When Headhunting Cannibals Met the Peace Child
Posted: Sunday, August 09, 2009
by Joel Kontinen
http://joelkontinen.blogspot.com/
Don Richardson is a Canadian missionary and best-selling author who ministered in New Guinea among the Sawi people whose culture could be characterised as stone age.
In the early 1960s the Sawi, cut off from the rest of the world, were still headhunters and cannibals. Don Richardson and his wife Carol found it hard to relate the gospel to people whose sense of morals differed diametrically from New Testament ideals. For instance, the Sawi thought that because of his cunningness, Judas Iscariot was the real hero of the gospels. They regarded treachery as a virtue. Their customs included fattening their enemies before eating them up.
But then, as the Richardsons learnt more about these headhunters, they got to know a fascinating story of the peace child. When warring villages wanted to make peace, they exchanged children. Giving one's child to one's enemy for adoption required genuine trust in one's foe.
The Richardsons realised that the concept of peace child was the key to winning the Sawi for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. God, too, had given a Peace Child to His enemies. As the apostle Paul wrote:
For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life (Romans 5:10).
For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross (Colossians 1:20).
The Sawi learnt the true meaning of the gospel through its analogy with their custom of the peace child. Eventually, they gave up their headhunting ways and wars that were all but civil.
God's Peace Child worked in their hearts, making them into completely new creations (see 2 Corinthians 5:17).
Don Richardson recorded their experience in the best-selling book Peace Child (1974) that Reader's Digest chose as its book of the month. It is a fascinating story of the power of the gospel to change lives.
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)Great history lesson--never knew there were headhunters that late into history (1960's). Good all around article.Thanks, Steve.Joel
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