THE K I N G ’ S BUS I NESS
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Our Southern Neighbors' Greatest Need
By W. CAMERON TOWNSEND * Tetelcingo, Morelos, Mexico venge was the one passion of Martin’s life. A pistol became his inseparable possession on dark n i g h t s as he prowled along the narrow Streets, or waited at convenient points behind stone fences where he hoped that his enemy might pass. Then something happened in Mar tin’s life. Missionaries came to his town, put up their trailer house under a tree in the public square, and began to study Martin’s beautiful Aztec language, with Martin himself as their teacher. The Book they were eager to translate into his speech was one that condemned his Way of doing, and- offered something new. He began to believe the message of the Book. And the drink, the marihuana, the old domination of base passions be gan to loosen their grip upon him. But the teaching, “Love your ene mies,” seemed, however, to be at first too great a hurdle for him to take. His life had been barren of love. He could hardly imagine what the word involved, but he knew it meant not to kill. The pistol was returned to the man from whom he had borrowed it. Xransforming Power “Forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you’.’—-the Book said that. There were several in the village against whom he held bitter grudges. Could he for
E ven I nd ian v illages in the mountains of M e x i c o have publicans, if a publican is de office for personal gain, rather, than to render a service to his fellow man. Martin was such, and while exploit ing the place of highest authority in his village, he made many enemies. One dark night as Martin made his way from the town hall to the mis erable hovel he called home, a shot rang out, and he, the haughty little mayor, fell in a pool of blood. Indians have iron constitutions, and Martin was no exception. He had joined the revolution under Zapata and for eleven years had been through shot and shell, privation and carous al, until he had come to think little of either life or death. To drink him self drunk; to go off into ecstatic oblivion with his lungs full of mari huana smoke; to give free rein to every passion, appetite, and whim: that was life for him. And death? Death, tcf him, was something to deal out to the other fellow when revenge or self-protection called for it, but to avoid thinking about for oneself. Now he, himself, had been shot. The Thirst for Revenge Upon his recovery the thirst for re- *General Director, W ycliffe Bible Translators. Headquarters in U. S .: i305 North Louise Ave.t Glendale , Calif . ¿See Page 77.
give them? How hard it would be! But they had not begun to offend him as much as he had offended God, and yet God had forgiven him. He 1sat down and wrote out in tedious script, a Scriptural account of what God had done for him, as a basis for the full forgiveness that he, Mar tin Mendez, now extended to all his enemies. Then he wrote a humble petition for forgiveness to each one of these persons, accompanied by a copy of the New Testament pur chased from his meager funds. Today those erstwhile enemies are forgiven friends who listen attentively as Mar tin expounds to them, in their own language, the Book he has come to understand. Some day, by God’s grace, that Book shall be available to them in Aztec, Martin himself being one of the translators. Giving Them the Word Martin’s village was the first in Mexico to be entered by the Bible translators from Camp Wycliffe—a group, of men and women with lin guistic talents and a deep longing to give the living Word to others. To day Wycliffe Bible Translators are scattered throughout Mexico among about forty different tribes and di vergent dialects mastering the diffi cult forms of speech and translating the Word for them. John Wycliffe gave England the Word of Life five hundred and sixty years ago, and we
fined as a man who seeks public
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