Bolivia’s Quechua people ‘weep and weep’ as they listen to FCBH recordings

Bolivia — A few years ago we did a dramatised recording of the Quechua New Testament and began distributing it to the churches. About a year after it was launched, I went to visit the churches to see what was happening. We visited seven different villages and the pastors explained to us the tremendous changes that were taking place as people listened to the Scriptures in Quechua.

Most of the pastors already had the Spanish New Testament in a dramatised form and they told us that the people enjoyed it but that they had a difficult time understanding it since they didn’t speak Spanish well.

I said, “What happened when the Quechua tapes came?” They replied, “Oh, the listening groups grew from 25 to 85, from 35 to 115 people. Sometimes 90 per cent of a village would come and listen.”

Weep

One of the things that interested me was that in each village they said that when people listened in Spanish, it was good, but when they listened in Quechua they would weep. At the fourth church I asked, “Are there certain stories that cause them to weep?”

The pastor said, “Oh yes. The story of the woman with the issue of blood. When Jesus says, ‘Who touched me?’, they’ll cry out in fear and they’ll just weep and weep.”

We went to a fifth church and the pastor there told us the same story about how the church had grown from about 35 people to over 100, how families had been transformed and how they wept when they heard the Quechua. I asked him, “Which stories are having an impact?”

He said, “Oh, the story of the woman having the issue of blood. When they hear that story they just weep and weep.”

We went to a sixth church and the pastor told us the same thing again – that God had transformed the church, the church had grown, 90 per cent of the people of the village had come to listen and when people heard the Scriptures in Quechua, they wept. I’m thinking, “Is this going to be the same thing?” So I asked him, “Which stories cause them to weep?”

He said, “Oh, when they hear the story of the healing of the woman with the issue of blood. When Jesus says, ‘Who touched me?’, the people will cry out in fear. And then they’ll just weep and weep.”

‘My heart hurts’

Now in Faith Comes By Hearing, when we give a set of cassettes to a church or a group, we ask that they listen for at least 30 minutes a week. Then there’s a time of discussion, so people can ask questions or make comments, and decide how to live with what they’ve heard. I asked the pastor, “What were the questions that the people were asking after they heard the Scripture?” He replied, “Oh they don’t have a question. They just weep and they say, ‘My heart hurts, my heart hurts. Why is my heart hurting? My heart hurts’.”

In the last village the pastor once more told us that God was transforming the church and people’s lives were being changed. I said, “Which stories cause them to weep?” and he said, “Oh, the story of the woman with the issue of blood.” I asked why this story was having such impact on these people, and the pastor said, “They just weep and they say, ‘Can we hear that story again?’ And then they say, ‘My heart hurts, my heart hurts. What’s wrong with my heart? My heart is hurting’.”

As he told me this, I began to understand, because in aural cultures, when they hear a story, they become a part of it and identify with the people in it. Well, the Quechuas are seen as dirty and as backwards. They are shepherds, they’re farmers, and so sometimes even if they move to a city and they want to hold services in one of the Spanish-speaking churches, the people will say, “No, we don’t want these dirty Quechuas sitting in our pews.”

They feel rejected and unclean, so when they begin to hear Scripture in their own language, hope begins to grow in them that maybe Jesus Christ loves them. Well, when they heard the story of the woman with the issue of blood, they identified with the woman, so as she began to sneak through the crowd they went with her and when she reached out to touch Jesus’s garment, they did the same in their mind and when something happened inside her, something happened inside them too.

When Jesus said, “Who touched me?” they cried out in fear because they thought he was going to say, “You dirty, stinking Quechua. Why did you touch me?” But instead, Jesus said, “Daughter, daughter, your faith has made you whole.” And that’s when they wept and wept. The pastors told me that all they had to do was say, “Your heart hurts because Jesus has just walked by you. Will you reach out? Will you touch him?” That is what’s changing the Quechuas in Bolivia as they hear the Word of God.