Pioneering for Jesus Christ (Urbana 81)

Working with the Sepik Iwam Tribe of Papua New Guinea
by Marilyn Laszlo

[The village elder] said, "Well, we saw the little church in your village and our people decided to build a church too and now we're waiting. We're waiting for someone to come and tell us about God in our talk - in our language." I turned and the tears started to come.

I have never seen that kind of faith demonstrated anywhere. Friends, out in the middle of the jungle stands that little church and today they are still waiting ... waiting for someone to come and tell them about Jesus in their own language.

It is quite a shock to come to Urbana. There are more people here than trees in the jungle where I live. For the past thirteen years I've been working in Hauna, a little village which is 500 miles up the Sepik River in the heart of the jungle and swamps in Papua New Guinea - an island just north of Australia.

On the island of Papua New Guinea there are over 700 languages - languages that are unwritten. Can you imagine never having seen your language written? Try to picture English as only a spoken language. How different our lives would be. It would mean, for one thing, that you would not have one single verse,of the Bible. That's the way it is with many of these language groups in Papua New Guinea. Actually, there are over 3,000 language groups in the world that have no written language. They have no alphabet - no books.

That's the way it was in Hauna village - with the Sepik Iwam people. They have no idea that the words that come out of their mouths could be written down. What an exciting and rewarding adventure it has been for me to learn their language, develop an alphabet and to teach the people to read and write their own language - their own talk. Come go with me now to Hauna Village and I'll show you how it all began.

We first entered the village in a sixty- foot dugout canoe powered by an outboard motor. Wow! What a trip. We had 100 miles to travel, heading up river from the little grass airstrip where we had landed in our single engine plane. What beautiful country. Hundreds of varieties of orchids, flowers, hundreds of varieties of birds - it's a bird paradise of the world - hundreds of varieties of snakes and many crocodiles - quite an exciting trip.

When there is motor trouble, the only thing I know to do is to change the spark plugs and if that doesn't work, we just drift back down river, and it takes 4-11 days to drift back to the airstrip. After about 10 hours, we arrived at the village. The village people really weren't quite sure about the two of us. They wondered whether we were male or female - in fact, they decided we were neither. We were "its", spirits that had fallen from the clouds. They were really quite afraid of us which was quite handy because we were afraid of them too! But there were 410 of them and only 2 of us.

Carving with a thorn

We were given training in linguistics and we began learning the language one word at a time by pointing to objects and by acting things out. One day I was walking through the village, my paper and pencil in hand, pointing to objects and trying to "gather" words. I discovered the word for pencil is nimid meaning thorn; the word for paper is yokwo meaning banana leaf, and the word for writing is wini means carving. Friends, for the past 13 years I have been going through this village with my thorn and my banana leaf, carving the language of these people, learning one word at a time so that someday I could teach them to read and write their own language and then translate the entire New Testament into their own "talk."

I remember one day I was trying to get the word for tree. I was pointing to a tree and trying to get them to say the word for tree. Finally they said, "ana" and so I wrote ana (tree), assuming that to be the word for tree. Now I had my first word in the dictionary. Later, as I went around the village practicing the words that I had collected, I pointed to a tree and I said, "ana." They all shook their heads and laughed. I had obviously said it wrong. Later I discovered that they really hadn't given me the word for tree. They had given me the word for finger!

Next I tried to get some verbs by acting things out. I sat down to get the word for sit and stood up to get the word for stand. I ran to get the word for run, etc. Well, one day I was talking to Nokiyan, an older man in the village. By the way, many of our older men wear no clothes - only a vine around their waist - that's it. Nokiyan, a delightful man, was giving me some of these words. I was trying to get the word for jump so I was jumping up and down in front of him, trying to get him to say the word for jump. He kept staring at me and finally he said, "korawhowaenanae." Try writing that! I thought, wow, that's a long word for jump! But some of their words are long and he kept saying, "korawhowaenanae," so I wrote korawhowaenanae. One problem we have when we are first learning a language is not knowing where the word breaks are. I didn't know whether that was a phrase or a sentence or two words or whether that really was one word - the word for jump, but I wrote it in my dictionary as I heard it.

Well, 6 months later, I discovered that wasn't really the word for jump. Do you know what he had been saying to me? He was saying, "Why are you acting so stupid?" And so it goes when learning an unwritten language.

Even after our being there about six months they still didn't really understand what we were doing. One day Nokiyan said, "Marilyn, k+ra, +i kw+r +i kw+r om napr+r+ri. Dimu w+ni?" He said, "Marilyn every day I see you walking through the village, what are you carving on that banana leaf with that thorn?" And I said to Nokiyan, "K+rir yaig+n t+ yokwo w+ni." I'm carving your talk. "Oh, my talk! You mean the words that are coming out of my mouth, you're carving on that banana leaf like the white man's talk?" I said, "yes." He had the idea that only the white man's talk could be carved on the banana leaf. That was the white man's power. I said, "No, Nokiyan, your language and your talk can be carved on the banana leaf too. God created your talk." He became so excited and he came up very close and he looked on the carving and said, "Dimuwinin?" "What does that say, what have you written?" I said, "This is what it says, 'Kara omaka nami."'

He rubbed his hand over the carving and he kept saying, "My talk - that's my talk." He was just thrilled. He decided that he was going to be our father. He was going to adopt us and be our teacher to help us learn his language.

The people decided that we weren't learning the language fast enough. In fact, they had a big campaign going on in the village for people to bring us more of their food to eat. They said, "These girls, their mouths and their tongues are thick and heavy. They just can't talk right. We're going to help them learn the language." They told everybody in the village that they had to bring us more of their food. That if we ate more of their kind of food that we would automatically speak the language better. Now if you know anything about their kind of food you can imagine that we had a little problem there.

The Green Belt

Nokiyan, with just a vine around his waist, came to the house every day to teach us the language. Our house stands on stilts because we work in the swamps where the river floods. In fact, the whole jungle area floods six months out of the year so all the houses are on stilts. He would come up the ladder of our house, plop himself down in a chair, and begin to teach us the language. Usually when he was finished, after 3 or 4 hours of teaching, we would give him some salt, fishing hooks or some cookies or something for his pay. One day I said to my partner, "Judy, instead of giving Nokiyan some salt, why don't we give him a pair of trousers. Everyday he comes to our house, and you know, it is kind of distracting." So ... we decided we would give him a pair of trousers that day. Among some used clothing we had available we found a pair of bermuda shorts - they were green with a nice green belt. We gave them to Nokiyan. He was so excited! It was the first time he had ever held a pair of pants. He went down the ladder of our house, got into his canoe and paddled across the river, holding those trousers close to him. He walked through the village telling everyone, "Look what the two white misses gave to me."' He was so impressed.

The next day he came back to the house and he shouted up, "Marilyno, kara b+di y+t+n. Kara y+uw+s b+di y+i," Marilyn, I have come. I am ready for work and I'm all dressed up in my new clothes." I said, "Wadega Kira." "Good, Nokiyan, you come on up." So he climbed up the ladder and walked in the door - he was so proud - he came strutting across the room and plopped himself down in the chair. Judy and I just stared at each other in unbelief. You wouldn't believe it, but do you know what he had on? Just the green belt! Can you believe that? I told the Lord, "Lord, if you want clothes on these people you'll have to do it your way and in your time because I am going to just concentrate on learning the language and that was that. And 13 years later, Nokiyan is still running around with that green belt. However, isn't it wonderful that eternal life and salvation do not depend upon what we wear or what we don't wear?

Nokiyan became one of the first Christians in our village; one of our first older people to accept Jesus into his throat. The heart is not the center of emotion but the throat is. You ask Jesus into your throat. The throat is the center of life. Nokiyan has asked Jesus into his throat. I had talked to him many times, trying to witness to him in the language and one day I said, "Nokiyan, I want you to ask Jesus into your throat." He became very excited about that - he couldn't read - we had very little of the Word of God translated, and yet, in simple childlike faith he asked Jesus into his throat. There is something very powerful about the name of Jesus. There's just something about that name.

After figuring out the alphabet and working out the grammar and building our dictionary, we were ready to teach the people to read and write their own language. That was an exciting time. The Lord gave us twenty sharp fellows to teach to read and write their own language and in about 6 months these guys were reading and writing for the very first time in the history of that tribe. From there I got a team of 14 translators to work with. All 14 of these fellows are beautiful Christians and they have been with me from the very beginning.

When we went home to the United States on furlough, we left plenty of stationary and stamps for the villagers to write to us. We told them, "You know how to read and write now. We want to hear from you." We were home four months and received over 650 letters.

The Word comes to Hauna

We started translating God's carving - one verse at a time. As we were translating, I became very burdened about the older people in the village - those witch doctors, the leaders - they were being left out. There were over 50 witch doctors in our village, one for every house. They are the most powerful men in the village and are always busy because there is always someone sick or someone dying. That's why there are so many of them. The life expectancy in this village is about 35 years. The infant mortality rate is 90%.

One day I shared this burden with the translators and said, "Somehow we have to reach out to these leaders - these big men of the village, with the Word - the carving. We must involve them in our work so that someday they too can become believers." "Well," the translators said, "What can they do, they don't know how to read or write. They don't know anything about Jesus - or anything about this book or this carving - they know nothing about God - how could they possibly help us?" They were very negative. I looked at those fellows and said to them, "When I first came here you knew nothing either. In fact, you didn't even know which end of the pencil to hold."

I said, "If we aren't going to have some kind of an outreach to these older people in the village and to our enemy tribes that are all around us, then I might as well pack up my bags and go home." I knew what their problem was. They were afraid of those older men those powerful medicine men. But I challenged them. We work in teams of two - in pairs. I said, "I want you to go out as a team and go to each clan in the village and get one older man from each clan to join your team." There are four clans in the village so each team had to get four older men. They were very hesitant but they went and to their surprise they had little trouble getting these older men to come.

We wanted them to come from 6:30 to 7:30 every night, after we had finished translating, and listen to the verses that we had translated that day - just listen and see if they understood it, to see if it was meaningful and whether we were using the right verbs and the right idioms. So when these older men came in I met with them and I said, "This is great - we are so delighted to have you to help us with this task. You are the leaders of the village - you are the big men - you are the powerful men - you are the men who understand the language best. These young fellows who are working with me, these 14 translators, they don't really understand the language that well." Of course, they were all shaking their heads, yes - agreeing, saying, "Yes, you really do need us."

They were so excited and later decided to label themselves as 'the judges.' Now you have got to picture this - here were these old men coming everyday to listen to the Word of God. Our word for doctor in the village is "inkam hiiswoki," which means, the man who spits, or the spitter - that means doctor - the spitter. These "spitters" are busy all the time. For example, if you have malaria - they take a sharp bamboo and cut your forehead where you have pain, where it hurts, to let out the bad blood. Then they chew on a plant that supposedly contains a very powerful spirit, and they spit and blow into those cuts. This is the power that will help to heal you. The same with pneumonia they cut your chest and your ribs and then they spit and blow. So our word for doctor is, the spitter - or the man who spits, inkam hiiswoki.

We had translated a portion of Scripture in the Gospel of Mark - chapter 8. As we were reading these verses we came to verse 23.Those men were listening carefully when we read this verse which said,

He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man's eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, "Do you see anything?"
He looked up and said, "I see people, they look like trees walking around."
Once more Jesus put his hands on the man's eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.

We have blind people in the village, but never ever has a medicine man been able to heal a blind man. So when we read this verse, those big men said, "He did what?" He spit! He spit! "He spit on the ground and made mud and he put it on the blind man's eyes and the blind man received his sight." Those big men just rose up out of their chairs and they said, "Wow." Then leaning over and looking at the carving they said, "Why Jesus must be the most powerful spitter in the whole world!" And right then and there those big men identified with Jesus. They went out into the village and went to the men's spirit house and spread the story throughout the village. "Do you know, Jesus spits! And he heals blind men and he heals all kinds of other sicknesses and diseases!" What a tremendous breakthrough - from that day those big medicine men started coming to church. They wanted to know more about this man Jesus, the spitter.

I would like to believe that that particular story in John was there specifically for the Sepik Iwam people. God created those people and God created that language. Jesus did not have to spit. That's rather gross when you stop to think about it. I don't know whether you have ever studied the methods that Jesus used to heal, but he didn't have to spit. Look at Mark 8:23. Jesus spit in the blind man's eyes. I believe that Jesus used that method because he wanted to reach the throats of the Sepik Iwam people. Today over 50% of the people in Hauna village are believers. Friends, let's never doubt the power of the Word of God in our own language.

The Good News Travels

As we translated and as we taught the people to read and write their own language we became very burdened for all of the enemy tribes around us. Hundreds of villages untouched. Hauna was becoming a shining light throughout the swamp and the jungle in that area and people started to hear about the work that was going on in this village.

One day a canoe load of 15 people came into Hauna village. It had taken them 4 days to paddle to our village. They were coming for medical help. They spoke another tribal language and I was trying to communicate with them through the trade language - Pidgin English - it was very difficult because they really couldn't speak Pidgin very well. There was just one fellow who spoke a little bit of it so our communication was very difficult. They came into the house and the smell of the rotten sores, the tropical ulcers, the sickness, just about made me sick to my stomach. I have never seen anything so pathetic. I'm not a nurse and the last thing on earth I ever wanted to be was a nurse but these people were very needy. I was trying to tell them they must stay in our village at least a week because I needed to give them a series of penicillin to treat their sores, and I couldn't do it in one day. And so we fed them and they stayed for a week.

While they were there they watched what was going on. They saw 200 people coming to school learning to read and write their own language; they saw us carving on the banana leaf God's talk in their own language; they went to church and heard the people singing in their own language; and listened to our own Sepik Iwam pastors giving forth the Word of God in their own language.

One day during that week the leader of that group came to the house holding in his hand a green banana leaf with something wrapped inside of it. I have learned through my years in that village that when someone brings me a green banana leaf with something wrapped up in it, they are bringing me some delicacy from the jungle to eat - and so here he was presenting me this gift - this offering, in appreciation for fixing the sores and treating the malaria of his people. As I took it I could tell that he wanted me to open it right then. Usually when I take food from the people in the village, I say that I'll eat it later - much later!

But these were a people from another tribe - another language group - an enemy tribe really, and in no way did I want to offend this fellow. So I unwrapped it and there they were! Nice, fat, big, white, juicy grubs - the kind of worms that you find under rotten logs in the woods. I know you have all seen these. They are a real delicacy - full of protein by the way. He had roasted 12 of them on a stick - grub shishkabob! I looked at those and then I took 2 or 3 off and was going to eat them. I held them up and then I started to pray, "Lord Jesus, please, please, Jesus, I am willing to eat these all up if you are willing to keep them all down." So I popped them in my mouth.

Now you must have a strong imagination when you are in a situation like that. I tried to think of the most pleasant things I could think of - like McDonald hamburgers and hot fudge sundaes or whatever. They really didn't taste too bad - they tasted a bit like bacon.

When it was time to leave Hauna and return home, this fellow said to me, "Do you think you could come to my village and put our talk on the banana leaf so that we might know about God too?" Well, I had to shake my head and say, "I'm not finished here yet - I have several more years of work in this place. There is no way I can come." I could tell he was very disappointed, but before he left I promised that someday I would at least come and visit his village.

After several weeks had passed we organized a party to try to find that village. We headed out - a group of us - looking for that little village. After traveling all day up a small tributary back into the mountains we parked our canoe and walked through the jungle for about half an hour. We finally got to the village. The fellow who was the leader of the group that came into our village was so excited to see us, I mean he was just so thrilled. He called everybody to come and see the two white misses.

We were the first white people to ever come into that village so we were quite an exciting sight. As we were walking through the village I noticed in the center of the village, a new building, very different from their regular houses. I knew it had just been built and so I said to this fellow, "What is that building there in the center of the village?"
He said, "Oh, that is God's house that's our church."
I said, "Your church? Do you have a mission here?"
"Oh, no, we have never had a mission here."
I said, "Well, do you have a pastor here, you know, someone that comes to preach God's Word?"
"Oh, no, we've never had a pastor here."
I said, "Well, is there someone here in the village that can read and write Pidgin English who holds services in your church?"
"Oh, no! There is no one here that can read or write - we have no books."
I looked at him and said, "Then, what is that building for?"

He said, "Well, we saw the little church in your village and our people decided to build a church too and now we're waiting. We're waiting for someone to come and tell us about God in our talk - in our language." I turned and the tears started to come. I have never seen that kind of faith demonstrated anywhere. Friends, out in the middle of the jungle stands that little church and today they are still waiting ... waiting for someone to come and tell them about Jesus in their own language.

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Pioneering for Jesus Christ (Urbana 81)

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December 27-31, 2009