John and Diana Lubeck

We are John and Diana Lubeck. We work with Evangel Bible Translators doing Bible translation for the Chortí people of Guatemala. We came to this place as the result of a call from God and a desire to share salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ by translating God’s Word.

In today’s world, short-term missions are the norm and God is blessing those doing so, but unlike today’s norm, we are career missionaries. After being on the mission field for 33 years, translating the New Testament and now working on the translation of the Old Testament, we have become completely imbedded in missions here in Guatemala. It is our life, our love, and it thrills our hearts to be a part of God’s plan for the Chortí people.

When we were young and heard someone talking about “The Seasons of Life”, we laughed and thought that that had nothing to do with us. Because when we were young it seemed that our youth would never end. But now that we are older and have worked with the Chortí people for 33 years, we recognize that our lives have indeed gone through many seasons.

The first season we think about is the one when we prepared to leave our home-land with two small children and go to a foreign land which was different from anything we had ever experienced.

The next season was when we moved to a Chortí village to learn their language. That was a difficult, exciting and challenging time in our lives. Could we really learn it? And, yes, with God’s help, we did!

Then came a long season when we translated, revised, checked, revised again and again, and finally printed the Chortí New Testament. What a miracle from God! It finally got done and printed.

All these seasons were building blocks for the next season which was when we worked to make sure this translation was going to be used. In many ways this was the best season yet. Working with a village church and seeing the Word of God take hold in the people’s hearts and lives made all the previous years worth the effort. This happy season lasted six years and were spent teaching the Word and in discipleship. Then the people began desiring to have the rest of the Bible in their own hearts language, Chortí.

Now each season has had its own blessings and challenges, but the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives and faith in God’s promises have brought us joyfully through each season.

It always seems that the current season is the best one of all. Now we are involved in the Old Testament translation project. In order to get this long project off the ground and done in not-too-many years we have selected and trained three brilliant Chortí young people to work along side of us. They are in their second year in this capacity and have already translated Genesis, Exodus, Jonah, and Ruth. John is translating the extremely difficult but very practical Book of Proverbs as well as editing and revising the other translations. Our vision is to see the entire Bible translated into the Chortí language. I (Diana) make Sunday School Lessons and Study Guides for the translated books.

This new season of our lives gives us more time to minister to young Christian workers and to other special loved ones, both Chortí and Latin. With age and experience comes many opportunities to counsel and speak into the lives of others. We often have the opportunity to minister in couple’s conferences and do premarital counseling. Praise the Lord that our youth is being renewed as the eagles for this very special time of our lives as we continue being career missionaries to the Chortí people of Guatemala and others that God puts in our path.