Elka of the Wai Wai

"Certain celebrities are known by only one name. So it was with Elka, one of the most celebrated witchdoctors and chiefs of the Wai Wai people of British Guiana and far beyond in the Amazon jungle. A witchdoctor might seem like an unlikely candidate for conversion to Christianity. But Elka had been drawn to spiritual things from the time he was a child -- receiving dreams from the spirit of a pig telling him that Kworokyam, the god of the Wai Wai, wanted him to sing his songs and be his servant.
"While Elka dreamed of pigs controlled by evil spirits," wrote Homor Dowdy, "hundreds of miles away three brothers with another vision were planning a move that would bring them face to face with the Wai Wai." Neill Hawkins, the oldest brother at thirty-three, and his two younger brothers, Rader and Bob, had grown up in the "old-time religion" of a Christian home in Texas, and their mother was determined to one day send her three sons off as missionaries. They all joined the Unevangelized Fields Mission to serve in South America - in Brazil and British Guiana.
When Neill and Bob Hawkins began their work among the Wai Wai in 1949, they were the first white men that many of the people had ever seen, and they were initially thought to be enemies who had come to kill the people. But they slowly settled into the tribe, hired men to build a runway, and brought in their wives and children on what the native people referred to as the canoe from the sky. Elka, the chief and witchdoctor, quickly became fascinated with "God's paper," the Bible that had written words about God, and he eagerly agreed to serve as a language informant for Bible translation into his yet unwritten language. He had often felt insecure about the messages he was getting from the spirits and the Wai Wai god, but here the words were on paper, and he was learning to decipher that message himself.
"Elka did more than try to make the strange scratches on paper talk back to him. He was not content until he knew what the scratches said - not just what they said out loud, but what they spoke to his mind. In the Sunday lessons, in the reading classes, and in the long language-informant periods with Bahm (Bob Hawkins) he learned about God and His Son, Jesus Christ.
Most of his people were slow to learn. But Elka had a yearning to know that made him awake each morning eager for another session .... Bahm had once thought he was presenting God to Elka in a spiritual vacuum. He was wrong. Elka believed in the spirit world with more conviction than he did in the physical .... It was not hard for him to believe that God was a spirit."
(Homer Dowdy, Christ's Witchdoctor Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1973)
But Elka was not ready to forsake his role as witchdoctor for the Wai Wai people. He wanted to beieve what the missionaries were teaching without having to give up Kworokyam, the god of his people. Initially, the tension between the two belif systems stimulated his thinking and brought excitement into his life, but as time passed, the tension was "fought in the pit of his stomach," "Brought despondency," and "worried Elka constantly." When he was told that "God's paper said he could not serve both God and Kworokyam," he knew he would have to make a choice. Finally, after a long struggle, he recognized what God wanted him to do - how God wanted him to serve his people. He made his decision - to be "Christ's witchdoctor."
Being Christ's witchdoctor, however, meant that Elka would no longer use his charms to heal the sick and drive away evil spirits. This caused great distress among the tribal elders, who insisted that he could "walk with Jesus" and use his charms at the same time. In the midst of this tribal conflicts, most of the people continued coming to the Sunday services, and Bahm taught Bible classes to some of the men in small groups.
As Elka studied the BIble every day, he spent more time with the missionaries and visited their homes. And "seeing the tools of the white man's culture, he developed an appetite for the things they had." He wanted a high chair to keep his baby off the floor, even as they had for their baby. He wanted an outboard motor for his canoe ast hey had, and he watned a light in his house at night. "He wanted to exchange his loincloth for shorts." These were difficult issues that had no easy answers, and the missionaries "tried to explain that they did not want to make the Wai Wai dependent on the white man's world." There was often strain between the two sides. "But the mood did not dominate his life," writes Dowdy. "He lost no occasion .... to be a witness for Christ."
The patient and persistent work of the missianries, with the tribal leadership of Elka, resulted in a continual stream of conversations. Within a matter of years, the Sunday preaching was turned over to Wai Wai Christians, a practice that began when one of the Hawkins brothers lost his voice and Elka volunteered to fill in. His sermon on Daniel was a "revelation" of "Elka's ability to speak with ... a ring of conviction in his voice."
With the growing community of believers came a desire to reach out beyond their own clan. "Elka was concerned about the Wai Wai who still lived across the high mountains .... He wanted them to learn the way of Christ." So as chief, he commissioned his brother to go to them and invite them to come back and learn God's way. That was the beginning of mission outreach, and it continued as Elka commissioned others to go even farther with the message of God's paper.
"They made a start by inviting the Shedeu and the Mawayana, people very like themselves, to come and hear the Gospel. But there were strange tribes farther away, people they did not know or people they had always feared, who still lived without hope in fear and suspicion, hatred and killing ....
For the Wai Wai it was a hard choice. They would have to leave their familiar land, travel... through strange towns of the white man's civilization ... Who knew whether they would ever return?" (Christ's Witchdoctor)
Among those who went to the regions byond as a foreign missionary was Elka, who sent prayer letters back home telling of his experiances and encouraging the Wai Wai to remain faithful to God. While he and the other missionararies were away, others planted their fields and took care of their domestic needs. When he returned, Elka had colorful stories to tell about the natives' customs - other tribes that were so different from their own, including tribes of white people who took their bath in a "shower." He found the little community of believers among the Wai Wai to have grown, as outsiders came and joined the original group. The clan of 200 had grown to 350. But there were always the temptations of people going back to their old ways.
For Elka, there were new ways that he was obliged to adopt. His missionary work required contextualization: "The Waica men wanted us to cut off our pigtails and look like them," he told his people. "At first we didn't want to. It would take many rain seasons to grow long again. But then we felt it was no sacrifice at all, if by cutting off our hair we could make the Waica know that because of Jesus we loved them."
As the Wai Wai took over the leadership of their own church and reached out in mission, the two Hawkins families moved on in their ministry, Neill and his family to conduct mission work with the Trio Tribe in nearby Surinam, and Bob and his family to finish up the translation of the Wai Wai Scriptures. "By 1962 the Wai Wai had gone on as many missionary trips in as many directions as a man had fingers and toes." writes Homer Dowdy. "A few of the trips were with the white missionaries. Most of them were ont heir own and by themselves .... Some Wai Wai travelers ran out of food. Others got sick on the trail."
These were the trials and tribulations of missionaries fromt he time of JEsus, and the Wai Wai were part of that tradition."

~From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya~
Copyright 1983, 2004 by Ruth A. Tucker

Missions quotes

"To quote that noted football philosopher Vince Lombardi, 'When the going gets tough, the tough gets going.' But that begs the question. How do you get tough? Where do endurance and staying power come from, especially in the Spiritual realm, which calls for a special kind of toughness. We live in a difficult world that is not friendly to the life of a disciple. The Lord was well aware of this, and one of His great concerns was to prepare His followers for life in this hostile world. His people can be resilient and Spiritually tough. However, that resilience is not the product of determination, but of prayer."
~Gary Inrig~

"(Most people's prayers should be)cut off on both ends and set on fire in the middle."
~D.L. Moody~

"Martyrs are holy men of God who fought or stood for truth, even unto death, so that the Word of God may be made known and falsehood and fictions be overcome. Such a sacrifice is offered to God alone, thus the martyr is recieved in heavenly honor. This means that God has rewarded the faith of the martyr with so much grace that death, which seems to be the enemy of life, becomes in reality an ally that helps man enter into life."
~St. Augustine of Hippo~



"Shall we beat a retreat, and turn back from our high calling in Christ Jesus; or dare we advance at God's command, in the face of the impossible?.... Let us remind ourselves that the Great Commission was never qualified by clauses calling for advance only if funds were plentiful and (there is) no hardship or self-denial involved. On the contrary, we are told to expect tribulation and even persecution, but with it Victory in Christ."
~John Stam, Missionary to China and martyred with his wife in 1934~


"It was Christmas Eve and night was descending on the jungle. There was no way I could get back home. Back in Pennsylvania, my folks would have returned from Church and Mother would be getting the turkey ready. Outside the snow would be faling.... In Yarinachcha, six hours away, Nancy and the boys would be sitting at home alone. They knew by now, because I had been able to radio back that I was stuck in the jungle. I would not be with them for Christmas.
"Oh God," I moaned, "I'm in the wrong place."
.... That night, under my mosquito net I had a visitation from God - something like those shepherds must have had on the hills of Bethlehem. There were no angels, and no bright light. But as I lay there on my hammock, desperately homesick, I felt I heard God say:
"My son, this is what Christmas is all about. Jesus left Heaven and on Christmas morning He woke up in the 'wrong place' - a stable in Bethlehem. Christmas means leaving home, not going home. My only begotten Son did not come home for Christmas - He left His home to be with you.""
~Bernie May, Pilot for Wycliff Bible Translators~

"To conclude, therefore, let no man out of weak conceit of sobriety, or in ill applied moderation, think or maintain, that a man can search too far or be too well studied in the book of God's Word, or the book of God's works."
~Sir Francis Bacon~

"The Bible makes plain that there should be effects in Society from the preaching of the Gospel, and voices were raised to emphasize this fact and lives were given to illustrate it."
~Francis Schaeffer~

"The greatest missionary is the Bible in the mother tongue. It never needs a furlough, is never considered a foreigner."
~William Cameron Tonswend, founder of Wycliffe Bible Translators~



"The word 'give up' (in the Greek) describes the temptation to quit in despair when we are tired. Giving up is motivated by weariness that comes from living in a sinful, hostile world, feeling worn out by injustice, mistreatment, misunderstanding, and personal failure.
How do we keep going when we feel like bailing out? The cost of being a disciple tempts us to loose heart. Swimming against the current is tiring - why not go with the flow? It is easier to float than to fight. How tempting is it to drift with the current morally, socially, ethically or spiritually! How do the tough keep going - by determination or positive thinking or strategic retreat from the world?
The Lord's formula is clear and simple: "They should always pray and not give up." The antidote to despair is not determination but dependence, not positive thinking but prayer. And "should always pray" doesn't say it quite strong enough. Prayer is not something we are permitted to do if we please. The word should be translated 'must': "They must always pray and not give up." Prayer is what we are commanded to do as God's will. It is the only sure basis of perseverance, since it is the means God uses to accomplish His will in our lives.
Furthermore, we must not ONLY pray, we must ALWAYS pray ("Pray continually" 1 Thessalonians 5:17) "Pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayer and requests." Ephesians 6:18. Does that mean our time must be spent in nothing but prayer? No, but it does mean that we must do nothing WITHOUT prayer."
~Gary Inrig~

New Testament homework

Being the humble sort of person that I am (yeah right) and recognizing the genius of my writing (humble too) I thought I would grace you all with another excerpt from my New Testament homework. Not just because I'm sure you all will benefit from my genius, but also because I just thought a lot of these details that I learned were cool.
I really am a humble person. Really. I just like to sound like an egotistical snob from time to time. Hehehe. Anyway here is the brilliant addition to my student writing portfolio:

3. List and discuss five of the reasons the author gives as to why John is so different from the other Gospels.

1. Matthew, Mark and Luke were trying to capture the public Jesus for the Church, and may have thought that the more private conversations and moments between them and Jesus were not necessary for the public to read about. Also, they were written only twenty to thirty years after Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. The personal memories may still have been too private to publish for all to see. John however was written at least forty to sixty years after Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. He had much more time to process the information, and had probably shared these stories with many in his ministry already and saw no reason why he shouldn’t publish them.

2. John’s writing style is very unique. Matthew and Luke were educated themselves and John Mark spent a lot of time with Paul and Barnabas. Paul at least was a very educated person and would have influenced John Mark to become more educated in his speech and writing style. John however was raised as a fisherman. While they were probably educated in necessities such as reading and basic mathematics for trade purposes, fishermen were definitely not scholars. When writing down Jesus’ dialogues, John uses 145 words that are unique to His vocabulary. It is possible that John’s speech and writing style was influenced (‘upgraded’ if you will) by Jesus.

3. As already mentioned, John was writing during a much different time than the other three author’s of the Gospels. He was also writing in a different place (Ephesus rather than somewhere in Palestine). His acculturation, age, and the time he was living in would have effected his writing style.

4. While the other three authors are apparently trying to capture facts exactly as they remember them and simply give a narration of events that took place, John appears to be adding some conclusions after years of thinking and processing the events.

1. Summarize the author’s comments on the message of John the Baptist from Mark’s Gospel.
Mark 1:4 says John’s ministry was “Preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”
This English translation can give several impressions on the word ‘baptism.’ Is it an adjective to the word ‘repentance,’ or is it the means through which repentance comes? I found the author’s comments on the Greek and Hebrew very interesting at this point. The Greek word for repentance, metanoia, means a changing of the mind. This is often, I think, what we in America think of when we say ‘repentance.’ We simply change our mind towards life, God, etc. and the change in our life and actions happens very slowly. However the Hebrew word for repentance, shuv, meant a dramatic change in action. This is I think what we need to emphasize as we go into the world making disciples. That repentance is a dramatic change of actions, a shuv, as well as a dramatic changing of how we think about things, a metanoia. But it must be BOTH.
Also, the Greek preposition eis, ‘for’ can also be translated as ‘directed towards’ or ‘with reference to.” So the phrase in Mark 1:4 could be better translated: “Preaching a baptism of radical change in actions and thoughts directed towards being forgiven of one’s sins.”
John also predicted, alluded to and hoped for Jesus’ coming. While his ministry seemed to emphasize baptism far more than this, Jesus’ baptism was the highlight of John’s ministry.
2. The author divides the incident of the baptism of Jesus into four sections. Identify and summarize each of the sections.
~It’s purpose: Baptism of Christ implies that Christ needed washed of his sins. However, we know that Christ was sinless. How then do we understand this? Repentance in Israel involved a corporate confession of sins. As His flesh was of Jewish heritage, Jesus could participate in this corporate Baptismal confession, even though He had not sinned. As corporate confession was required for the fulfillment of God’s appeasement for Israel’s sins, it was necessary for Christ to be baptized.
~Accompanying Signs: All four Gospels refer to a dove, but all four use the word ‘like.’ Something appeared that was like a dove, not necessarily an actual dove. Doves in the ancient world symbolized peace, love, and divinity, but more importantly God’s Spirit in Creation. Jesus was about to begin a ministry of re-creation. Another sign was the Voice from Heaven. God’s voice had not been heard in Israel for hundreds of years until that point. He had sent His angels as messengers, but had not been heard Himself.
~Its’ Message: While the word ‘Trinity’ is never used, this is a vivid picture of the Trinity: The Father speaks from Heaven while the Spirit descends upon the Son Jesus.
~Historicity: This passage is very confusing in it’s theology, therefore why would the early church make it up? It raises several questions such as how can Christ be baptized, how can God the Father be one with the Son whom He is sending His Spirit upon all at once, etc. The early Church certainly would not have included this story if they were making it all up or if it were not important.

3. A. Contrast Jesus’ encounters with Nicodemus and with the Samaritan woman. B. What application concerning the relevance of the gospel can you draw from that contrast?
Contrasts are fairly easy to name. Nicodemus was a man, a Jewish Leader, well respected in the community, a leader of that time, and spoke with authority. The Samaritan woman was a nobody, rejected from her community, shame was on her name both in her own community and in the Jewish community due to her race and her life choices or circumstances, and was trying to just get through life.
Nicodemus went in search of a conversation with Jesus; Jesus initiated the conversation and pursued it with the woman. The Jews were expecting a Warrior King to come throw the Roman oppression off the people. The Samaritans, however, were looking for a Taheb Messiah; more of a Teacher and a learned man to come among them. This made it easier for the woman to recognize Jesus for who He was, where Nicodemus needed to be walked through the Gospel message step by step, despite his education and wisdom. While Jesus boldly confronted Nicodemus with the hypocrisy of the Jewish Leaders and with his own doubt and ignorance, He was much more gentle with confronting the Samaritan woman in her sin and life circumstances.
Their similarities are that both of them thought Jesus was just a wise teacher at the beginning of their conversation. Neither of them really understood Jesus’ parables or analogies for them of Living Water or being Born Again.
The conversation with Nicodemus seems to simply evaporate into the rest of the Gospel of John. This implies to me that Nicodemus did not respond immediately to what he had heard, but had to think through and sift through what Christ had told him. The Samaritan woman, on the other hand, ran and told her entire village about Jesus, even though she seems to usually avoid socialization with the other villagers (as implied by the fact that she went to the well during the heat of the day instead of in the morning or at night like women usually did during that time).
I think we can see by how the Gospel is presented in the two different cases that there is no one perfect formula to be applied to all situations when sharing the Gospel. Jesus did not use a ‘cookie-cutter model’ of presenting the Gospel when talking with Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman. He knew where they were at in their life and spiritually and met them there. He used analogies and parables that were applicable to them in their situations. Also, He was socializing with both the highest order of that time (Nicodemus) and also the lowest order of that time (the woman). Nicodemus was not in his comfort zone and Jesus was stepping outside the social boundaries of that day by talking with the woman. Likewise, we should not be afraid to help those who are timid in learning about Christ. Nor should we fear reaching out to ‘the least of these’ or those who are generally shunned by ‘normal good people.’


See? I told you. I'm a genius. :-)

~Princess Ouch~