Overcoming the opposition to translate God’s Word

How a would-be Bible translator eventually learned to obey God

Bible translator Juan Toribio says his Wichí people are eagerly awaiting the launch of the complete Bible in their language in 2002. Juarez, Argentina. Photo: UBS/Larry Jerden (ARG01DJ-36.JPG)

NUEVA JUAREZ, Formosa, Argentina — To be launched later this year, the Wichí Bible represents a major step in the long path bringing white and Indian Christians together; years of work by translators, too. One of those translators is Juan Toribio, himself a Wichí. His personal journey has also been a long and difficult one.

In 1993 he and his family were living in Bolivia. He had taken them there in the hope that the children would have a better chance of a university education. But one night he had a dream in which God seemed to be telling him to return to his own people.

Crying

“When I told my wife and children, they were crying,” he remembers. “They had jobs or were studying – they did not want to come back. We did not have enough money to come back either.”

Selling some of their possessions raised enough money to take them part of the way, and borrowing from a friend took Mr Toribio to Nueva Juarez, in the very north of his native Argentina.

When he got there, a friend asked him where his family was. Learning of their hardship, his friend gave him the money to go back and get his family. His wife, however, was reluctant to move any further.

“That night God spoke to me again and said. ‘I need you in Juarez’,” Mr Toribio recalls. “So the next day we took our money and bought tickets to go as far as we could – but it was still not enough to get the family as far as Juarez.

“We got off the bus in a small town and I went to the pastor’s house and asked if we could borrow some charcoal so that my daughter could cook us a meal. While she cooked, my son and I walked into town and found that there was a freight train leaving.

Freight train

“The guard said it was going to Juarez, and when I asked if we could ride on it, he said yes.”

Leaving the cooking, the family rode on the freight train all the way.
In Juarez Mr Toribio learned that a translators’ course was beginning and decided to join it, but his inexperience and his recent lack of a ‘fixed abode’ aroused distrust in the local people and his wife suggested they move to Buenos Aires.

“But then I heard God speaking to me again. He said, ‘You are just like the rest of your people. You listen to what everyone else says, but you won’t listen to me!’

“So I just said, ‘Lord, if you want me to do this I will do it. I’m not going to listen to anyone else; I’m just going to do what you want me to do.’

Felt ill

“Then God said, ‘If you don’t obey me this time, I’m going to take away your life.’ And the next day I felt ill. I was crying; I asked God to give me strength and I began to adopt the frame of mind which placed service to him first.”

Wichí women caryy on their weaving as they have done for centuries. Later in 2002, they and their families will have the complete Bible in their own language for the first time. Argentina. Photo: UBS/Larry Jerden (ARG01DJ-39.JPG)

Later, Mr Toribio was ordained and did indeed join the translation team. Even so, he had to deal with a physical challenge.

“When I was travelling and teaching, I suffered a partial facial paralysis,” he explains. “Some people were very upset by this, but in Daniel chapter 10, the angel told Daniel that while he was fasting, the angel was striking against the prince of Persia.

“I realised that when we do God’s work, the devil attacks us: there is spiritual warfare going on.”

Indeed, Mr Toribio’s story of all the obstacles he has overcome gains an added significance when he explains that he is contributing something very special to the new Wichí translation.

He didn’t begin to speak Spanish until he was 16, so the Wichí that he speaks is in a very pure form and this makes him a great asset to his colleague Roberto Lunt.