Nicole Fitzpatrick and Hortencia Joselin Pedro Perez, who lives in the tiny mountain village of San Martin, one of the many villages where the Fitzpatricks have planted a church

Dear Friends,

Jason and Nicole Fitzpatrick, our primary partners in Mexico, have planted at least 40 churches here, primarily among two tribal groups. They are the Totonac and the Nahua, whose ancestors lived here long before Europeans arrived. Interestingly, the Nahua People are thought to have once lived in what is now the southwestern part of the United States, migrating about 1,500 years ago to what is now central Mexico.

For want of any opportunity, Mexico’s native people are extremely poor. None of the churches that Jason and Nicole have planted among them have church buildings. They all meet in small houses, which works just fine most of the time.

In the case of five of those churches, however, Heaven’s Family has provided funding for pavilions, making it possible for crowded congregations to meet outside and stay dry when it rains. Over the past two days we’ve visited four of those church pavilions, all high up in the mountains. It rained most of both days, so I witnessed firsthand what a blessing the pavilions are to those four congregations, who prepared their best native food to serve us upon our arrival. Below is a photo of one of those precious congregations of Totonac believers under their new pavilion (notice it was raining):

We also briefly visited an American couple who are Wycliffe Bible translators, Gerry and Julie Andersen, who have been living for many years among the Totonac people in the Sierra Norte. Interestingly, Totonaca is not known to be related to any other language or language families. And there are several dialects of Totonaca that are mutually unintelligible.

Gerry told me about a 32-letter word in the Totonaca dialect that he is translating. Here it is: nakaliyakniyakgelhtauakganiyatit. It means, “You all will be boldly conversing to them about it,” a word that is now found in the Totonaca New Testament in Luke 24:47.

Through our National Missionary Fund, Heaven’s Family is proud to be supporting four special missionaries who are nakaliyakniyakgelhtauakganiyatit-aling about Jesus all over the Sierra Norte! I’ll be telling you about them a few blogs from now.

Dios te bendiga,

David