Camsa

If you go up and down and around, and then up and down again and again in the Andes Mountains you can reach a little community in the country of Ecuador, and this group of people speaks a language called Camsa. Camsa is spoken by only 4,000 people in the whole world, and these people live in the Andes Mountains in Ecuador.

We have had mission stories about missionary doctors, missionary colporteurs, and missionary teachers, for example, but maybe you have wondered if you can still be a missionary even if you are not a doctor or teacher. Maybe you are someone that likes languages, for example, can God still use you?

Our story this month is about Bob Van Zyl. Bob loves languages and he also wanted to be a missionary. So, he worked with an agency that said, “Well, there is this group of 4,000 people who do not know anything about the Bible because it is not translated or printed into their language. They can’t read the Bible and they can’t preach from it because it is not available in their language. Nobody talks about the Bible there, but if you would like to go there, you could translate the Bible for them and it would be a great blessing to them!” And Bob said, “I’ll go!” And he did. The only problem was he could not speak Camsa! He did not know anything about the language. It took him four years to learn the language. And when he got there, the people who lived in this valley in the Andes Mountains in Ecuador did not care if he translated the Bible into their language or not because the Bible did not mean anything to them, so they did not help him. It did not matter to them if he even learned their language, so they were not very eager to help him.

He had trouble in the same sense that a lot of the missionaries we have talked about in the past have had trouble. People would come to his house and steal from him! He tried to be very friendly to them, however, and when he and his wife were invited to eat at a neighbor’s home, for example, he tried to tell the neighbors that their food was delicious, but do you know what he learned? There are twenty words in the Camsa language that are used for the word “delicious”! Each word has to be used in a specific way based on the shape of the food being talked about, and Missionary Bob had to learn all twenty words. Then he had trouble with the word “basket.” The Camsa people use many baskets in their culture, and there are different words for every kind and shape of basket. Missionary Bob had to learn each one of these words. He also struggled with other problems of the language. For example, it took great effort for him to decide how to use the words of the Camsa language to describe the concept of a prophet, for the Camsa people knew nothing about what a prophet is or what he or she does.

Missionary Bob faced many difficulties while learning to speak Camsa such as the people not really caring if he learned their language in the first place and not really caring if they ever had the Bible translated into Camsa. He also faced problems with how the Camsa people treated him and each other. The Camsa people stole from the missionary family all the time and they feuded among each other. One time Missionary Bob and his wife invited two families to their house for dinner. One family came and was very happy to be there, but when the other family walked in the door, do you know what they did? They picked up their benches, turned them around, and then sat down with their backs to the people because they were feuding with each other. They really did need God’s Word in this little community.

Finally, the day came in 1991 when Missionary Bob had the New Testament translated into the Camsa language. Missionary Bob invited the leaders of all the little villages in this area to come to the school house and hear the Word of God in their own language, but it was a rainy, cold, and dreary day in the Andes. Missionary Bob was afraid the leaders would not leave their little two room houses where there were fires going that kept everyone warm. Eventually, however, the leaders came and they all settled down in the school house room.

Juan was the translator, and he read a portion of the Scriptures to the gathered people. The portion chosen was Luke 5:1-11, which is the story of Jesus teaching the people from Simon Peter’s ship and then telling Peter to let his nets down to catch fish. Peter told Jesus that he had toiled all night and had not caught a single fish, but at his word he would try again. Peter was astonished that his nets became so full that they broke! While Juan read, Missionary Bob watched the faces of the people as they listened, and he wondered: “Will these words make any difference to the people?”

If Juan had instead read passages from Little House on the Prairie, for example, do you think God’s Spirit would impress the hearts of the people that what was being read was saving truth? No, but God’s word was being read to the Camsa people, and Missionary Bob eagerly watched the faces of the people to see if God’s Spirit was making it alive to them!

When Juan finished reading the story in Luke 5, there was a long silence. Nothing happened, but then Maruja stood up. She was an older lady, and she said: “These words that you have read in my language helped me. I could see God, dressed in the white shirt, black pants and white sash of the men of our tribe and with their beads and bowl-shaped cut hair, coming down to me when you read those words to me.” Something happened! God’s Spirit was there! And she sat down.

Then Carlos rose to speak and said, “I have faithfully attended mass on Sunday since a little child, but everything was in Spanish and I was not concerned if I understood what was read from the Bible, for it was in another language and for another culture than my own. But now, today, I understand very clearly. It has reached down to my very heart, and now I must listen to these words and decide whether or not to obey them.”

Missionary Bob knew that just hearing words read does not do this. It is God’s Spirit only that makes his word alive ? to the people then and to us, as well, today. We can be very thankful that reading the Bible is not like reading Little House on the Prairie, but it is different! God’s Spirit makes his word alive in our hearts. That is why we do not put other books on top of the Bible. That is why we treat the Bible carefully and respectfully, and that is why we honor it. We do not toss it around but hold it carefully, and we turn its pages carefully because it is God’s word that is made alive in our hearts and minds by his Spirit. This is what happened to the people who speak Camsa. Even though they are still waiting for the Old Testament to be translated into their language, they are very thankful to be able to read and hear the words of the New Testament, for it is changing their lives in a wonderful way.

So, even if you are not a doctor, preacher, teacher, or nurse, you can still be used by God to bless others just as Missionary Bob was used by God to be a blessing to the Camsa people.