Last night we finished the teaching for this week with Adam and Eve being kicked out of the garden, God rejecting their clothing, and providing His way, it was heavy.
The Yembi's are animist's with 40 years of semi-Catholic teaching, and thus have mixed nearly everything and come up with a hybrid "religion" that can be bent to shape any belief.
As they watched God follow through on his promise to Adam and Eve and began to get a better picture of what God thinks of sin, his absolute standards, and that no man can hide anything from Him, the quieter and quieter the teaching sessions have become. We still have over 100 kids under the age of 10 that can really make some noise, and my foot gets a workout kicking all the dogs that wander in when we are teaching, but the adults are tracking well, and the young men are not missing a beat.
2 days ago we taught on the fall and the ramifications of Adams sin and how it applies to us today. As the Yembi's heard for the first time that men don't get bad knees from holding their grandchildren, people's backs don't hurt from sitting on a chair that a menstruating woman has sat on, women don't experience pain in child birth from their husbands planting posts in the ground, and many others, it looked like they had been punched in the gut. Many afterwards were saying something along the lines of "Our fathers and grandfathers were lied to", "How many did Satan trick before our time", "We have been eating and swallowing lies till now, enough!!".
The beauty of following God's story as God gave it (chronologically) is that for every punch in the gut man receives, there is always a promised escape from the pain that we brought on ourselves. The promised redeemer was also in that lesson, and everyone was ready for a little good news. Though many in our tribe know that this talk will end up with a guy named Jesus, none of them really know why, or how He is able to remove sins and take our dead "Adam-ness" and bring it life. One of my brother-in-laws said, " I heard that talk (the redeemer) and my liver (the seat of emotions) jumped. I will hear about this freeing bridge-man (the man that will be the bridge between the children of Satan to the children of God) and no one will keep me from crossing".
As many of you remember only 10 days ago Tino died, and the shock from that is just now settling down. Fortunately, Tino's death has not stopped people from coming to the teaching, but has had much the opposite effect. On the first day back teaching we held up a picture of Tino that had been taken during one of the lessons (Tim happened to have taken a shot of Tino 48 hours before he died, sitting at the teaching, reading the scripture), and everyone got the VERY clear reminder that we are short-term people on this ground, and it could be over for them or I at any moment. The fact that Tino was so faithful at coming to the teaching has been hard for many (us included), but it hasn't deterred them from the main point, that right now is their chance to hear about God and to understand what He requires of them before they go the way of Tino.
Kerobim is still attending and still listening from a distance (he likes to sit 10 or 12 feet outside the teaching house) and sometimes gets up, leaves and then comes back and stands in the back of the teaching house. The last 2 days we have seen a major break from the Animistic/Catholic worldview and it has been hard to swallow for some of the older people, so none of us are completely sure how Kerobim is handling it, but he continues to be there and has yet to stand against the teaching at all. Keep praying for him, he is still very influential and like I said in an earlier e-mail, he would be a major force for the gospel if he were to understand.
The teaching starts back on Saturday, but on Friday night we will be holding the graduation of our 3rd literacy class. This class is…priceless. The class (22 students) has a handful of older men but is mostly made up of older women from the village. Everyone of them is either an aunt, mother or grandmother to everyone in the tribe, and they have been faithful in the longest running literacy class we have had so far. Because this class as taken longer, other people in the tribe have given them the nickname "stone head class" or something comparably flattering. But these ladies and men are AWESOME. Through floods, death of a relative, short food supply and a good deal of ridicule, they have persevered with many being able to read the scriptures well, and with a huge sense of pride. It is one of the few times in YY history that any group has committed to something for this length of time, without the lure of money or immediate social benefit, and have fulfilled their commitment, it really is a landmark.
Next week we step into these lessons:
Sat- Cain and Abel
Sun- Cain's offspring, Seth and the Enoch
Mon – The setting for the flood and Noah
Tues- The Flood
Wed- Tower of Babel
Cain and Abel and the Flood lessons are HUGE for these guys, and we need you praying for some specific things as we come into this phase of the teaching…
- That their lost-ness, and their in "Adam-ness" would be pounded home with each lesson.
- They would realize that in themselves, in their good intentions, there is nothing that can save them (very hard for anyone, let alone animist/catholics to get away from "doing" something).
- That they would tie their only hopes of getting out from their "Adam-ness" to the coming Redeemer.
Guys I could write pages on the things we have seen and heard that are flat out AMAZING, but I have already written more then I previously said I would. Thanks for sticking with us, keep praying, keep holding up your individual people in prayer, and by faith we will see them respond to the Light.
Thanks much,
Brooks, Nina and Beau Buser
P.S. The pictures are at http://www.flickr.com/photos/yembiyembi/ and letters, links and other stuff is at http://bringingthesecrettalk.blogspot.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment