September 24, 2007

A Papua New Guinea man injured 40 years ago is now demanding compensation.

Two Hewa leaders, Was and Wankifa, were told they needed to make a huge payment for a wound inflicted in the late 1960s. The two men had been part of a raid in which a man was killed as payback for a previous murder. The man who is now making demands was injured during the raid.

For more than a month, the families of Was and Wankifa gathered pigs and money to make a huge settlement. They then invited the family group of the injured man to come and receive compensation. People arrived day after day until more than 200 outsiders were gathered.

As the people gathered tensions mounted. About ten days ago both sides began performing traditional rituals to flex their muscles.

The ceremony for the compensation settlement took all of last Monday. Pigs were staked in six straight lines of 14 pigs each. Then, when everything was ready, the group receiving the pigs was allowed to inspect the payment and ultimately to take the pigs. Tension mounted as the process dragged on.

By late afternoon most of the pigs had been given away, but a few people were disgruntled with the size of the pigs they received. An argument was brought to an abrupt halt when a gun was fired into the air, striking terror in everyone's heart.

The crowd was sure that someone had been killed. Panic ensued as they ran around frantically with their weapons ready for action. Women screamed and fled while men raced here and there trying to find out who was shot and who did the shooting. Pandemonium prevailed for more than an hour, ended only by darkness and the beginning of rain. The tense mood left everyone feeling that someone would get killed during the night.

The next morning, as a huge crowd gathered in the front yard of missionaries Jonathan and Susan Kopf, memories of Tomas' murder a year and a half ago were fresh in the missionaries' minds. They and the rest of the believers were praying for God's intervention.

"And now, looking back, we believe that God did intervene," Jonathan wrote. "He caused people's hearts to be calmed down so that they started to back off from their previous demands and threats."

Slowly over the next several days the crowd thinned out as people returned to their respective villages.

"During this whole time we have been teaching every morning through the book of Mark, and often I am struck with a new awareness of what it must have been like for Jesus to have been constantly surrounded by mobs of people," wrote Jonathan, who finds himself becoming impatient with the "outsiders" who didn't come to hear God's Word.

"But at the same time the Lord speaks to me and says, 'I had compassion on the multitudes.'" Jonathan continued. "I have been continually praying for compassion, and I have also been looking for ways to explain this to the Hewa believers from the passages in Mark. It is our job and the job of the Hewa believers to show Jesus to these people who were otherwise their enemies."

Some of the believers have responded to the challenge. Eyaka told Jonathan how a previous enemy from a neighboring tribe has come to him more than once saying he wanted to hear God's word.

The missionaries were excited to hear that this man, who has caused many problems for them and the Hewa people, is now showing signs of hunger for God's Word.

Please pray that God's Word will continue to change lives among the Hewas and that the Gospel will spread to their neighbors.