Patricia Coñoepan is 35 years old. She has had a hard life. But it can't cover the beauty of her bright eyes and arresting smile. Her open heart and relentless efforts for a better life have made her a leader among the women of Curihue, a rural Mapuche community in the mountains. She is my friend. I respect her and I listen to her. And sometimes I wonder what I have to offer her. But at our last women's meeting God gave me an offering for her, and I'll never forget it.

I've been meeting with the Curihue women for several months now.Most of them are weavers and some of you have bought their weavings at World Wide Gifts. Our group works on self-esteem issues as a means to help them see their own value and the value of their art and their culture, in the eyes of God.

All our meetings begin with Bible study. At our last meeting we studied the construction of the temple in the desert by the children of Israel – specifically Exodus 35: 30-34. It speaks of the arts as a gift, an inspiration, from God, to be used for His glory. It specifically mentions weaving.

When we finished the whole group just stared at me. At first I thought I had done something to offend them. Then Patty, who happens to be one of the best weavers of the group, looked up at me and smiled. "I have never heard of this passage before in my life," she said.Carolina, a sixty-something grandmother, asked, "Why don't we ever hear sermons about these passages in church?I can't read and all I know of the Bible is what others tell me."She has been weaving since she was six, and no one has ever told her it is a gift of God.

Soon the conversation turned to weavings and methods for improving stitches and natural dyes and new designs. It was as if God had given them permission to love what they do. They asked if our meetings could be extended into all day meetings so everyone could bring their weavings and work together.

For more than a year I've been looking for ways to help these women realize how beautiful they really are, but they needed to hear it from their Creator before they could see it for themselves.

Prayer request:This week Claudio Collinao, a young man from Curihue, is in Temuco receiving training to use an audiocassette set of the New Testament in Mapudungun (the Mapuche language) in the rural Mapuche churches.For most of the older generation Mapudungun is their "heart" language.Although there has been a Mapudungun New Testament available since 1997, it is barely used because most never learned to read the language.For the younger generation, until recently, the Chilean educational system and the culture at large ridiculed the use of Mapudungun.Unfortunately, even the churches did little to promote an authentic contextualization of the gospel in the Mapuche culture.Many Mapuche have said that inside the church, they stopped being Mapuche.

Pray that this cassette set of the NT in Mapudungun will empower many like Carolina to hear the NT in their "heart" language and that it can contribute to and form an expression of faith and discipleship in Jesus that is Mapuche.