Worship songs in mother tongue touch hearts

     TOTONICAPAN — Hands clap in unison, sleeping children stir, and the church begins to sing the laughing song.

     Never mind that the worship service has gone on for more than four hours. When the Tumax family gets up to play, smiles appear and the people show little sign of weariness.

“Ha ha! We’re saved! “
“Ha ha! We’re pardoned!”
“Ha ha! We’re free!”

     They arrived at 2 p.m., congregating at the rural hillside church for the weekday service.

     Cornfields surround the building and the adjacent pastor’s house, high in Guatemala’s western highlands. Not far from here is an area the locals call “Alaska,” for its cool climate and frequent fog.

     They came today to worship and to celebrate the birthday of a 13-year-old Kiché boy who is going blind.

     Beneath a low-roofed ceiling, 65 adults and children sit on wood benches, chairs and on the floor, singing the laughing song in unison.

     No amplifiers are necessary. The singing and rhythmic clapping is deafening. Obispo Tumax wrote “Jajay,” (pronounced “Ha hi!”) in his native Kiché language, based on Psalm 126:1,2:

     “When the Lord brought back the captivity of Zion, we were like those who dream. Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing. Then they said among the nations, ‘The Lord has done great things for them.’ ”

 

Singing in tongues

     Obispo’s mouth has been filled with laughter and singing since God’s grace reached his heart in 1996.

     But until another change of heart, the notion of singing in his native language would have prompted a hearty laugh.

     Obispo is a Mayan and speaks Kiché in the home and in his neighborhood. But like nearly every other Guatemalan singer, Christian or otherwise, Obispo recorded his first two albums in Spanish, the country’s national language.

     One day, Obispo spoke with Pedro Bocel, a Viña employee who is a Kaqchikel Mayan.

     “Brother, why don’t you record in Kiché?” Pedro asked. “If you record in Kiché, you will get a bigger discount on your fee.

     “We give a discount because our ministry at Viña is that the message of the song — above all else, the Gospel -- reaches the heart of the people. We’re helping those who are recording for their own people.”

     Obispo is a polite Mayan so he tried not to offend Pedro by flatly refusing the idea.

     “I’ll get right on it,” Obispo told Pedro. “But in my heart … no. In my heart it seemed really ridiculous. How do you sing in Kiché? Nobody sings in Kiché.”

     But God already had used ridiculous things in Obispo’s life.

     Soon after Obispo began to understand and respond to God’s grace, the Lord led him to write songs.

     “God spoke to me and told me, ‘You will write songs based on the Scriptures,’ ” he said. “I enjoyed confessing Christ in the songs,” he said, beginning to sing during an interview, “I am saved by the blood of Jesus; I am saved by the blood of Jesus!”

     So after talking with Pedro, Obispo prayed about singing in Kiché. Once again, he heard a voice from God, encouraging him to do exactly what Pedro had suggested.

     “OK,” Obispo told the Lord, “but if this is what you want, God, you have to help me do it.”

 

A bus-ride home, singing in Kiché

     Not long after that, he hopped aboard a bus to Sololá to pick up tapes of his second Spanish recording.

     On the way home from Viña’s studios, he looked out the bus window and saw the beautiful scenery of Guatemala’s highlands: valleys full of lush, green cornfields, dotted with mud-brick houses and surrounded by green hills.

     Immediately, a song came to him in his mother tongue.

     “God put music in my heart and the words in Kiché,” Obispo said.

     “Father, you made the heavens, the earth, the sun, the moon and man in your image. How incomparable you are! All the work you did is incomparable with anyone else’s work.”

     Riding home, he sang the song to himself, continuing for the next hour so that he wouldn’t forget it. Getting off the bus, he walked down the steep hill to his home, where he quickly grabbed his small tape player and recorded the song.

     Later, he fine-tuned the lyrics. Soon, other songs came to him. In less than a month, Obispo had written a dozen Kiché worship songs. He taught them to his wife and five children, who learned the songs so quickly it surprised him.

     In short order, the Tumax family returned to the studio, recording in their mother tongue for the first time.

     Soon, Obispo began to see how God used the Kiché songs to reach the hearts of his people in ways he never imagined.

     A Kiché woman who heard Obispo and his family sing had attended church for years, singing Spanish worship songs. But it wasn’t until she heard the message in the Kiché worship songs that she understood the Gospel.

     “Until now, I never understood what they’re singing,” she told Obispo through tears.

 

- A family affair

     Singing is a community effort within Familia Tumax. Obispo leads the troupe, joined by his wife Luisa Francisca, but at times the exuberant voices of their children rival their own in volume.

     The youngest, Ana, was just 5 years old when they began recording.

     When he first began writing music, Obispo didn’t have any instruments so they just sang acappella. Later, he found two guitars at very reasonable prices. Obispo instructed his sons to learn to play the guitar.

     “I can’t do it,” said Jacobo, his second son, who is left-handed. “Turn the guitar around, if you want,” Obispo told him.

     Jacobo, 17, began practicing, and within a week he could play the guitar.

     Obispo’s eldest son, David, 19, knew how to play the keyboard. But Obispo told him, “Start learning to play guitar because in just a little while we’re going to record.”

     Obispo’s wife and the youngest children round out the recording with various percussion instruments.

     Mrs. Tumax plays the pandereta or tamborine. Their third son, Elizeo, 14, plays the timbal. Ester, 12, plays the chinchines; and Ana, 9, the guiro, a wooden, ribbed percussion instrument.

     Obispo gives praise to God and thanks to Viña’s staff because the recording turned out well.

     “They worked with us as if we were family,” he said. “It’s our home when we arrive at Viña.”

 

Out with religion, in with Jesus

     Prior to 1996, Obispo had lived as a religious person — as a Catholic, then as a charismatic Catholic and then as an Evangelical -- trying to earn his way to heaven by doing good works.

     Advancing to become an assistant pastor in his evangelical church, Obispo used to scold his congregation and insist they do more fasting, more praying, more tithing and attending more prayer and worship vigils to earn their salvation. His religion wasn’t based on faith in Jesus Christ, but on his works.

     In 1996, however, God revealed himself to Obispo in a new way. Through the Scriptures, Obispo began to understand the good news of grace. The Gospel isn’t based on good works, but on Jesus Christ who died and came back to life to pay off the debt of every person’s sin and offer new life in the spirit.

     “The time that I was in religion, I just changed religion,” he said. “I left Catholicism, where you earn salvation by one means, and I changed religion to be a religious evangelical. But in another way it was an attempt to earn my way (to heaven).”

 

Music leads to ministry

     Once God changed his heart and broke Obispo of his pride, however, his message became one of joy in the grace of God.

     Soon, God took Obispo’s ministry a new direction, opening new doors. First, he had to overcome some resistance. Some people became upset at hearing the message of grace — the true Gospel or “good news.” Some left his church.

     “We only speak of Christ, but the people don’t like it much,” he said. “They said it’s fine to begin with, but you’re getting to a doctrine really distant from the church.”

     Once Obispo began writing, recording and performing in his own language, he noticed a change. The Kiché songs opened new doors.

     People welcomed his music more openly. He didn’t receive the same criticism any more that his songs weren’t really songs because they were unfamiliar.

     As interest in his music grew, the Tumax family received more and more invitations to play.

     “Thanks to God, He has used the songs in Kiché to open the doors,” Obispo said. “In some churches, when we arrive — I tell you, this is what God does — sometimes the pastor says, ‘Brother, what a privilege it is to have you here in church. Why don’t you preach to us today?’ Glory to God, I say, we’re ready to talk about Jesus 24 hours a day.

     “Although we weren’t invited to preach, they’ve given me the time. In this, I glorify God because he’s giving me the responsibility to speak of Jesus — singing or preaching, everything is Christ-centered.” After singing in a church once in the town of Nahualá, the pastor thanked Obispo for coming.

     “When you sang … I cried,” said Manuel, the Kiché pastor. “Why? because I felt the presence of God.

     “We have lots of good music groups in this town. They play well and sing well, but we don’t understand what they are saying.”

     “These songs have a biblical base and theologically, they’re right on,” he told Obispo. “In reality, you should keep singing because now there’s a lot of pomp in the churches, just instruments and a lot of noise, no message whatsoever. But this does and I congratulate you.” Obispo doesn’t claim to be the greatest musician in the world. But he sings with radiant joy about a God who created life and saves sinners.

     Each of his songs is based on the Word of God, and Obispo includes the Scripture references on the cassette cover

     The Tumax family has recorded six music cassettes, including one for children, distributing more than 1,500 copies. As soon as he gets enough money together, Obispo plans to record another album of 12 songs. One of them is another laughing song.

Click here to hear Familia Tumax sing, “Jajay.”