Jonathan and Rachel Willcock For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. To Baja California.
This week Jonathan was in Baja California on the west coast of Mexico. There are two teams working with two different groups, both of which speak a different language from the mixtecan language family. He left on Wednesday and returned on Wednesday along with some other consultants.
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Christmas 2010
> > Dear Friends, > We are very happy that all our children made it safely to England for Christmas. Our children were delayed because of snow but were rescheduled for just two days later. Hannah made it to England from Germany, just one hour after Thomas, Jodi and Karis arrived from the States. We were very happy that we only had to drive to Heathrow once. While in Germany, Hannah was in a car accident, but thankfully, no one was hurt and she had a wonderful time with her friends there. We had a really good Christmas and New Year with our whole family and got to do some sightseeing. Sadly we are back to just two children now. Hannah returned to Bible school and Thomas, Jodi and Karis returned to the US last Friday. Please pray as they settle back into classes and work. Thank you for your love and prayers, > Jonathan, Rachel, James and Jack Willcock > >
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Furlough plans.
We are hoping to go to England this summer but don’t know exactly when that will be. Our paperwork to stay in the country of Mexico is due for renewal in July and the immigration laws are changing in June. We can’t make any final plans until we know what the new laws say.
Hannah is graduating at the end of May and is going to England to live with Jonathan’s mother for the summer. She hopes to work for a few months before going to Bible School in the autumn.
Trip to Baja California
This next week there are a group of consultants going to Baja California to help the Triqui and Mixteco teams with their language learning.
One of the missionaries is probably nearly ready to start preparing lessons so this will be an important check for him. His language helper is already excited to be involved in writing Bible lessons in his own language.
Several of the missionaries on the Mixteco team have only arrived “in the tribe” in the last month and two of them have already had to deal with typhoid fever and food poisoning! Please be praying for them as they settle in to the routine of building relationships with the people and learning how to communicate clearly with them.
Just back from our trip to Baja California
We arrived back from two weeks with the Triqui and Mixteco teams in Baja California. We spent a day with each missionary going over their “normal day”, making suggestions and joining in with their language learning. Many of their language helpers are so willing to help and will even scold the missionary when they don’t learn fast enough!
Rachel and I drove from Chihuahua to Baja California (about 21 hours of driving) so we could trail the missionaries through their day without expecting them to look after us. We needn’t have worried too much as almost every Triqui person we visited insisted on feeding us something. 
Their freshly made corn tortillas and spiced-up beans made very tasty burritos.
On our way back from Baja California, we stopped overnight in Tijuana and shared about the work in one of the missionaries’ home church. This was a great encouragement to us as we met with believers with a variety of backgrounds but all interested and praying for “their missionary” and for the salvation of the Triqui people.
And so begins another school year…
Jonathan and Rachel in Yosemite
Our children started school this week and that means that “everybody” is back in town so we have been busy meeting with different people to talk about their plans.
We met with the recently formed Nahuat team who are all heading south from here over the next couple of weeks. They will be working on building houses in the tribe and getting set up in order to begin formal CLA (Culture and Language Acquisition) as soon as possible.
We also had the joy of spending time with some friends who help us with the care of the team working the Trique people. We spent several hours talking about how we can help the team move forward.
With three new works opening up this year, we would appreciate your prayers for us as we give guidance, and for the teams as they face new challenges, that all of us would keep focused on Jesus.
We are in the process of forming a team to work with the Meshicaneros in the state of Durango. We have recently finished team meetings with them and they are hoping to ask for permission to live in the area in the new year. Please pray that this permission will be granted, and that the airstrip can be registered. Without this registration, the new team will have to make a long drive over rough "road" to get to their location.
Pray also for another couple to join this team.
Phase one Bible teaching is going on along with a New Testament translation project. There is a translation check coming up in November.
We work in two dialects of Tarahumara. There are believers in both dialects. Translation projects are on going and we are looking for opportunities to partner with the believers in outreach to other locations.
New Tribes Mission works with two Tepehuan dialects. The work is progressing but we would like at least one more good language learning couple on this team to help with the Bible translation. The couple who have been doing the translation are facing some health issues and they don’t feel they will be able to complete the translation so are looking for a couple to take over.
In the Southern Tepehuan, we will be down to one family as their coworkers go on furlough soon. Please pray for safety in travel and for encouragement for the couple continuing to progress through their culture and language acquisition time.