Hewa: Part One

Thank you all for praying us through our recent tribal experiences!  Whew.  Our life has been a whirlwind lately!  It's time to catch you all up on what we've been up to!

Okay, so a bit of background is needed.  Remember how I have mentioned that we've been having lots of team discussions with our partners (David and Emily)?  And we have been researching different tribes and praying lots about where God might be leading us?  

Well, just here in the Sepik region of PNG alone, there are probably around eight different tribal groups that we could go to.  This means that the tribe has communicated with New Tribes that they want missionaries to come to them, and then they have been surveyed by New Tribes as a strategic place for a missionary team to allocate.  And then, after all of that, they get put on a sort of "list"...and we've spent lots of time pouring over that list!  And praying over it as well.

Okay.  So.  About Hewa.  

Hewa is a people group here in PNG.  It is located in a mountainous area, and it is a pretty big people group.  Sixteen years ago, a team of missionaries moved in to Hewa and began working to learn the language with hopes of planting a church.  (Some of you might remember Sarah's blogpost a couple of months ago, she did a giveaway of a book called Canopy of Darkness.  That book is about Hewa.  Check it out!  It's an amazing book that tells about the early years of the missionaries being in the tribe.)

Okay, stay with me!  So many details to explain.  Anyway, as time passed, the missionaries (Jon and Susan) began to realize that the Hewa language is actually made up of several different dialects--and many of the dialects cannot understand each other at ALL (so they could probably just be considered completely different languages...)  What this means is, the bible translation that Jon has worked on for so many years will only be understood by about a third of the Hewans--not all of them.  To finish this Hewa work, and say that the Hewa people have been reached by the Gospel--there needs to be two more teams of missionaries to work in other dialects.  This is a huge job!  But it needs to be done right--and that means, finishing the work.  Making sure that ALL of the Hewa people have a chance to hear the Gospel and read the Bible in their language!

Now.  Hewa is just one of the tribes that we (us and David and Emily) are looking at.  We need to pray about it a TON, and also our guys will need to go on an extensive survey to check out possible locations, dangers, desires of the Hewa people, etc.  So we don't know yet, but we are praying.

Well, about a month ago, Nathan and David began to think about trying to get in and visit Hewa (the village is called Yifki--where Jon and Susan work among the Hewans.  There is also another missionary family in there now--maybe some of you have read the Tribal Wife blog that's on the sidebar of my blog?  That's Jessi!  In recent years they have joined Jon and Susan to help in this church plant)

Nathan and David checked the flight schedule and figured out a time that they could get a flight into Yifki.  They had SUCH a good trip!  (also, check out my last blog post to see a play by play of how Emily and I coped without our hubbies that week!)

They flew in...to this GORGEOUS area!

Their week was filled with talking to the missionaries about Hewa and talking to the Hewa people (some of the people know some Tok Pisin--not very much, but a little bit).  They spent lots of time with the Hewa men--hiking with them, and just being with them.  They hiked to one man's house in the jungle, and slept in it one night.  This man is a believer, and that night Nathan and David listened to John Michael (the missionary--Jessi's husband) talk with him about the Lord and then he read out loud from his Bible (the translation that Jon has worked on).  So they spent two hours listening to this man talk about God and read the Bible in his own language!  Nathan said he and David kept looking at each other thinking that this was for real just the coolest thing EVER.

Also, they had another awesome experience...

There was one man who hiked with them to see a huge rock in the middle of a big river.  This man told Nathan and David that his dad used to be a witch doctor, and he had grown up in total FEAR of this big rock.  His dad had always told him that spirits lived in it, and that the spirits would eat him if he got close to it.  Well, now, this man is a believer!  He trusts Jesus now, and he doesn't fear spirits any longer.  As if to prove this, he took Nathan and David to see this rock, and then he swam across the raging river to stand triumphantly on the rock!  Just amazing.  The power of the Gospel is so beautiful!

Our hubbies were also in Yifki over a weekend, which meant that they could attend church alongside the believers.  What a privilege!

One last thing.  Right now, there is a man in Yifki who hiked (a five day hike)--from another Hewa village.  This man's name is Pisu, and his village has asked many times for New Tribes to send missionaries to them.  They speak one of those other dialects, so the people in Yifki can't even understand Pisu (there are one or two people there who can understand him just a little bit, though).  Anyway, Nathan and David got to meet him and sit with him.  It's just so crazy, you guys.  Pisu doesn't speak any Tok Pisin, and he doesn't speak the dialect that they speak in Yifki.  He is COMPLETELY cut off from the Gospel.  What an overwhelming thing.  It is very clear that this will be an amazing opportunity for some missionary team--we are just asking God if it will be us.  Here is Pisu, sitting with Nathan:

Well, our guys came back from their Yifki trip super encouraged and also burdened for the Hewa people.  They told us all about it, and they told Emily and I that they would LOVE for us ladies to get in to Yifki at some point, just to meet the people and talk to the missionaries...but we didn't have any idea how we could ever make that work!  At least not anytime soon.  Our whole month of August is completely booked up, and life is just crazy right now!  But we prayed about it...and we all know that God works in crazy ways when His children pray!!  If you follow me on instagram or facebook, then you know how God answered our prayers...But I will pick up this story in the next post :)