the Gospel of Jesus to our own daily lives, showing a genuine, inexhaustible and unfailingly hopeful love from the God who sent his son to die for our sins and to ask us to repent and so be forgiven.

We ask that you pray for the volunteers in our Messengers in Action ministry who are happy to give their time and energy to people who need to be listened to and inspired. As well as giving out God’s Word to the women, they share time with them over a sandwich, a drink or a snack, and they take them things like baby shampoo, feeding bottles and nappies. The volunteers will appreciate your support in prayer.

We give thanks to God for the ‘guards’ church’ of Protestant-evangelical prison officers who help us in our ministry in the prison.

Information to help you as you pray: There are more than 12,000 women in the prison — equal to 11 per cent of Chile’s total prison population. Of them, about 4,700 are kept permanently locked in and about 7,500 live under a more open regime

By Javier García, Communications Officer, Chilean Bible Society.

Francisco Viguera, the General Secretary of the Chilean Bible Society, (left), talking to Alfredo Cooper, the Evangelical Chaplain to the palace of the President of Chile, at the San José mine. The two were among Christian leaders who went there to present personalised New Testaments to the families of the 33 trapped miners.

Also present were Alfredo Cooper, the Evangelical Chaplain to the palace of the President, and Eduardo Duran, the pastor of the Evangelical Cathedral of Santiago, a mega-church in the capital with a weekly attendance of 45,000, as well as pastors from the district of Copiapó, a town about 45 km (28 miles) south of the mine.

The inscription in each New Testament includes the name of each miner and reads: “Good books should be in good hands. The Chilean Bible Society would like to present […] and his family with this copy of the New Testament, in the hope that it may be light and guidance for your life. God bless you.”

On the windy hillside just above Camp Hope where the families are keeping their vigil stands a row of 33 Chilean flags, each with the name of a miner inked onto it. And on the stony ground at the foot of each flagpole are a jar containing a candle and a card with a prayer for the miner offered by his family who await a safe rescue in what the government predicts will be three to four months’ time.

Picture: President Piñera and his wife meeting Pope Benedict XVI in Rome earlier this month

A member of the upper house of Chile’s National Congress had a hard time finding a copy of the Bible in the language of the Mapuche people to take as a present for the Pope, while accompanying President Piñera on his recent visit to Europe earlier this month.

Beatriz Neilaf

The indigenous Mapuche people live in south-central Chile and south-west Argentina. They resisted the attempts by both the Incas and the Spanish to conquer them, but in 1855 their heartland of Araucania at last became part of Chile. Today they make up about four per cent of the country’s population – although many more Chileans can trace a thread of Mapuche ancestry. They are primarily Christian, their Catholic or Protestant beliefs mixed, in many cases, with traditional practices.

Beatriz Neilaf, 35, is a Mapuche from the rural region of Tranahuillin, in Araucanía. She is a member of the Church of the Lord.

How would you describe a typical Mapuche woman?
A Mapuche woman is hard-working … intelligent …a fighter… Because of her limited education, she has had to suffer to succeed. But even so, she faces up to life by working in any way that she can.

Christian Mapuche women put their trust in God, and in their fight for to enact human ideals they always place their trust in God.

What dreams do you have for yourself?
My dream would be to succeed in having an independent job. I’d like to finish my studies, then set up my own small business – and be able to give work to other women in a similar situation.

Apart from that my dreams are for my people: for them to go on fearing God and for God’s Word to go on being taught in the Church and in Sunday School, but in our language. The language is the most important part of Mapuche culture. My great dream is that the Mapuche should use their own language again — and use it to worship God and guide the people.

Is there a verse of Scripture that you particularly like?
Psalm 121: 8: “…He will protect you as you come and go now and forever.” (GNB) Although I like the whole Psalm, that particular verse strengthens my trust in God. I know that I ask from my heart that he will always watch over me because he is merciful

What would you like women across the world to pray for concerning the Mapuche people?
I’d ask them to pray about the way Mapuche people look at life: that it might change and that the Holy Spirit will lead them to depend on God and seek guidance from him.

Also, that our children may get a proper education, that we Mapuche may not suffer discrimination either in school or in employment, that we may have work and be respected as human beings.

And, for us women, that we may receive training in different areas of work.

And for the country?
That the laws passed will support the family and that our country may really give recognition to God.

Anything else?
That, if this year brings difficulties, the Lord may give us the strength to face them without falling away from him.

Interview by Javier García, Communications Officer of the Chilean Bible Society.

The General Secretary of the Chilean Bible Society, Francisco Viguera, gives a New Testament to a resident of a town on the coast of central Chile hit by the earthquake and tsunami last February.

The Chilean Bible Society has recently taken a journey through several of the places worst affected by the earthquake and tsunami which hit Chile on February 27, 2010. The earthquake victims talked to them about progress and hold-ups in the reconstruction of their damaged towns and cities.

Please pray for the thousands of people affected, who are still living in difficult conditions one year later, their homes having been destroyed by the fifth most powerful earthquake ever recorded and a tsunami which destroyed thousands of homes in towns and cities along the coast.

Carla de Flores with her husband and their children: they moved from to Chile from Bolivia so that he could go to a Bible Seminary.

There are a large number of immigrants in Chile – particularly from neighbouring countries like Peru, Bolivia, and Argentina. Carla de Flores is one. Originally from Bolivia, she and her husband Martin came to Chile because so that he could study theology at a seminary here. They stayed in Chile for two years.

How would you describe the typical Bolivian woman?

I would say Bolivian women are hard workers wherever they go. They are usually the ones who keep the family home going!

The classic example of courageous Bolivian women is provided by the ones we call ‘the Heroines of Coronilla’. During the Bolivian war of independence, in the early years of the nineteenth century, all the men died fighting the Spanish, and in 1812 these women died defending what is now Cochabamba – with their children on their backs and using spoons and saucepans for weapons! That episode of our history was an important contribution to the important position women hold in our culture today. That battle took place on May 27, 1812, which is the reason why we celebrate Mother’s Day on May 27 in Bolivia.

What it was like to live in Chile for two years? Did it come as a shock?

Our two years in Chile taught me a lot. As a Spanish-speaking woman I thought that that we were all the same – in our customs and so on. So I thought that getting acclimatised would be easy – but it came as a cultural shock. What I found hardest to understand was the many idiomatic expressions that Chileans use when they speak Spanish. Also, the fact that most of the time when you go shopping in the market you have to negotiate with men; here in Bolivia it is the opposite: most of the stallholders are women. So, for example when I went to buy vegetables and they said to me, “What I can get you, love?”, or “ …princess?”, I didn’t know if they were trying to sell me something or flirting with me.

The other awkward thing was that they were always mistaking me for Peruvian and I’m sorry to say that I could tell from the way they treated me that Peruvians are not very welcome in Chile.

While you were there, did you form the kind of deep and lasting friendships?

Yes, by the grace of God, I did. I‘ve got friends in Chile now who are closer than the ones I have here in Bolivia. We keep in contact a lot, praying for each other.

What would you say are the challenges faced by immigrant women and mothers in Latin America?

I think the challenge is in our giving up our own culture and learning to live in a new one for the good of our husband and children. By ‘culture’ I mean those daily things like going to the market and finding things to be unfamiliar: how people eat… customs of greeting people… and just the different ways of doing things.

My prayer would be for immigrant women to be able to form friendships with Chilean women who can help them to understand and live in a culture that is not their own; and for these friendships to be founded on Christ. Because at the end of the day he is the one who unites us and enables us to live together – in spite of our differences.

Is there a verse of the Bible that was particularly significant to you while you were living in Chile?

I was blessed by Psalm 87:7: “They dance and sing, ‘In Zion is the source of all our blessings.’” (GNB)
Actually, I spent a lot of time reading the Psalms but a comment that I heard on Psalm 87 encouraged me because it helped me to see that we are one people in Christ so I felt as though I was at home living in Chile.

Can you share some stories or anecdotes about experiences with other immigrant women in Chile?

There was another mother in my children’s school, a Peruvian woman who had come to work in Chile. I remember at one particular meeting the looks that she and I exchanged when they asked parents to make sure our children took ‘ plumeros’ – feather dusters – to school! When translated by the teacher, they turned out to be what we call the ‘pompoms’ that cheerleaders use!

I’d like to add that at all times I felt at home living in Chile; most of the women that I met, both in church and elsewhere, were very friendly and ready to help me feel welcome and part of their society.

Herminia Aguayo (centre) with Eduardo Carrillo, the Chilean Bible Society's Production Coordinator and the Director of Alfalit in Chile, and Marcia Lillo, who, as well as being secretary to the General Secretary of the Chilean Bible Society, is an Alfalit facilitator.

Herminia Aguayo has been involved in the Alfalit literacy ministry* in Chile since it began. She works with the Chilean Bible Society’s women’s volunteer group Messengers in Action, who visit prisons and hospitals. She has always appreciated the value of reading and writing because her mother taught her to read and write well before she went to school.

What has it been like to work on the literacy scheme and see the fruits of that?
It is very important. I have come here today to buy some resources for my daughter. She has been a quadriplegic since she was in a car accident 30 years ago. I have known many people who couldn’t read or write, and I have seen how acquiring those skills has changed their lives completely. They used to be ashamed, but now, for example, they can use buses with no problem. Being able to read and write changes people’s lives in the social and the spiritual sphere.

What topics for prayer would you like to share in connection with your literacy work?
I wish more people were willing to put themselves in the place of people who can’t read and were able to give some of their time to helping them. In love the hardest gift to give is time. If we love our neighbour as we say that we love God, we should get ourselves organised to hand over some of our time to them. For 30 years I have been helping my daughter to go to hospital… to do her exercises… But none of this has been a hardship for me because I’ve got organised.

How have you felt as you have seen your daughter develop the same passion that you have for literacy?
I’m delighted that, even with her great handicap, she has a great love for other people, and wants to give her time to teaching people to read and write. Even before she came across the Alfalit literacy program, she had been teaching people to read.

How long do think you will remain involved in the project?
I am 74 now and my prayer is this: “Lord, I ask you to call me when I am teaching someone to read or when I am sharing the Word”. Even if I were bedridden I’d still like to be able to share God’s Word with people.

A prayer about literacy in Chile: Of all the women in Chile aged over 10, a total of 4.25 per cent can’t read or write. Pray for these thousands of women who are hampered by this.

*Alfalit International is a faith-based non-profit organization founded in 1961. It offers programs in literacy, basic education, health, nutrition, and community development to the poorest people in Central and South America, the Caribbean, Africa, Portugal, and the United States. Every person who learns to read and write through Alfalit is strongly encouraged to teach the same skills to another person.

Interview by Javier García, Communications Officer, Chilean Bible Society

Irene Urizar at work in the Chilean Bible Society's offices in Santiago.

Every day Bible Society volunteer Irene Urizar makes her way across Santiago to the offices of the Chilean Bible Society. What she does there is to put together her evangelism packets, each containing a hundred evangelistic leaflets that people can buy in order to share the Gospel with their neighbours or use in evangelistic campaigns.

Now aged 71, Irene has been involved in Messengers in Action, the ministry enabling women volunteers to share hope and love in prisons, hospitals and the like, since the 1980s.

In the last year alone this dedicated woman has put more than a million Bible leaflets into packets. Offering hope in difficult times, they have included messages for women, anti-drugs messages and messages aimed at young people.

The work is unspectacular but important. She and her daughter, Rose Mary, work steadily for six or seven hours every day, in an office set aside for them, preparing materials that get distributed by the Bible Society a few days later.

Unstoppable

And in her ‘spare time’ she is often busy giving leaflets away or selling them on behalf of the Bible Society to other Christians and church pastors who request them.

In spite of her long service, Irene does not envisage her ministry ending just yet.

“While I am still able to do it,” she says, “nobody is going to stop me.”

The Chilean Bible Society has hundreds of women volunteers like Irene right across the country. Through their work with the Bible Society, they have served the Lord with dedication for many years. Let us pray that the Lord will care for them, strengthen them and multiply them.

By Javier García, Communications Officer, Chilean Bible Society

Shoko Takahashi, Fundraising Manager of the Japan Bible Society (left), and Emi Beland, the Society's Foreign Affairs Manager, in front of a building in the south of Chile that suffered spectacular damage in the earthquake of February 2010. The two visited Chile in August to give a donation to the Bible Society and to gather information for Japanese donors.

Last weekend a delegation from the Japan Bible Society was in Chile to hand over a donation and gather information for their donors.

Emi Beland, the Bible Society’s Foreign Affairs Manager, and Shoko Takahashi, the Fundraising Manager, were in Chile from August 6 – 9.

After meetings with the staff of the Chilean Bible Society, they donned protective hard hats to inspect the Bible Society’s warehouse, damaged by February’s earthquake, visited two of the Society’s social projects, and travelled to the south of the country to see at first hand the impact that the quake had there. The visitors also took the opportunity to talk to people affected by the quake and give them some Christian literature.

One of the young women in the nursery unit of the Santiago Women's Detention Centre cradles her baby while reading a Portion of Scripture given out at a 'picnic' held there by the Chilean Bible Society.

Every month the group of Chilean Bible Society volunteers known as Messengers in Action visit the nursery section of the Santiago Women’s Detention Centre to share the message of the love of Jesus with 45 mothers there who have children under the age of two.

On their last visit the volunteers took in sandwiches, cakes and drinks for them. The Detention Centre Chaplain, Juan Quintanilla, and the Director of Messengers in Action, Marcia Lillo, shared briefly with the women from the Word of God.

On the next visit, the volunteers are planning to present the women with two sewing machines. The aim is to create a sewing workshop where the women can acquire a skill so that, on their release, they can earn an income by working at home.

Money to buy the sewing machines was raised on a special fundraising day held across the Greater  Santiago area in May.

A volunteer for the Chilean Bible Society presents a set of cutlery, an electrical domestic appliance and some biblical literature to a woman living in a camp for survivors of February's earthquake.

Although the story of the earthquake off the coast of Chile at the end of February has disappeared from the overseas television news and the newspapers, at home the work of the Chilean Bible Society in helping the survivors continues.

The volunteers presented 25 families with sets of cutlery, domestic appliances and biblical literature.Most recently the beneficiaries have been residents of a temporary resettlement area set up following the disaster called ‘Camp Peralillo’ in the region of Maule. On a day of heavy rain a team of Bible Society volunteers known as ‘Messengers in Action’ visited the residents of the camp in their wooden single-storey homes. The visit was coordinated by a pastor of the Pentecost Missionary Church whose church building was completely destroyed by the earthquake.

Volunteers for the Chilean Bible Society call at a house in a settlement for survivors of February's earthquake.

Thanks to the money raised in a special public fundraising effort held one day last month across the Greater Santiago area, as well from regular giving and gifts from overseas, 25 families were given cutlery sets, electrical appliances and biblical literature.

The Peralillo community is now home to about 8,000 people and its population is employed almost wholly in the wine industry. Recent estimates put the death toll for the earthquake, whose epicentre was offshore from the Maule Region, at 521.

Devastation caused on Robinson Crusoe, the largest of the Juan Fernández Islands, by the tsunami that followed the earthquake of February 27.

Modern technology has allowed the Chilean Bible Society to bring urgently needed practical and spiritual support to the residents of a remote island devastated by the tsunami that hit parts of the country’s coastline following the earthquake of February 27.

This Sunday School teacher contacted the Chilean Bible Society to request its help for the residents of Robinson Crusoe, the largest of the Juan Fernández Islands, after they were hit by the tsunami that followed the earthquake of February 27, 2010.

Situated more than 650 kms off the coast of Chile, the Juan Fernández Islands could hardly be more isolated. The approximately 600 residents are accustomed to having to fend for themselves. Yet the tsunami, in which several people were killed, was more than they could cope with alone. Modern technology allowed them to overcome the barriers of geography and seek support.

“Please help us” pleaded a Sunday School teacher from Robinson Crusoe, the island group’s largest and only inhabited island, in a message to the Bible Society via its web site. Despite its own operations having been severely affected by the earthquake, the Society was determined to respond. Within just a short time, on March 15, it arrived on Robinson Crusoe with supplies of Bibles, children’s books, clothing and food.

The scene that greeted the Bible Society visitors was shocking: homes and property destroyed, roads impassable and serious damage to the tourism infrastructure on which local people rely heavily for their income. The visitors were quick to unload the supplies and hand them over to members of the Pentecostal Evangelical church.
Worshipping communities come together

Staff from the Chilean Bible Society bringing Scriptures and emergency supplies to Robinson Crusoe, the largest of the Juan Fernández Islands. These islands were hit but the tsunami that followed the earthquake of February 27, 2010.Yet amidst the devastation and despair, an unexpectedly positive development emerged in a message received a month later by the Bible Society.

“We heard from the Rev Mario Astete of the Assemblies of God church,” says Javier Garcia, the Society’s Communications Manager. “The pastor of the Pentecostal church had shared with him some of the materials we donated and he wanted to thank us. He also explained that this has brought the two worshipping communities closer together and that he would now like to establish Bible study groups in his own church using the materials from the Bible Society.”