Moses' first question showed missionary Bill Housley what he was hoping for.
"When will we able to quit harvesting sak sak [sago] and eating it?" Moses asked. Sago is a staple, but harvesting it is hard work, and it's a bland food.
"Sorry, probably never," Bill replied. "That's not why we came."
Bill turned the discussion toward the reasons the missionaries came to his village.
"Where will you go when you die, Moses?" Bill asked.
"Really we don't know," Moses replied. "Do we have a spirit that will go on after we die or not? We don't even know the answer to that."
That is the kind of thing the missionaries plan to begin teaching about in June, Bill told him. Moses said he was excitedly anticipating hearing God's Word.
Moses also had a concern. He quieted a couple of the kids playing near where the men were talking and said, "I am worried. Have I already broken God's law or will I be able to understand his talk too?"
A few months ago Moses was named as the father of two children by two different unmarried women. He was thinking of marrying them both, which would be perfectly normal among the Inapangs. Then someone in the village told him God's book says it's wrong to have two wives, so Moses made a decision.
"I have told everyone just to wait," he told Bill. "Next month, I am going to sit down and hear what God's talk says for myself and when I can point to this thing and say, 'That is wrong' and point to this thing and say 'That is right', then I will decide what to do!"
Bill noted in a newsletter this week that while Moses "is going to have to deal with the consequences of past sin, he is not without future hope! It is hard to hear things like this as we think about the two young girls waiting to hear what will unfold, but exciting to know that they are searching for truth and looking to apply it practically to their lives."
Pray for the missionaries are they prepare to teach in June. Pray that with the help of some of the Inapangs, they will be able to develop Bible lessons that clearly present God's Word.
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