Isn’t it great to take a swim on a hot day?
I realize this past winter may have some of you trying very hard to remember what a hot day is like. I’ll wait.
You’re back? Got a picture of a hot day?
Good.
Now picture a refreshing cool swimming hole.
Don’t you want to just jump in and cool off?
Hold on! You can’t! Hey, don’t get upset with me. At least you’re feeling warm. And I just saved your life.
You see, this swimming hole is the home of the creature your people fear the most, the Paisori. The giant serpents live in deep pools of water and deep in springs. And they eat anyone who ventures into their waters.
At least, that’s how it would be if you were one of the Guarijio people of Mexico.
They believe the Paisori can also call rain, shape-shift to appear like people or animals, play the violin and steal your spirit. OK, yeah, I’m not really sure what’s so evil or dangerous about the violin either, but anyway …
If they steal your spirit, you have a limited amount of time to get to a shaman so he can dream and learn where the Paisori has taken your spirit and find out what needs to be done to get it back – or you’ll die.
Well, it just happened that on one particularly warm day the missionary team among the Guarijios was near a great swimming hole. And since they don’t believe in the Paisori, they went swimming. And since they had a camera, and wanted to get the Guarijios thinking about their worldview, they took some pictures. And they shared the pictures with some of the Guarijios when they got back to the village.
The people passed the photos around, looks of confusion and wonder on their faces.
“Isn’t that where the Paisori lives?” one asked.
“Nothing happened to them,” another said, surprised.
The missionaries watched and waited for the Guarijios to come to the conclusion that perhaps something was wrong with their beliefs about the Paisori.
“Wow,” one man said. Here it comes, the missionaries, thought.
Wrong.
“The Paisori doesn’t eat you guys!” “You guys” meaning, people who aren’t Guarijios.
Well, it could have been worse. They could have concluded missionaries taste bad.
The point is, the Guarijios interpreted the pictures through their own worldview. The Paisori is very real to them. So they could not imagine it didn’t exist. They had to conclude that there was some reason the Paisori didn’t eat the missionaries.
That’s why it’s so important that missionaries learn not just the tribal language, but the culture – the worldview, the grid through which they interpret everything. Which is exactly what NTM missionaries do.
On the one hand, that results in strong, well-grounded believers.
On the other hand, that requires a lot of time and a good support team for those missionaries in tribal villages, so they can concentrate on the difficult task at hand.
So we thank you for being part of our team, so we can help folks like the missionaries among the Guarijios, so that some day soon the Guarijios can hear about Jesus in a way they will understand clearly.