Picture your neighbors running around town waving weapons.
Grabbing lumber from their yards and running through the streets carrying it.
Singing together loudly all night long.
Obsessively scrubbing everything in sight.
Building a big hut to house an influx of visitors.
In some neighborhoods, you might not need much imagination. I hope your neighborhood isn’t like that.
But that’s what it would be like if you lived in a Gaviao village where someone had died recently. All the things they do after a death have spiritual significance to them. When the rituals are done, the village can get back to normal.
The Gaviaos respond to death differently from us because they view death differently. To them, death isn’t caused by old age or disease or accident. All deaths are caused by the spirits, and sometimes caused by someone manipulating the spirits. So each death is a reminder of the fear they all live in.
Even sadder, however, is their complete lack of hope.
Virtually all of America is steeped in enough of a smattering of Bible knowledge to think there’s a good place that people go when they die. And no matter what people’s loved ones are like – and what the survivors are like or what they say they believe — there’s usually at least a hope that they’ll be reunited in some happier place.
The Gaviaos traditionally don’t have even that. Death is just an end. The grave is permanent. There is no hope.
That’s why it’s so important for missionaries Arnie and Diane Kitchener to live among them and share God’s Word. That’s why it’s such a milestone that 13 Gaviao believers were baptized – fittingly, on Independence Day. And that’s why your involvement in our ministry is so important.
Julie and I are helping others get involved in the work God is doing – helping people like you help the Gaviaos and others who have had no hope. This glorifies God, blesses you and others who get involved, and of course brings God’s hope to people who have lived in darkness and fear.
Please look around our site and find ways you can be involved, or more involved. Thanks!
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