Peibek (Part 1)

Recently in our community there was an accidental death at the “drinking spot”. Some claimed it was a murder, others weren’t sure, but as a result, the fear of “peibek”—revenge—was on everyone’s mind. The man who had died was living in Barunga, but was born in another community several hours away from Barunga. The death happened on a Friday night. In the middle of the night Saturday, seemingly the entire community of Barunga (about 650 people) just left. Sunday morning, Barunga was so quiet it was strange. Kind of like everyone decided to take a vacation all at the same time, and we didn’t get the memo.

We later discovered that some people had stayed behind, though about 90% of the town left.

Why did they leave so quickly, in the middle of the night? Fear of Peibek. I found out exactly what happened in the week following the incident, as I was taking some people to a neighboring community so they could be OUT of Barunga, just in case.

“Why are you guys leaving?”

“They might be here any minute! They could be coming in a 10 person van from M(on one side of Barunga) and another group coming from K(the other side of Barunga). We’ve got to get out!”

“But you guys didn’t do anything, did you?”

“No, but they don’t care. Just any black person who lives in Barunga isn’t safe! A man came to our house in the middle of the night and banged on the door. He was yelling, ‘They’re coming! They’re coming! GET OUT NOW! QUICK!’ So that’s why everyone left in the middle of the night. We couldn’t leave because we didn’t have a car. We didn’t sleep at all! So, now we’re leaving. …”

The fear of revenge is very real and everyone seems to understand the seriousness of the matter. For about a week and a half, there was only a small handful of children at the Barunga school, where there is usually over 100. Classes were not run for lack of students, and some teachers left Barunga to sleep in Katherine to be safe. Our family was completely safe. We had no fear, because, "what can mere man do to us?" But there was a bit of curiosity on my(Jared) part.

Please pray with us for people to come to know the Lord on both ends of this "peibek" situation, and to learn that God is the one who will avenge, it's not for us.

Also, please pray for the church leaders from the communities to be a light to others and to point them to Christ. Without Christ, there will be no lasting eternal change, or forgiveness.

Blood, Sweat, and Tears

It's the middle of the night, and out our window we hear yelling. Angry yelling. We were concerned and wondered if we should talk with the person who was screaming, or let it pass. Since it was a strange circumstance and we had just moved to Barunga, we decided to sit down and pray for that person--and not get involved.

As we have lived in Barunga for over a year and a half now, there have been several things we've gotten used to that aren't necessarily ordinary in our home culture. One of those things was made VERY obvious during one of our first weeks here, and has happened many times since. This is my observation:

Yelling at the top of the lungs for everyone to hear your anger seemed to be rather common if there was a dispute. This isn't usually accompanied by violence, in fact usually it was just yelling. Just to let everyone in town know that a wrong had been committed against the individual. There are accusations, anger, and many hurt feelings. This anger could be kindled by a rude behaviour, a nasty word, a mean-spirited text message, or grog.

Our community isn't the only one to deal with conflict in this manner. But does that make it the culturally right way to go about conflict resolution? I was thinking about it, and I decided to go ask Jocelyn, one of the church leaders here in Barunga what she thought about all the yelling and anger. She basically told me that's the way people do it if they've been drinking too much, because they aren't really in their right minds. However, after they have come to their senses, they go to the family and talk it out, quietly, and respectfully. We are extremely thankful God has given us a wise older woman to help us with cultural understanding. We call her "Nana Jocelyn". God has given us more than one wonderful helper when we don't know what to do culturally, and locally. :)

As many of you know, my indigenous brother went to be with the Lord recently. I was blessed to share at his funeral service, but I accidentally mentioned his name when I was sharing. In indigenous culture, you NEVER mention the name of the person who has passed away again. So, after uttering his name, I almost "chucked a spit" which is (in some communities) a way of rectifying the mistake, but decided to just keep moving through the message, and referring to the man as "my brother" from then on out. It wasn't hard, because I was used to referring to him as my brother, but I was still embarrassed I had used his name in the service(especially because there was a microphone with two big speakers pointing out the windows for everyone to hear what was happening at the service!).

After the service was finished, I asked one of the church leaders, "Did everyone notice when I said his name?" She said, "EVERYONE. But it's okay, because you called him your brother. The family wasn't offended at all. It's okay. Don't worry about it."

Moving on to the gravesite, I watched as many men and women approached the casket, stuck their fingers deep in their armpits, and then rubbed the casket with those fingers. I noticed the men first, and some women doing the same thing. I thought, "What in the world is this?" No one acted offended or outraged that this was happening, so I asked our friend what was happening. She said, "These men all worked with him, and shared sweat with him. They wanted to leave their scent on his casket. It's like saying, 'We shared life together, and I'm here now to say goodbye.'" I asked her if I should do it too, or if there was a deeper spiritual meaning. She said, "You were very close to him. It would be fine if you did it too. You should."

At first I wasn't to sure, and I thought of my brother, and his life he had shared with me. If this is how they expressed their grieving and I could relate, I wanted to do it. So, out of respect and love for my brother and his family, I did it as well. I stopped at the casket for a moment, and prayed for his family, his sons, and for Barunga and indigenous folks all over here. Our family wants to share our sweat, blood and tears with the people here in Barunga and beyond. We want them to know Christ, and the power of his resurrection, and the hope he brings for each of them that trust in Him. By God's grace, we will be a part of sharing with them that hope.

The Luk DVD!

What are these people doing at our house?

This evening was the first opportunity we had to share the Luk DVD in Kriol with the church here! Instead of our normal Tuesday Baibul Study, the ladies decided they wanted to watch the Luk DVD instead! :) The Luk DVD in Kriol is the Bible book of Luke in a movie format. In Kriol it is over 3 1/2 hours long, with 3 DVDs, so we watched DVD 1 tonight, and will continue watching the next 2 weeks(this is per the ladies' request! :) )

Thank you so much for all your prayers for us as we worked on this DVD and during all the editing, prompting, and production. Please continue to pray that this new movie would be an effective ministry tool and would draw men and women to Christ. Thank you! :)

This is only the beginning of sharing the Luk (Luke) DVD in Kriol. We will be traveling to many different communities to give it to churches and individuals that were involved, and hopefully setting up times to show it in the communities! We're very excited to see how God uses this movie to reach folks. May God be glorified. :)

AND on a lighter note, we discovered that NO ONE in our living room from Australia likes red licorice. Everyone was given a long red licorice(which a friend gave to us...from the states!), and all the kids handed them back to me--some licked, and others with a small bite out of one side... Oh well-- I got extra! A question one of the kids asked me was, "What does it taste like to you?" I said, "Cherry, sort of, I guess."

Question 1 Answered...(Hopefully!)

Have you been surprised at all by how God had prepared you uniquely for the task He's given you? How has God cultivated you and those around you for the work you are doing now? What difference does it make?

It has been amazing how God prepared us for this very place before we knew we were being prepared. There have been times when we've both said, "If we hadn't been in Bena before this, it may have been more challenging."
There have been many ways God has prepared us in the past for what we've been doing here. Specifically, God has given me a desire to learn languages, and an ability to do it. In high school, I took Spanish and French, which I enjoyed. Now, Cheri and I are learning Kriol, some basic conversational Tagalog, English(Aussie-style), some Maiali(another indigenous language in our area) and we're enjoying it!

Barunga is not as "out bush" as other communities down the road from us, but we are about
80 km from Katherine. Katherine is the city where we do all of our shopping each week, or every other week. When we lived in Bena, we were about 40 miles from Bemidji, or Grand Rapids(two shopping towns). So, we were used to the distance, and it hasn't been hard to adjust to it.

Another thing God has given us both is a love for His Word, The Bible. God has used the Bible to speak to us in many different situations, before we reached "the field" and now that we're here. As an example, before we came over, we were a bit concerned about what we were going to do to survive. We were at about 30% of our monthly support raised, and we were entering into "real life" with a bunch of bills we hadn't had before. For example, we had a rent payment(before we lived in a parsonage--free), our health insurance went from $75/month up to $750/month. I was leaving a consistent, reliable pay check each week and fortnight, for a monthly "if people give" check. This was weighing on Cheri heavily as we prepared to leave, and then one morning as she was reading her Bible, she thought of a verse her grandmother had quoted from memory, but couldn't remember where exactly it was found... She thought, "Was it Hebrews 13?" (It wasn't what her grandma had quoted, but....) This was the verse that she read:

Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said,
"Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you."
So we say with confidence,
"The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?"

So with confidence and a bit of nervousness, but a renewed sense of trust, we moved to Texas for language school, trusting God to provide.

Again, God has used His Word time and again to encourage our hearts and help us. We would not be here if it were not for our love for God's Word, and the message inside!

I was given an opportunity to have a friendship with a man here in Barunga, and he just recently died of cancer. During that time, God blessed me with the opportunity to sit with him and his family on several occasions, to pray with them, and to read the Kriol Baibul with them. In the middle of his sufferning and immediately following his passing, God used His Word to speak to them, and they were hungry to hear it. On the morning of his passing, I came and sat with the family, and we had a Bible study. We read through 1 Corinthians 15, about the resurrection of the dead. As we read through the Kriol Baibul, at each section, they asked, "Okay, would you explain it to us?" So we talked about it. This is the very thing I wanted to do!

Something else that has been a big blessing to us is Tuesday afternoons. Kriol Baibul(Bible) study day is an encouragement to me. It is refreshing to not only read God's Word with others, but to have them genuinely interested and thinking about how it applies to their lives.

When Cheri and I were going to Bible college, we were trained in how to study the Bible in context. I still remember one of our professors saying, "CONTEXT CONTEXT CONTEXT!" That is something we have been able to apply in a huge way here. There has been a heresy that has been traveling through the churches here through "guest speakers": the health and wealth gospel. "If you're a Christian, you should NEVER BE SICK! Just have faith, and God must heal you!" Then they quote from Isaiah, "...By his wounds you have been healed..." They have failed in a big way to put it in context. Unfortunately, many people seem to be decieved by that teaching. That was the first thing to "hit us" upon moving to Barunga. THe church we are a part of here has had good Bible teaching from past missionaries, but there are other communities who have no pastor, and have not be taught how to correctly handle the Word.(2 Tim. 2:15.... actually, please read verse 14 to the end of the chapter... Actually, read the whole book! :) )

With each passing day, we continue to learn more Kriol, build relationships with the people here, both indigenous and non-indigenous, and God has been opening doors for our ministry. :) Any way we can help people to study God's Word and know Him better, we want to do it.

We have not been doing this alone. We've had many, many people join our team back home, who are praying for us and the indigenous folks, and supporting us regularly. We are truly blessed and humbled as we remember the sacrificial giving of each of you. Thank you so much for partnering with us in the gospel. God is answering our prayers, and He is drawing men and women to himself.

Question from the Mullets:

There are so many things to blog about, and life continues to happen. Are there any questions you have regarding our lives here in Australia, snakes, bugs, our work with AuSIL, Wycliffe, our family...? Any questions you have we would love to help you with. Please just ask them and I'll do my best to address them. Thanks for all your prayers and support, we would not be able to do the work we are doing without all of your sacrificial giving and prayers. Each of you is a blessing to us, and a vital part of our team here. You are not forgotten, and we're deeply grateful for your partnership in the gospel with our family.

God bless, Jared for the Mullets

A Quick Update From Down Under

This last week has been a blur of excitement and busyness. Things have been going fairly well, with some twists and turns. We have 2 guests staying with us for the next 2 weeks. Greg and Jean Giles! We have enjoyed having them here and they have been a huge blessing. (I haven't had to do dishes this entire time!) We have done a few "touristy" things with them up in Darwin, and then came down to Barunga 5 days ago.
We were planning on having G and J stay in the downstairs flat which we had prepared for them. Both of them were saying, "I hope we don't see too many snakes while we're here! Yuck!" I assured them that we didn't see that many, and it wasn't going to be a problem to worry about. Well, the first thing they saw after looking into their flat and checking out the bathroom was this:
So, needless to say, they are staying upstairs. :) Luckily it's just a children's python, and we haven't seen it since. :)
Please pray for continued healing for Alice. She has been a bit sick and unable to eat without throwing up for a couple of days now. We took her to the clinic this morning and found she had lost 2 pounds (1 kg), but the nurse said it just had to run it's course and everything else looked normal. Alice did NOT throw up today, and she did eat something(salad... definitely her Mother's daughter...) She is currently asleep and put herself to bed at about 6:30 this evening without dinner. So hopefully she is healing up. If you could pray for complete healing, this Daddy would appreciate it a lot. :) We're trying not to worry, but that's easy to do.
Our Tuesday Kriol Baibul Study is a big blessing to us, and to the ladies as well. Today there were 11 people there (including Greg and Jean, Cheri and myself), and one man. :) We talked about the trinity. Boy, did I feel inadequate!
Thank you so much for your prayers for us and for taking an interest in our family and ministry, you are all a blessing to us.

He IS risen!

Yesterday "main braja"(my indigenous brother) passed away. Though I have been sitting with him and his family for over a month now, reading the Kriol Baibul with them, and praying for him, yesterday was another opportunity entirely.

As I was sitting with the family, my mind was racing, "WHERE can I find a verse that will comfort this family? LORD! PLEASE HELP ME!" As I sat there in the chair next to my brother's shell, with the family waiting for some encouraging word, my mind was racing. I've never been in this sort of situation before!

By God's grace, I remembered a chapter I had read in 1 Corinthians. Chapter 15 was the chapter I read with the family, in Kriol. 1 Corinthians 15 speaks of the fact of Jesus' resurrection and as a result of HIS resurrection, those who are His will also be resurrected. As we were reading through the chapter, (my brother's widow, her mother, their cousin and her husband) we read a section at a time.

Her cousin said, "Please explain it to us. What does it mean?" So, for each part of the Scripture, I stopped, and we talked about what it meant. Praise God that Jesus Christ IS risen! We talked about the different kinds of seeds bearing different fruit. And how the body we have now must die in order to have the new one(unless we're alive when Christ comes back and we're changed in the blink of an eye). We talked about the 2 Adams(Adam, and Jesus), and how Jesus gives us life. Then we talked about how Christ defeated death. We talked about the final day, how all the dead in Christ will rise up to be with him in heaven. We continued to read about the new bodies we will receive on that day. That our current bodies aren't meant to last forever, but there is the new body which God will give us on that day. We talked about the new bodies for a bit, perfect heavenly bodies. As I read the verses, the people would "hum" their agreement. It was like as they listened, it was encouraging their hearts. I pray it truly did.

We read through the entire chapter, and talked about it. Everyone there was listening intently. Please pray with me that God's Word would take root in their hearts, and that they would read that Scripture again and again (as they said they would!). Please pray that I may continue to be a blessing to their family, and for wisdom in how best to comfort them in the days following my brother's death. Thank you!

* You may have noticed I didn't use my indigenous brother's name at all. That is because in indigenous society, when someone passes away, out of respect for their family the name isn't used. The only thing used is the relationship term for that person.