There is a reason my village thatch house had no doors or windows on it and no real way to close it up and lock it down. No, its not that I’m so poor that there are no “goodies” in it. In fact, to any normal Kaxuyana it is packed with little wonders and mysterious gadgets – plenty to feed the curious hearts of many a boy. No, it’s not that I’m that lazy that I never got around to it or that I don’t know how to build a proper house. Although I do like the open feel, the easy view, and the unexpected visiting be it villagers or animals, that is not the reason.
The reason as we soon came to understand ourselves is much, much deeper than anything I could have fathomed. It goes back to a time before mine when some of the first missionaries set foot in that part of Brazil. It is perhaps the single most defining aspect of the ministry we now have amongst them.
As the story goes, there was an old missionary who came to live with the Kaxuyana and began living amongst them and studying their language. On several occasions in his absence the Kaxuyana stole many of the items he had left behind in his house. On one occasion they stole so many bright shinny beads that he used to trade with them and broke his camera. They say that on his return he became so frustrated with this continual cycle that he backed his bags and left. Left they say, straight through the jungle! And he journeyed through the jungle until he came upon another tribe where he settled, worked, and eventually translated the entire word of God into their language.
So to this day I’ll hear them warn their children, “Now don’t you steal from the missionaries, you hear, you earless children! If you do we will loose our chance to have God’s paper in our language! You see all we have is God’s paper in our neighbor’s language because we stole from the missionary long ago.” So even as I am thousands of miles away from my village house right now it remains open and easy to get into – and no I don’t have a doubt in my mind that everything will be right where I left it.