Jack Voelkel
Sophie Muller: Forty Years in the Jungle - Part II
The following is Part 2 of a 2-part story. Here is Part 1.
Pagan Customs
Back in Sejal Sophie began to learn more of the customs of the people. Their favorite form of entertainment was all night dancing and drinking bouts. Invariably these included sexual immorality with resulting jealousies and violent revenge that turned friends into enemies.
Ever so slowly, as she grew in her capacity to understand and speak their language, the Gospel began to impact individuals. The death of Paulo, bitten by a poisonous snake, was a transition moment. She braced herself that night, waiting for the “death wail.”
“’Nevermore shall we see our brother…Nevermore shall see our brother’ down the minor scale in hopeless despair. But hours passed and there was no chant.”
Instead they invited her to preside over his burial. She ad-libbed a translation of Jesus’ words from John 14 in Curipaco. Before she prayed, she felt a hand on her shoulder. It was Paulo’s mother.
“‘How is my son?’ she whispered piteously. ‘He’s all right now. He’s with the Lord Jesus,’ I assured her, because I firmly believed it.”
This experience drew the Indians very close to her. She was now one of them. The Gospel had powerful relevance to them, and the changes in their way of living began to show it. Sophie was respectful of their cultural patterns, knowing that it was the believers themselves who had to make changes as the Lord moved in their hearts. About this time it was the leaders of Sejal themselves who decided to cancel their drunken dances (Muller 1988:38,39).
Prompts for Meditation on ScriptureSophie continued her travels along the rivers to village after village. Key leaders went with her. Sometime 11 or 12 canoes from one village would accompany her to the next, as individuals hungered to deepen their understanding of what she was teaching.
She describes a common experience on one of these trips:
Rain is coming, and my raincoat is over the duffle bags….Oh, how it poured! The heavens were surely opened. The Indians kept on paddling. I just sat, with slacks and shirt soaked through, holding a few big leaves over my head, shivering and shaking in the cold. A little scorpion had the “crust” to add to the general misery of the scene and bite me in the arm…My head aches; I’ve a fever, plus three big ulcers on my leg, all swollen up—otherwise, I’m feeling fine (Muller 1962:11).
As she traveled day after day in a dugout canoe, paddled by her faithful friends, she began translating portions of the New Testament into Curipaco. However, she noted that as some began to read, they would not stop to think and meditate on what they had read. They were just reading words. She then decided to insert questions in parentheses after every verse. In addition, in each chapter she starred a verse to be memorized. Now in the services, after reading a verse, the leader would ask the printed question. The women would answer the question, and read the next verse, asking its question. The men would answer, read the next verse and turn to the leaders. This simple pattern changed the Indians’ approach to Scripture – they began to think about what they were reading.
But Sophie was not content to see the Curipaco villages, one by one, learning to read and hearing the Gospel. The Colombian jungles are full of Indian communities that speak different languages. Through Curipacos who spoke more than one Indian language, she began to move into other tribal groups, and through their contacts and family groups, on to others. As the years went by, she and her helpers made contacts with and translated parts or the whole New Testament into Puinave, Piapoco, Guahibo, Piaroa, Cubeo, Karom, and Cuiva. In the process leaders were trained, churches organized, and pastors established. Villages planned daily meetings to sing the Gospel songs, read the portions of Scripture, answer the questions, and pray for one another. In a crucial moment in time, God was bringing an impressive, quiet harvest in the jungles of Colombia and northern Brazil.
After 20 years, there were 200 churches in villages up and down the rivers, under local leadership. Unable to visit so many places, Sophie had begun organizing semi-annual conferences to keep in touch with the leaders, and 28 were functioning, gathering thousands of Indians. Juan Muñoz, a young Colombian from Bogotá (see the article on Juan Muñoz in Great Cloud of Witnesses) had joined her and was establishing bi-lingual (Spanish and Curipaco) teaching training schools for the Indians.
OppositionAt the same time, Sophie faced opposition from many quarters. At first it had been the witch doctors. Then it was the traders and rubber planters who had been exploiting the Indians for generations, who were shocked to begin finding Indians who could read and think for themselves. Irritated with Sophie’s influence, they denounced her to the government as teaching subversive ideas, treating the Indians as slaves, and hindering the government’s educational program.
One of the elders, Rafael Cuichi, had been named chief representative to the government for the Indians of the Orinoco region. He happened to be talking with the National Security Police who mentioned the accusations against her. His response:
Señores, do you see these scars on my head and on my neck? I got those in the days when I was living in sin and drunkenness and in the customs of our forefathers before I knew anything about God. But then the Señorita Sofía came bringing us the Word of God. It put a light in our minds and changed all our ways. We gave up our drunken orgies and witchcraft rituals. We stopped poisoning our enemies and became a civilized people. To you, the Señorita Sofía might not be worth anything, but to us, yes! What have others done who pretend to help us? Did they go paddling up the creeks to seek us out when we lived like animals? No, it was the Señorita Sofía. All the Indians on these rivers know how to read, and they know about God. It was no one else that taught us (Muller 1988:182).
Marxist guerrillas arrived who preached revolution and sought to get the Indians involved in violent attacks on settlers and land owners. When the government finally began establishing schools in certain key places along the rivers, the teachers were young, atheistic men, fresh out of college, and full of Karl Marx. “We’re out to wipe out this fanatical religion,” they told a converted witch doctor. “When Sofia dies and you and a few others, we’ll get all the Indians lined up with us.” They reintroduced drinking, dancing, and partying, and ruined many of the teenage girls. Contact with “civilization” included leaders of religious sects with strange doctrines who sought to lead the Christians into “higher truths.”
The Impact of ScriptureThrough all of these influences, only the Lord could keep His Church faithful to the message they had been taught. Holding to the Scripture which had been their foundation from the beginning, the leaders sought to resist all these outside influences and keep their people faithful.
A few years ago, an American anthropologist with many years of first hand investigation among Indians peoples in South America pondered the following question:
Why and how did so many people—reportedly thousands of converts scattered across the plains and jungles of southeastern Colombia and northwestern Brazil—suddenly decide to cast their lot essentially with a stranger, a white woman [Sophie] who simply ordered them to stop doing what had been familiar to them for generations, centuries? (Wright).
I think Sophie’s answer would be the same she gave the trader who first took her to a Curipaco village in 1944. “I won’t change them, but the Word of God will.” In 1984, a television crew produced a video about the cultural life of a group of Curipacos. The commentators noted, “Most Colombians and government officials who visit the Curipaco people are surprised and impressed by their way of life. They tell us they don’t drink, smoke, or steal.” They portrayed their well-organized villages, clean houses, and high literacy rate. Before the telecast ended, the Curipacos were asked how this change came about in their lives. The leaders were quick to reply: “Forty years ago a missionary brought us the Word of God…” (Muller 1988:195).
Muller, Sophie. Beyond Civilization. A collection of letters written to describe jungle journeys while pioneering among a hitherto unreached Indian tribe in the jungles of South America. Woodworth, Wisconsin: Brown Gold (New Tribes Mission): 1962. This small book is lavishly illustrated with Sophie’s own drawings of jungle scenes and Indians.
Muller, Sophie. His Voice Shakes the Wilderness. Sanford, FL: New Tribes Mission, 1988. Sophie describes her conversion, her call to Colombia, and reviews 40 years of ministry.
Wright, Robin. For Those Unborn: Cosmos, Self, and History in Baniwa Religion. University of Texas Press, 1998.Wyrtzen, Jack. Personal comments about the conversion of Sophie Muller. http://www.wheaton.edu/bgc/archives/trans/446t03a.htm
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