The missionaries' excitement soon turned to sorrow as another tragic death overwhelmed the village atmosphere.
Biasem, the young, married, only daughter of the village leader, gave birth to a stillborn baby and then, weakened from the ordeal, died shortly after. This time the teaching was interrupted for a few days while the community mourned the loss of this well-loved woman.
"Twice now with these two deaths -- one an old man, one a young girl -- [the people] are forced to think about who they are, where they are going, and how to find out the truth about these things," wrote Bill.
When the lessons resumed, the people listened as the missionaries taught about the creation of man. The people were in awe at Daniel's explanation of God breathing life into Adam.
"The breath we are breathing right now must be God's," one Inapang commented as the people walked home that day. "If He takes it away, then we will die, right?"
Little lights of understanding were beginning to shine. Every day men and women stayed after the teaching sessions to ask more questions. Biasem's mother asked the missionaries to teach from dawn to dusk.
Every missionary dreams of such opportunities, but other duties and other teaching in the village -- literacy classes -- wouldn't allow all-day teaching sessions.
Five Inapang literacy teachers were teaching 28 students to read and write their own language. "We are old and have white hair," said one man, "but we finally get to go to school." The people wanted to learn so they could read God's Word for themselves.
In the third week of teaching the people began to focus on their individual sin. One woman couldn't sleep one night and crawled out from under her mosquito net to join her husband by the fire. His thoughts were keeping him awake too.
"If one sin keeps you away from God," she told Kelley Housley the next day, "then I'm in trouble. … I am hearing the story and beginning to understand about God and now I am worried about how to get rid of the [sin] that I have on me. How am I going to straighten it?"
Over the next several weeks the Inapang people would hear about God's cure for sin as well as other issues they were dealing with -- like fear of the spirits and their quest for the secrets of life.
Some of the men told Bill that they had been promised that buying and using a certain medicine would open their eyes. Then they would be able to see into graves, talk to dead people and find out the secrets of life.
When the people heard about the sacrifices of Cain and Abel they asked, "Where are we going to get something to sacrifice?" The missionaries told them to keep listening and they would hear the whole story. The people were eager to hear it all.
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