Pig on the Loose
After a long search, I finally find Mono and he is following a friend, Kome, who is carrying his pig on his shoulders, back to his house. “I guess this is what we are doing today!” I think to myself as I follow behind. They explain to me that Kome’s pig had gotten loose and they were able to recapture it. They mention nonchalantly that we are going to now take out the pigs eyes so that he won’t get out again. WHAT?! This is one of many things we learn as we experience daily life with the Uruwa people. We tie the pig up and I hold his legs as they get to work on blinding him. Afterwords we let the pig loose back in his fence. He darts off and runs into the bamboo fence a few times.
Watching the blinded pig falter makes me think of the spiritual blindness we have already encountered among the Uruwa people. I have asked a number of people about their beliefs and it has become overwhelmingly clear that the majority of people know nearly nothing about Jesus. When asked about who Jesus is, one man said, “I don’t know, I was baptized for no reason.” and another said, “I don’t know, I think they learn about him in the Bible.” My good friend Mono said, “Many people preach cover-up talk, but when you guys put it in our own language, then it will be clear.” This is exactly why we are so motivated to master the Uruwa language! Right now we hardly speak on the level of a two year old, but we are learning more and more each day.
When we moved in, we had a big party and the night the food was being prepared, the Uruwa guys handed each man on our team a bow and arrow and told each of us, “with this arrow you will kill the pig,” With ceremonial elegance we pulled hard on the bamboo bowstrings and each let loose an arrow into our respective pigs. The pigs initially didn’t seem too bothered but eventually they died. We later found out that the Uruwa associate how well you kill the pig with how well your work will turn out to be. Apparently, we did a good job and they deem us capable to do the work we have said we have come to do. We know we aren’t capable in and of ourselves, it’s the Lord’s work we have come here to do and it’s only through Him we can do any of it!
We have been learning about many other parts of daily life like cooking, gardening, construction, and much more. We know many nouns, simple actions, and small phrases and are adding to our vocabulary each day as we grow our relationships with those teaching us. Thank you so much for supporting what God is doing in Uruwa, we couldn’t do any part of it without you! See ya next time.
Prayer and Praise
Please pray for continued opportunities for Christ to be shown in our lives to the Uruwa people.
Pray for God to help us learn this language and culture.
Pray for God’s guidance as we continue to build deep friendships and find a more language helpers. The Lord is already at work in answering this prayer! Please pray for Mono and Guong (husband and wife). They are quickly becoming good friends and good language helpers. We would love for our relationship to grow and for them to know Jesus one day.
Villages you can pray for:
Yawan (where we are located)
Kotet (20-30 min hike)
Towet (1 hr)
Worin (2-3 hr)
Mitmit (2 hr)
Mup (5 hr)
Please pray for our team to remain strong and unified in the Lord as we work together and make many decisions.
Please pray that our organization would be able to secure fuel to continue it’s flight program. There have been rumblings of a fuel shortage once again which would affect our ability to travel to and from Uruwa and we are trusting God to provide and guide.
Thank you for praying for Jess’s Australian visa! It was approved and our trip to Australia for medical appointments was a great success!
Pray for the continued strengthening of our walks with the Lord as well as our marriage.
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