icon
close-icon
image description image description
image description image description
image description
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • Where We Work
    • US Regional Reps
    • Our History
    • MTW Staff Careers
    • Contact Us
  • Pray
  • Go
    • Search Opportunities
    • Mission Trips
    • Summer Internships
    • 1–11 Months
    • Longer Term
    • Specialized Ministries
      • Medical
      • Workplace Ministries
      • Arts, Music & Media
      • RUF Mentored Internships
    • Multicultural Mobilization
  • Give
    • Donations Hub
    • Missionaries
    • Projects
    • Estate & Gift Planning
    • Disaster Response/Compassion Fund
  • Stories & More
  • Events
  • Resources
    • All Resources
    • Cultivate
    • Videos
    • 1% Challenge
    • Resources for Kids
  • My Account
    • My Giving
    • My Profile
    • Giving FAQs
    About arrow-dwn
    • Who We Are
    • Where We Work
    • US Regional Reps
    • Our History
    • MTW Staff Careers
    • Contact Us
    Pray
    Go arrow-dwn
    • Search Opportunities
    • Mission Trips
    • Summer Internships
    • 1–11 Months
    • Longer Term
    • Specialized Ministries
      • Medical
      • Workplace Ministries
      • Arts, Music & Media
      • RUF Mentored Internships
    • Multicultural Mobilization
    Give arrow-dwn
    • Donations Hub
    • Missionaries
    • Projects
    • Estate & Gift Planning
    • Disaster Response/Compassion Fund
    Stories & More
    Events
    Resources arrow-dwn
    • All Resources
    • Cultivate
    • Videos
    • 1% Challenge
    • Resources for Kids
    My Account arrow-dwn
    • My Giving
    • My Profile
    • Giving FAQs
Donate
image description image description
menu-icon menu-icon

The Heart Language of the Quichua

Teaching the Bible to the Quichua in their own unique language penetrates hearts and awakens a new understanding of truth.
Andrew Shaughnessy|01 Jun 2017
image description

Remnants of a great awakening decades ago, thousands of Quichua churches are scattered throughout the Andean highlands, the riverside villages in the Amazon, and the smoggy urban bustle of Quito, their country’s capital city. The Quichua are the indigenous people of Ecuador, bearing their own distinct culture and identity, and a language family comprised of eight distinct languages in Ecuador alone. Many Quichua churches do not have Bibles in their own language. That is a problem that MTW missionary Rick Aschmann aims to solve.

Based in Quito, and with 37 years of missionary service under his belt, Rick works alongside his wife, Betty, as a church planter and Bible translator. Armed with a laptop and an appetite for obscure grammatical nuance, Rick’s days are made up of a seemingly endless slogging through the nitty-gritty of helping native translators revise the Bible in one Quichua language and do a brand-new translation in another. After working through the tedium of careful edits, these translations can be turned in for printing and distribution.

Those tedious hours and long years of translation raise the question, why is it important that the Quichua have the Bible in their various languages anyway? Why don’t they just read the Bible in Spanish, like most Ecuadorians?

“For the Quichua, their heart language is Quichua, not Spanish,” Rick explained. “A lot of them speak Spanish quite well, but many speak just enough Spanish to get by. And what we see over and over again is that when we teach the Bible in their own language, they get it. It penetrates so much better than in Spanish.”

Redeeming the language of the oppressed
“You know, the Quichua were oppressed, essentially serfs on the land for hundreds of years,” he added. “The land owners were the Spanish speakers, but the Quichua retained their own language and didn’t really learn Spanish. And so now the Quichua kind of think: ‘Oh, Spanish is the good language. Quichua is the low class language.’”

Those centuries of cultural and linguistic oppression and marginalization have taken their toll and left a definite mark on Ecuadorian society. Spanish, the language of the colonizers, has become the language of government, business, and the middle and upper classes. Quichua, the language of the colonized, was repressed for years and was pushed to the periphery of society, though now it is beginning to get some recognition. Language, our vehicle for communication so central to our identities, has become a mark of social status, and Quichua speakers have been told that their language, their identity, marks them as lesser.

“I constantly find myself telling them: ‘the Bible teaches that we’re all equal. There are not high class people and low class people,’” said Rick.  “For centuries, they’ve been told and treated like they’re the bottom of the heap. And if you get told something like that often enough you believe it, even if it’s false.”

Awakening their spirit
“I always thought of the Quichua as these very quiet, reserved people who never spoke out,” said Betty, who had previously worked for eight years as a single missionary among Spanish-speaking Ecuadorians. “Then after we were married, I went with Rick to a study he was teaching.”

With the help of a group of native speakers, Rick had translated the Westminster Shorter Catechism into Quichua and was teaching from it.

“I had never seen the Quichua so animated in my life,” said Betty. “They were getting up out of their seats to argue and discuss. They were so excited about what they were hearing, and asking: ‘Is this really what the Bible says? Is this really what you’re supposed to be teaching us?’ They had no idea. They had heard it before in Spanish, but they weren’t sure about the Spanish. They would just sit back and smile and nod and say: ‘Yes, I understand,’ because it was the polite thing to do, but when they heard it in their own language and really understood, they got so excited.”

“When I teach a passage of scripture in Quichua, the whole dynamic changes,” said Rick. “We just see so much that you have to work in people’s heart language.”

That’s why Rick’s translation work is so important, so key.

It’s the purpose behind the endless unique tenses, linguistic gymnastics, and hours poring over the Word of God, the parsing of that holy truth into a mysterious architecture of suffixes and polysyllables and scratches of ink on paper. It’s not simply a matter of making things a little more convenient for the Quichua, it’s a matter of building the tools that enable God’s Word to truly penetrate hearts.

While multiple Quichua translations have been done at various points over the years, many had problems and most are no longer in print, leaving hundreds of thousands of native speakers without any Bibles available in their language. Now, alongside native speakers, Rick is one of the key editors in a project to re-translate the Bible into the Imbabura Quichua language.

“It’s going to be made available again after more than 10 years of never being able to buy Bibles in Imbabura,” said Rick. “The same thing is true of the Central Highland Quichua language, and there are at least a million speakers.”

For the thousands of little Quichua churches scattered across Ecuador, having the Bible translated well, printed, and made available in their heart language matters enormously. It impacts the health of churches that have struggled for years to learn from Spanish Bibles they can scarcely understand, and it transforms Quichua Christians’ understanding of themselves and their place in God’s kingdom—that Christ’s message of hope is for Quichua speakers as much as for Spanish speakers, that they too are children of God.

author-img
Andrew Shaughnessy

Andrew Shaughnessy is a long-time word slinger who spent nearly six years as MTW’s staff writer, gathering and telling impact stories from missionaries across the globe. These days, he’s off working as an analyst and editor in the publishing industry, writing fiction, and mountaineering. He holds a B.A. in history and English literature from Covenant College, and an M.S. in political science from Portland State University.

Get Involved

video

Ministry Expanding: Join a New Team in Southeast Asia

Longer More right-arrow
video

Join an Expanding Team in Occidental Mindoro

Longer More right-arrow
video

Madagascar: New Team Forming

Longer More right-arrow
video

Building the Church Planter’s Toolbox: The Long-Term Impact of Ukraine’s Publishing Ministry

MTW’s publishing ministry in Lviv, now with over 250 Reformed resources, is equipping a generation of Ukrainian church planters.

See More right-arrow
video

The Heart Language of the Quichua

Teaching the Bible to the Quichua in their own unique language penetrates hearts and awakens a new understanding of truth.

See More right-arrow
video

The Joys, Challenges, and Lifelong Impact of Growing Up Overseas: A Conversation with Four Former Missionary Kids

Missionary kids grow up traveling to new places, eating good food, and meeting different types of people—all leading to an adventurous childhood full of opportunities to experience the beauty, diversity, and complexity of God’s great, big, wonderful world.

See More right-arrow
video

Timothy House: Church Planter Training in Community (VIDEO)

A two-year intensive church planter training model is producing fruit in Muslim-majority Senegal, where new churches are greatly needed.

See More right-arrow
video

Kiki Adams’ Call to Counseling in Thailand Unfolded in God’s Perfect Timing (VIDEO)

When Trey and Kiki moved to Thailand, Kiki put her gift for counseling on the shelf. Years later, the Lord made a way for her to use it.

See More right-arrow
prev
next

Pray for a group of international friends in Germany who are meeting together and building community in a missionary's home. Pray they would come to know Christ through this community.

Related Story right-arrow

Pray for the work on Quichua translations in Ecuador, and for the Quichua people hearing Scripture in their heart language for the first time.

Related Story right-arrow

Pray for the new church plant in Quito among the Quichuas. Pray for the church to be deeply rooted in the truth of God's grace and gain a vision for reaching their nation with the gospel.

video

Ministry Expanding: Join a New Team in Southeast Asia

Longer More right-arrow
video

Join an Expanding Team in Occidental Mindoro

Longer More right-arrow
video

Madagascar: New Team Forming

Longer More right-arrow
video

Building the Church Planter’s Toolbox: The Long-Term Impact of Ukraine’s Publishing Ministry

MTW’s publishing ministry in Lviv, now with over 250 Reformed resources, is equipping a generation of Ukrainian church planters.

See More right-arrow
video

The Heart Language of the Quichua

Teaching the Bible to the Quichua in their own unique language penetrates hearts and awakens a new understanding of truth.

See More right-arrow
video

The Joys, Challenges, and Lifelong Impact of Growing Up Overseas: A Conversation with Four Former Missionary Kids

Missionary kids grow up traveling to new places, eating good food, and meeting different types of people—all leading to an adventurous childhood full of opportunities to experience the beauty, diversity, and complexity of God’s great, big, wonderful world.

See More right-arrow
video

Timothy House: Church Planter Training in Community (VIDEO)

A two-year intensive church planter training model is producing fruit in Muslim-majority Senegal, where new churches are greatly needed.

See More right-arrow
video

Kiki Adams’ Call to Counseling in Thailand Unfolded in God’s Perfect Timing (VIDEO)

When Trey and Kiki moved to Thailand, Kiki put her gift for counseling on the shelf. Years later, the Lord made a way for her to use it.

See More right-arrow

Pray for a group of international friends in Germany who are meeting together and building community in a missionary's home. Pray they would come to know Christ through this community.

Related Story right-arrow

Pray for the work on Quichua translations in Ecuador, and for the Quichua people hearing Scripture in their heart language for the first time.

Related Story right-arrow

Pray for the new church plant in Quito among the Quichuas. Pray for the church to be deeply rooted in the truth of God's grace and gain a vision for reaching their nation with the gospel.

close-icon

Donation Error

Please enter valid amount.

mtw logo
Mission to the World
1600 North Brown Rd
Lawrenceville, GA 30043
United States
Donor-Advised Fund Portal
Circle Portal
About
  • Who We Are
  • Where We Work
  • US Regional Reps
  • Our History
  • MTW Staff Careers
  • Contact Us
Pray
Stories & More
Events
My Account
  • My Account
    • My Giving
    • My Profile
    • Giving FAQs
Go
  • Search Opportunities
  • Mission Trips
  • Summer Internships
  • 1–11 Months
  • Longer Term
  • Join the Story
  • Specialized Ministries
    • Medical
    • Workplace Ministries
    • Arts, Music & Media
    • RUF Mentored Internships
  • Multicultural Mobilization
Give
  • Donations Hub
  • Missionaries
  • Projects
  • Estate & Gift Planning
  • Disaster Response/Compassion Fund
Resources
  • All Resources
  • Cultivate
  • Videos
  • 1% Challenge
  • Resources for Kids
image description
image description
image description
image description
image description
image description
1-678-823-0004
[email protected]
mtw logo
Mission to the World
1600 North Brown Rd
Lawrenceville, GA 30043
United States
Donor-Advised Fund Portal
Circle Portal
About arrow-down
    • Who We Are
    • Where We Work
    • US Regional Reps
    • Our History
    • MTW Staff Careers
    • Contact Us
Pray
Stories & More
Events
My Account arrow-dwn
    • My Account
      • My Giving
      • My Profile
      • Giving FAQs
Go arrow-dwn
    • Search Opportunities
    • Mission Trips
    • Summer Internships
    • 1–11 Months
    • Longer Term
    • Join the Story
    • Specialized Ministries
      • Medical
      • Workplace Ministries
      • Arts, Music & Media
      • RUF Mentored Internships
    • Multicultural Mobilization
Give arrow-dwn
    • Donations Hub
    • Missionaries
    • Projects
    • Estate & Gift Planning
    • Disaster Response/Compassion Fund
Resources arrow-dwn
    • All Resources
    • Cultivate
    • Videos
    • 1% Challenge
    • Resources for Kids
image description
image description
image description
image description
image description
image description
1-678-823-0004
[email protected]
Manage Consent

To provide the best experience, we use cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent may adversely affect certain features and functions. If you wish, you may view our privacy policy.

Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage {vendor_count} vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}