Joyce Lievano has a challenge for First Free.
“The mission field moved to Rockford,” she says. “We have the opportunity of extending our wings, to make people feel welcome. But we don’t have to start a program. This isn’t a program. It’s relationships.”
Joyce spent most of her life as a missionary in Venezuela, serving under the EFCA Mission and currently with NOVO (All Things New) Mission. For personal security reasons, Joyce and her husband, Francisco, had to relocate to Florida five years ago. The safe, quiet environment, without the continual travel they did in Venezuela, helped them finish a new, literal Bible translation into modern, Latin American Spanish, Palabra de Dios para ti (Word of God for You).
Francisco died two years ago. Joyce continues the ministry they began together—including distributing and marketing the new Bible and encouraging inductive home Bible studies wherever she goes.
“My passion is to get Hispanics to open the Bible and discover God’s message of love and forgiveness,” she says. “For many it is the first time they read the Bible, and now they can read it on their cellphone. I love to teach them how to ask questions and find answers in the verses.
“I want to help start home Bible studies,” she adds. “It’s threatening to go to a church, but it’s not threatening to go to your neighbor’s house. Every community should have a small group meet in a home Bible study, which actually is a small church.” This, she says, follows the example of the early church: “Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Messiah.” (Acts 5:42)
This month, she’s meeting with supporting churches (including ours) and families, and also teaching people how to host inductive Bible studies in their homes for Spanish-speaking neighbors.
“I would love to see First Free adopt a local missionary outreach: to start home Bible studies in Spanish,” she says. “It is in these small groups of believers where they learn how to study the Word, learn how to teach the Word and learn to care for “sheep”, all under the guidance of the church. A group might multiply into two, three and four Bible studies. Occasionally you can have a special activity like a praise service for all the groups. This process involves evangelism, discipleship, teaching Bible truths, developing church leaders and planting new churches.
“I’d love to see northern Illinois peppered with Spanish home Bible studies that grow into churches.” This, in turn, produces Bible teachers and pastors who can serve here or in Latin America, she adds.
Rockford roots
Joyce’s parents, Marvin and Selina Ang, were Free Church (now called ReachGlobal) missionaries to Venezuela from 1941 to 1982. First Free Rockford was their sending church, supporting them those 41 years. Joyce was born and raised in Venezuela, and came to the U.S. to attend Moody Bible Institute. She served briefly with Wycliffe Bible Translators and earned a master’s degree in applied linguistics. Then, commissioned by First Free Rockford, she joined the Free Church mission in 1979 to return to the southern Venezuela rainforest and serve the Ya̧nomamö people.
Joyce relocated to the northern city of Maracay in 1982, not long after her parents retired. She did ministry work there and taught at the Free Church seminary. The seminary’s new director, Francisco Lievano, a widower with four kids, soon would become her husband.
After seven years at the seminary, the couple went to pastor the Free Church in Caracas, the nation’s capital. “With complicated transportation, buses and traffic, it was almost impossible to go to Wednesday Bible study and prayer,” Joyce says. “So Francisco started publishing inductive Bible studies in the church bulletin. He said, ‘Do the Bible study at home and invite your family and neighbors.’ Well, the Lord prospered that project. Instead of 25 people at church, we soon had 25 home Bible studies with an average of 10 in each group.”
Of the families who started those studies, one moved four hours west. Another moved four hours east, and another already lived an hour south. In several groups, attendance grew to 25 or more, to a point where they had to divide, or rent larger spaces. With pastoral care, seven of those groups became churches, then multiplied in the same way. Eventually the Lievanos left the mother church in Caracas to strengthen the newly formed churches.
Translating the Bible
At the same time, Francisco contributed to four editions of the Biblia Textual as a Bible translator, which used Spanish as spoken in Spain. In 2017, the Lievanos founded the Latin American Bible Association with the goal of producing a literal translation into modern, Latin American Spanish: Palabra de Dios para ti, (Word of God for You).
In 2020, the copyright was obtained. Along with the hardcover edition, In 2022 the digital Bible was published by ebible and YouVersion. Significantly, it’s published under Creative Commons, meaning that anyone can publish or sell it without paying royalty. Which means, among other things, that digital copies can be given away for free and accessed on phones.
Many Hispanics have never read a Bible, Joyce says.
“People have come (to America) with just a suitcase like I did. You don’t bring your Bible, if you had one. Your Hispanic friend will be very pleased when you give him a gift: A modern language Bible in Spanish on his cell phone! Often they think: oh, my mom would like to see this!”
“It’s easy to read. … and this Bible is a textual literal translation. It’s 100 percent perfect Spanish as we speak in Latin America. It’s what our kids talk. It’s what Grandma talks. So when you read it, it just flows. And the words of God are in red, so it just stands out.”
They did adapt a few words and phrases.
“For many Hispanics, the word ‘prayer’ means Hail Mary and the Lord’s Prayer,” Joyce says. “So in the New Testament, that word was translated as ‘converse with God.’ Another special word was ‘repent.’ Currently, to say ‘sorry’ has little meaning, so we wrote ‘change of mind.’”
Helping home studies
Along with the new Bible, the Lievanos also wrote and published a verse-by-verse, chapter-by-chapter study guide for the entire New Testament. It’s intended to be used in home Bible studies, encouraging people to find answers by rereading a passage, discovering its meaning and finding application to their lives.
Two years after Francisco’s passing, Joyce continues ministry to Hispanic people. This week, as part of her monthlong visit to the Rockford area, she’s been thrilled to go to Rochelle and do an inductive Bible study in Spanish—along with offering a digital Bible.
“The mission field has come to Rockford,” she says. “The people are hungry and thirsty for God, but don’t know it. The Bible is on their cell phones, but they don’t know it. We can reach out to our Hispanic friends with news of the gift of love, life and forgiveness.”
Great story, both of you. Thanks for sharing it. Also, please pass along a hello for me to Joann. I haven’t seen nor heard from her for years.