Information about the country.
Guatemala's borders encompass approximately 42,000 sq miles of territory, making it roughly the same size as the state of Tennessee. It is located at the northern end of Central America and is bordered on the north and west by Mexico, on the east by El Salvador and Honduras, on the south by the Pacific Ocean and on the northeast by Belize. The population of Guatemala is currently estimated at approximately 15 million.
The land area which became the country of Guatemala upon its independence from Spain in 1821 was originally inhabited by the Mayas, whose brilliant classic civilization was at is peak just before its collapse around 900 A..D. The Spanish Conquest in the early 1500's weakened what remained of the old Mayan empire. However, in spite of over 500 years of Spanish cultural domination, the 21 officially recognized Mayan groups in Guatemala today remain strong both linguistically and culturally.
The pre-conquest Mayas were animists and polytheistic. With the Spanish Conquest came Catholicism, which has been now been syncritistically blended with the old Mayan religion. Since both religious systems were basically "spectator" religions, that mindset tends to prevail among Mayans today. Active involvement of the laity in evangelical churches has been historically quite limited, evidence that the "spectator" mindset continues to prevail.
The municipio (county) of Nebaj occupies a relatively small area in the highlands on the north side of the large Cuchumatán mountain range, which runs from west to east across the midsection of the country of Guatemala. It is located about 65 miles due north of Lake Atitlán and the town of Chichicastenango, two well known tourist attractions in the western highlands of Guatemala. With an estimated population of 65,000, it is the largest of the three counties whose county seats form the so-called Ixil triangle.
Details of the history of the Ixil people prior to and for many years after the Spanish conquest are sketchy. Some believe they originally lived in the tropical lowlands of northern Guatemala and, after the Spanish conquest in the early 1500's, were driven into the highlands, where they live today.
The Ixil women are known for their brightly colored hand woven blouses with intricate patterns and designs woven into the cloth. The blouses are woven on a hip strap loom which has the upper end fastened by a rope to a post of the porch of their houses or sometimes to a tree if they are weaving outdoors. The lower end of the loom is a strap which goes around the woman's hips, so that she partly sits down on and partly leans back against the strap to maintain tension on the threads in the loom. The women wear dark red wrap around skirts made on upright looms by men. The men, on the other hand, wear more traditional "western" dress.
History of Christianity in group.
Evangelical missionary activity began in Nebaj in the second quarter of the last century and continued until a brutal civil war in the late 70's and early 80's forced the withdrawal of all expatriate missionary personnel from the area. The area was extremely hard hit by the violence of that war, with virtually every family losing a loved one as a result of the political upheaval. However, God used that time to bring about a significant "people movement," a time when large numbers of Ixil people turned from old religious ways to the Gospel of Christ. (This was true of much of the rest of the country of Guatemala at that time also.) Today, only a handful of expatriate missionaries live and work in the area. The work of the many evangelical groups, represented by over 300 congregations, is overseen by indigenous pastors and lay leaders, who desperately need further Bible training in order to carry out the ministries God has given them.
Estimates of the number of Christians today are about 25,000 in the whole municipio (county) of Nebaj.
SIL translator Ray Elliott and his Ixil co-translators published the Gospel of Mark in 1960. Given that there were very few believers at that time, the response was probably minimal.
The Ixil people of Nebaj have been waiting for 50 years since the Elliott's came to live among them and to learn their language. Now they are within months of having a New Testament available to them in their language. They have waited long enough!