by Chad Owens, Dawn Kruger
Arrested because a revival among the people upset the religious leaders.
Three days in an unlocked cell because he promised he would not try to escape.
Reading God’s Word, singing, praying and praising God.
A second revival – this time among the prisoners.
It reads like the biblical story of Paul and Silas but it’s not – it’s the story of Mumure, a gentle pastor living in a small village of Papua New Guinea.
And the Word didn’t disappoint them. Revival broke out. The people turned from witchcraft and previous forms of worship, burning their idols and other spiritual relics. They sang the Psalms back to God in their own language, and even learned to play the guitar to enhance their worship. They used scripture songs as tools for spreading the Word among those who couldn’t read. In fact every verse of the Guhu Samane New Testament and all the Psalms were set to music. They did all this to the glory of God and the consternation of several church leaders, who condemned such practices.
The Guhu Samane people began to embrace even deeper forms of personal worship, and the church leaders became more and more displeased with this new group of believers. When this new, united body of believers began to grow exponentially, the displeased leaders conspired with the police to arrest Mumure and six of his friends, hoping to put an end to what they considered a cult. But prison walls cannot restrain the power of God’s Word.
While in prison, Mumure read aloud from an English Bible, translating the words into Guhu Samane as he read. Fellow prisoners listened to God’s Word in their own language and responded from their heart. Almost immediately, twenty men in that jail gave their lives to Christ and joined Mumure and his friends in singing, praying and praising God.
After three days, a government official came and ordered Mumure and his friends to leave, saying, “You must not go back to your home. Instead, you must go around and preach in all the remote places where we cannot go.” Like the Apostle Paul, Mumure left that prison commissioned by God to preach the Good News to people everywhere; but unlike Paul, Mumure had the blessing of the local government official to do that work.
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| Mumure’s son Steven outside the Translator Training Centre classrooms |
The revival never died out: it continues to reach a new generation. The vernacular Psalms and songs are still being sung in churches today. Youth and literacy programs promote the on-going study of the Guhu Samane Scriptures. Mumure and his son Steven have shifted from training pastors to training translators, encouraging Papua New Guineans to assist in translating the Word into other languages of that nation. Their desire is to see more and more people changed by the power of God’s Word in their own language.
Written by Chad Owens & Dawn Kruger
Jesus and the spirits
by Phil Carr
As told by Phil and Chris Carr, linguist-translators working with the Bamu people in PNG.
“You mean … the spirits here know of Jesus!!??”
“Too right they do! And they’re afraid of him!”
“Really?!”
“Yes, they all know him and are afraid of him.”
We sat in silence as Domai tried to take in the enormity of what we’d told her.
She sat there almost dazed, working out the implications and thinking back on her experiences in the past. She’d been a Christian for years, had taught Sunday School for most of that time, and had been a pillar of the area’s only church. For the first time, she began to connect her understanding of Christian teaching with the spiritual realities she had grown up with, of an all-pervasive fear of sorcery and evil spirits.
Why hadn’t she known this before?
Up to now, she had never heard the Scriptures in her own language. All that she and the others had to go on was what they could observe in church meetings, and the little bits of meaning they could squeeze out of the foreign language Bibles* that were occasionally available. So they faithfully copied the ‘church actions’ like singing a few songs and getting someone who could read to read out loud from these foreign Bibles. And she soon realised that being a Christian meant that you were not allowed to drink, smoke or gamble. Then you were a good person, because other people said you were, and that’s what being a Christian was all about really.
But the old beliefs and practices didn’t go away. They weren’t even challenged. Lots of people still went to the church meeting on Sunday, and called out to the spirits to help them catch fish on all the other days without thinking twice about it... Syncretism: Christian form without Christian content.
Now things are starting to change. God’s Word has now started to come into the Bamu language for the first time. Some people are drawing closer and closer to that lamp, and others are trying to hide from it. Plenty of surprises there! But the light has started to shine, because “The unfolding of your words gives light.” Psalm 119:130.
* English and Tok Pisin (Melanesian Pidgin)
"God is a Miniafia Man"
by David Wakefield
“God is a Miniafia Man,” the loincloth-clad speaker exulted! “Before He was English, and American, and Australian. But today He has become Miniafia!”
Walking in front of the “canoe,” Fran and I laughed and cried our way up from the water’s edge, through Utukwaf village, to the especially prepared veranda and speakers’ platform where the Dedication service would take place. We laughed with joy over the obviously enthusiastic reception of the Scripture: 750 copies of the 1000 printed had been purchased before this first had even arrived in the village. We cried in memory of our friends who had died without seeing the Book we were now celebrating. Among them was Utukwaf village chief Gideon Yowen. Not long before he died he said, “My son, you have lived with us now for many years. I love the stories you have translated, but I am now an old man. Soon I will die. My heart is most sad about this: I will never hold the finished Book in my hands.”
The Book that Gideon Yowen died longing for, his children and grandchildren now hold in their hands. It was a day we sometimes despaired of ever seeing. We had begun the project on December 7, 1973, but had to leave it barely half done in 1993. Thanks to the perseverance of national translators Stanley Oyabuwa and Josiah Javeve, translation was finally done and we were able to return to the project and help complete final editing and typesetting early last year.
Miniafia Church leaders, though, were anxious about one thing. “David,” they said. “When you speak, please be sure to let the people know that our work is not finished. As soon as we have rested from this celebration, we need to finish the Old Testament, and we need their continuing support.” Indeed, Stanley Oyabuwa has drafted 70 chapters in Psalms already. He and his wife, Ethyl, have committed to finishing the Old Testament.
Even before the echo of celebrating voices and drumbeats had faded from the air that weekend, the Translation Committee reported that the 900th copy of the New Testament had been sold. “How can we get more?” they asked in alarm. I couldn’t help but smile. What a wonderful problem with which to end a most memorable weekend!
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