Archive for December 4, 2012


Dec 4

The Story of DSC’s Work Among The Achi

2012 | by Trent Hunter | Category: Mission

Last week the TGC Blog published a nice piece about DSC’s missions strategy, focusing on what DSC’s purpose to do less better has meant for our work among the Achi in Guatemala. Here’s a section from the beginning of the article, “Why Less is More in Missions“:

“Reactive and sporadic.” That’s how many members of Desert Springs Church in Albuquerque, New Mexico, would describe their mission efforts prior to 2004. Plenty of good intention, but little deliberate strategy.

Perhaps you can relate.

Around 2004, however, a group of lay and staff leaders at Desert Springs sought “church missions coaching” with Sixteen: Fifteen, an organization that encourages, equips, and mobilizes congregations in their call to reach the nations. The church ultimately decided to adopt a “least reached” people group: the Rabinal Achi. These peaceful agricultural people dwell in the mountains of Guatemala, where they’ve managed to maintain their Mayan identity for centuries.

For almost three decades, encompassing much of the Guatemalan Civil War (1960-1996), Rodrigo and Carol Barrera, a couple serving with Wycliffe Bible Translators, had been laboring to translate the New Testament into the Achi’s native tongue. But as of 2004, the project was still incomplete.

Click here to read the story of how DSC partnered with the Barreras to complete this translation of the New Testament for the Achi of Guatemala, and how DSC’s focused strategy helped make this possible. Learn more about DSC’s Rabinal Achi Partnership here, and about the ongoing work of local and global missions at DSC through the DSC Missions Blog.