Mary, the reason “q” is used to represent a “k” sound is because its a transliteration of the Hebrew letter that is pronounced kof or kuf and looks like this: ” ק ” and represents a hard “k” sound. You can see that it looks like a backwards q. When Hebrew speakers are transliterating their words with English letters they have no concern about traditional English grammar rules about always using a “u” with a “q” and then saying “kw.” They aren’t trying to speak English. They are trying to speak Hebrew but use English letters that are rough equivalents.