How do I relate myself to Faith?

I still remember the time when I followed my dad to church every Sunday morning. Immediately as I finish my bowl of cereal for breakfast, my dad told me “Alice, if you go to the church I will buy you crackers or ice-creams.” Feeling excited from the beginning of the day, I always went to the church on Sunday mornings. Church was not a place that I promised to attend every week, but was a place that gave me treats every morning. However, it was also my starting point of believing in God. As growing up in a family with one Christian dad, I was not strictly required to be a devoted Christian. I actually had a choice of going to the church; I didn’t have to go if I was busy doing my homework. So, to me, Faith just meant trust to God. It was not a word that has a deep meaning. Since Faith means trust and I believe God exists, then I have Faith upon God! In other words, faith was like a math equation which proved that I believe in God.

However, after coming to TCIS, I realized faith did not only simply meant trust. After encountering faithful Christians in this school, I began to notice just believing in the existence of God did not meant that you have determined faith in God. (Even though I claim “I do believe in God,” sometimes I did not follow living a Christian life.) People who truly have determined faith did not only believe in the existence of God. They actually believe that they ‘know God personally’ and believe that He has prepared plans for their life. First, it was hard for me to understand about that issue. According to my faith upon God, God was a listener to me, rather than being a leader in my life. And how do I know whether God has plans for me? He doesn’t come up to me and say next to my ear “Alice I want you to finish up the blog quickly, since I have a next plan for you to do.” For several months, I struggled of understanding the true meaning of “faith.” I even doubted myself being a Christian, since I could not understand these issues thoroughly. However, soon I realized I am not an atheist. It’s just that I have a weak faith upon God.

Until now, I thought faith only meant trust. However, I realized faith is not a simple thing to understand immediately. It is like a tiny flower seed that develops over years through accepting Christ in life. First, it may be small and weak, but through God’s love, it may blossom, blooming into a bigger flower representing beauty of faith upon God. I noticed that faith is like a seed that only God and I can develop it together.

How did Christianity change this culture?

Through Peace Child, once again, I realized “Faith” can change people’s mind miraculously. Particularly, Christianity has influenced this Sawi culture in great extent. Before Don approached to this people, the culture depended on “Peace Child” to maintain peace between tribes. However, Peace Child was just a temporary promise between them; whenever the Peace Child dies, their peace also breaks apart. Without a Peace Child, it meant “no promised-peace” between tribes.

Kauwan turned away and said simply, “You should have given me a Peace Child. Then I would have protected you (pg 32).”

In the first chapter of the book, it described that Yae’s tribe and Kauwan’s tribe did not exchange a Peace Child. As a result, it didn’t matter whether Kauwan betrays Yae. This showed how the term “Peace Child” was important to the society and the idealization of treachery was part of their life. After fattening friendship with Yae for slaughter, they relished Yae’s flesh for their feast. Thus, killing the men and practicing cannibalism was perfectly normal to the culture. However, as Don Richardson spread the gospel and God’s love to the Sawi people by translating the Bible with the Sawi’s alphabet (which was created by Richardson), the Sawi culture began to change gradually. Jesus replaced the term, Peace Child, promising “eternal peace” among all of the tribes and cannibalism was also discarded.

In conclusion, I don’t want to think the changes of this culture made the tribes "lose" their culture. However, I think God has finally granted the real term of “peace” to the culture and led them to right way, by abandoning the wrong actions, such as practicing cannibalism. Christianity has influenced this culture spiritually.