God Changing His mind?

God is immutable! However, in several passages of the Bible, there is an account of how God changed His mind. Amos 7:1-6 “I had a vision from the Sovereign LORD. In it I saw him create a swarm of locusts just after the king’s share of the hay had been cut and the grass was […]

My Paternal Grandfather

Juan Manuel Beltrán Beltrán was the son of two cousins. My great grandparents had played together during their whole childhood. They got along very well. The families decided that the best thing was to marry them because they liked each other so much. They were fourteen years old. They both had the same last name […]

My Catholic Religion Classes

After I left the Parochial School, my parents were concerned that I was not learning more about the Catholic faith so they asked me to enroll in the Catholic Religion class that was starting in my school. It was around 1955 or so. This class was offered at “La Maisonnette”, my school from 1948 to […]

My father, “Rabbi” Beltran

When I moved to Miami, I rented an apartment near the Kendall area. But when I found my new job, I had to move. The offices of Viewdata Corporation of America were in Miami Beach, and I could not easily commute there from where I was living. The traffic in those years was already bad! […]

Rowing down the Volga

This was the name of the Power Point presentation and the video we made after our trip to Russia in September 2013. In December 2012, after some serious prayers, we decided to go to Russia. I found online a company based in Arlington, VA called “Travel All Russia,” and I contacted them by phone. I […]

Our Trip to China

This trip was from July 22 to August 4, 2012. The itinerary included Beijing, X’ian, Chongqing, a cruise on the Yangtze, seeing Shibaozhai, the Three Gorges & Lesser Three Gorges, and Jingzhou, disembarking in Wuhan, and ending in Shanghai. We initially booked this trip in March of 2011. It was the ‘Imperial Jewels of China’ […]

Touring Australia and New Zealand

One of the trips both Karelin and I wanted to do was to Australia. We searched online and found a company called Go Ahead Tours that offered a pretty good itinerary to visit both Australia and New Zealand, a combined trip by air and land. We studied the possibilities and the excursions they offered, and […]

Moving to Computers

When I started my work with United Bible Societies I found all kinds of interesting situations. The way I understood my work was: my mission was to bring computers to translations projects that still were using typewriters, pens or even goose feathers, and/or to move all translation projects that were using all kinds of different […]

Mark Your Ethnicity

Faced with the hard paperI stop.Very few questionsintimidate mebut this one has memessed up. What am I?Am I white, siram I pink?Am I black and yellow,brown or gold? A hundred centuries aremixed in my veins.Who knowswhich blood prevails? Why don’t you ask meother things?Or nothing at all? Yes, I feel sorry that childrendie of hunger,golden, […]

Petting Lions, Searching for Leopards

From September 13-27, 2010, we took the most amazing trip to Kenya and Zambia, Africa. And then in 2016 from September 2-18, we went to South Africa, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, and Botswana. Karelin and I planned our first trip through an African Tourist Company that had offices in Miami. We made sure to obtain the most […]