By: Lael Crabtree
Infanticide. While it’s easy to romanticize living overseas and working with a tribal group, the reality (while incredible) is also very harsh. Monday for our semester kick-off, Phil and Val Paulson shared their story of living among a violent tribal group in Western Brazil. I was blown away by their faithfulness to live among such a volatile and depraved people, while raising 5 girls.
Val shared a story with us. Shortly after Val’s third daughter was born, a woman in the tribe was admiring the baby, and asked, “Is it a boy or girl?” Val said it was a girl and the lady slapped her newborn across the face and said, “You should have killed her.” Infanticide is common among the Yanomami. If babies are born too close together, or they already have too many of one gender they will kill their babies. They don’t believe a baby receives a soul until they are held, so often the baby is left rolling in the dirt while they decide whether or not to let it live. They also believe that to conceive a boy, a woman must sleep with several men––hence adultery is also common. Yet when a husband catches his wife with another man, protocol is to severely beat her. In fact, she feels as though her husband does not care if he does not beat her.
Not so romantic. Loving people who routinely dispose of their children is difficult to grasp. But that’s how God loves. And God’s love should be what drives us when we are sharing our lives with people who beat their wives and sexually abuse their children like it’s commonplace. The “goodness of my heart” is going to run out pretty fast, if I’m relying on my own motivations. I’m going to burn out. Reaching people is not about me and Jack; it’s about loving with God’s heart and bringing Him the glory for any good that comes.
Putting on a “band-aid” isn’t the solution. What good is it to tell someone to change their behavior, if you never address their heart? You’re treating a symptom, while ignoring the disease itself. They might stop killing their babies in front of you, or you might save a few lives, but things will not change. When people hear the gospel and they experience Christ in their lives, they transform sincerely. They stop killing because they know it’s wrong, not because some missionaries told them to stop. That’s why as missionaries, we don’t go to change culture, but to share Christ. It’s not about giving out some to do list, but to see lives impacted for eternity and changed by God’s love.
It’s amazing to think we are almost at the end of the road here at the New Tribes training center here in Roach, MO and soon enough we’ll be in a tribe of our own. What a journey!
My sweet friends,
I absolutely love reading your blogs. I hear your heart and God’s as you share in His mission for the world. I pray for you, I fellowship with you in the Spirit as we are physically apart but of one mind. As my Hannah leaves for YWAM Kona in 2 weeks to begin her mission journey, I can only pray that she will mature as you both have. Give my love to my namesake, and tell each other over and over how very much I love you both (and our new “on the way” tree!).
Stacy