Graduation Day

El Salvador








Honduras








Guatemala








It was a wonderful Conference. We all learned so much and are ready to get started on putting all the things we learned into practice. Pray for us.

World Deaf Day of Prayer and the Beach

June 13th was World Deaf Day. We attended my church, Iglesia Bautista Miramonte. What a blessing to have all the countries together to unite in prayer with the Deaf all over the World to pray for Deaf churches, leaders, etc.






























The following day we went to the beach and had a relaxing and fun day. Of course they had to have a game of "futbol". It turned out to be a beautiful day. We were worried it was going to rain, but it didn´t. Praise the Lord.

Community Check

Guatemala working on their story.








El Salvador was able to have a Community Check. This is where we invite the Deaf from the Community to come in and take a look at the video to see if it has all the requirements: To check and see if the signs used are clear or if there needs to be some kind of change, to check and see if it was natural so they could understand clearly what the story was about.

Then they would check our drawings to see if they wanted to add or take away from the pictures to make the story more clear.

Bible Translation in Progress

El Salvador with Lingüist Bob Van Zyl

After teaching us the importance of our videos having to have 4 qualities: Faithfulness, Clear, Natural and Acceptable, we broke up into groups and began working on our first story. We had to study the passage, figure out how the best way to sign it so that it would be clear and natural to the deaf who would be watching the video. Film it and make sure that it was faithful to the passage in the Bible.

Then each team would meet with Robert to make sure it was accurate.





Honduras

Principals in Bible Translation Course

We began in May preparing for Colombia to come and teach us in the basic principals of Bible Translation in Sign Language. Five from our team were able to attend the Conference. Others from our team came when they weren´t working or attending the University.

Left to Right: Toni, Grisel, Claudia, Violeta, José Eduardo


Colombia Team consisted of three very important people.
Left to Right:
Martha C. Vargas C. - Interpreter Advisor of Bible Translation
Robert Van Zyl - Consultant and Lingüist for Bible Translation in Sign Language
John Jaider Avila A. (Deaf) - Advisor in Bible Translation


Four countries attended the Conference: Colombia (who was teaching) Guatemala, Honduras and of course, El Salvador.

Each country had to have their own interpreter. It was quite interesting to watch. There were also Spanish and English speakers in attendance. As you can imagine by the end of the week, I didn´t know which language I was supposed to be using. Even the Deaf were mixing their Sign Languages. It was quite humorous.

Sean´s Experience

Sean was one of the team members that came with Wycliffe. He did a blog about his experience in El Salvador and meeting with our team. Please check it out at http://silatjunkie.tumblr.com/.

Wycliffe and SIL´s Visit

Wycliffe Bible Translators and SIL (Summer Institute of Linguistics) came to El Salvador for a meeting. While they were here they were able to visit our team and see the process for Bible Translation in Sign Language.

The did interviews with myself and two of our Deaf team members, Jose Eduardo and Grisel.


We explained to them every aspect of the process. Beginning with examining the text, discussing the best way to sign it so that all Deaf can understand.

Finding pictures, maps or illustrations to go along with the text.




Then actually going to the filming of the story. We also have to take pictures for the Sign Language Diccionary. It´s a lot of hard work.






Only a few of the team were able to come on Saturday.
The rest of the team we met with and shared our vision for TBLESSA, Translation of the Bible in LESSA.

I love how God joined these two groups together. We will be able to use their experience in Bible Translation to help us.