Jesus Speaks Quechua
By Shannon Mischuk, VP of Development, Canada Institute of Linguistics (CanIL)
We left Abancay before sunrise, piled into a van at 4 a.m., and drove for hours through hairpin switchbacks carved into the Andes. The final stretch was a single-lane dirt road hugging the mountainside, the kind of road that tests your faith and your stomach in equal measure.
I was travelling with my boss, Dr. Danny Foster, representing the Canada Institute of Linguistics (CanIL), alongside partners from Wycliffe Canada and AIDIA (Asociación Interdenominacional para el Desarrollo Integral de Apurímac), church leaders from British Columbia, and pastors from across the Apurímac region. We were headed to Colpa, Peru, for a moment more than twenty years in the making: the dedication of the complete Eastern Apurímac Quechua Bible.
Quechua is spoken by millions across the Andes, but the Eastern Apurímac dialect belongs to one specific mountain region of southern Peru, and its people had never held the entire Bible, Genesis to Revelation, in the language that speaks to their heart.
A valley already awake
When we arrived, the valley was alive with colour and anticipation. By mid-morning, the church could no longer hold the crowd. People carried benches outside and arranged them under a sun tarp, and voices in Quechua, Spanish, and English rose together. Some had walked for hours, from villages across the mountaintops, just to be part of this.
Children stood at the front of the service, reading from their new Bibles, their voices steady and sure. I tried to stay unnoticed, wanting to capture the moment without disturbing it. Then another prayer rose, and hands reached for mine from both sides. I wasn't an observer anymore. I was part of it.
As Scripture was read aloud, one phrase moved through the valley:
"Jesus speaks Quechua."
Three words carrying the whole weight of the day. This wasn't just a project reaching completion. It was a promise fulfilled: God speaks every language, and every community deserves to hear Him clearly, in the words they think and dream and pray in.
Two decades of faithfulness
The translation was led by Quechua translators through AIDIA, supported by Wycliffe Canada, and strengthened along the way by Canadian churches, including Christian Life Assembly in Langley, whose support arrived at a critical stage and carried the project forward when progress had slowed. AIDIA's work hasn't stopped since. Their ministry has grown to nine regions across Peru, some so remote that reaching them takes several days of travel, training pastors, strengthening literacy, and helping families bring Scripture into daily life.
Why the classroom matters half a world away
At CanIL, our work is to prepare the students and translation consultants who make projects like this possible, training them to work with the accuracy, clarity, and cultural understanding that Bible translation demands. Without that training, projects stall, and communities wait decades longer than they should to hear Scripture in their own language.
Standing in that valley, watching people read from Bibles that had taken twenty years to complete, I felt the distance between a classroom in Langley and a mountainside in Peru collapse entirely. The people of Colpa didn't just receive a book. They received confirmation that their language, their stories, and their lives matter to God.
Jesus speaks Quechua now. That sentence exists because people gave their lives, their training, and their support to make it true.
