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<\/a><\/p>\nI have had many hours of culture study these past 2 months. It\u2019s always so very interesting to hear of the beliefs and stories passed down from generation to generation. Some of the things we hear are a \u201cthrow back\u201d to similar type sayings I remember my grandma telling us. One example would be \u201cif you drop a fork on the floor you can expect visitors to be coming to your house from the direction the fork points\u201d- said grandma. Well the one I heard the other day from someone here was that if you choke on water while eating that\u2019s a good sign and someone is thinking about you and missing you. But if you just start choking on your own spit then it\u2019s a bad sign and means someone is talking behind your back.<\/p>\n
Another aspect of the culture I\u2019ve been trying to go a bit deeper in is the spiritual belief system. There are so many different spirits\/ghosts beings that they mostly fear but often call on for help, healing, wisdom, and protection. One in particular is a spirit that the stories claim, taught them how woman have babies. Supposedly way back when, when a woman was pregnant and about time to have the baby, they would cut the stomach open to \u201cget the baby out\u201d and then both mother and baby would die. Well a ghost put a man in a type of trance by a certain tree and told a story of how it should be done- with people pushing from the top and sides and letting the baby come out naturally. Well when the time came for that man\u2019s wife to give birth that is exactly what he did. And to his great surprise it worked and was then the new way to deliver babies. This is still the traditional way they deliver, with people pushing from the top and sides during delivery. They are so glad the ghost told them the right way or they never would have known. And that type of tree where it happened is a lucky tree where you can communicate with the spirits. So now they can cry out to the spirit (a monkey in the story) for help when they are really needy.<\/p>\n
About a year ago there was a young man who drowned in the river and so they called out to that spirit at this lucky tree, asking the spirit to let them know where to look for his body. So it\u2019s a lucky tree and a haunted tree. They often hear weird noises in the night coming from these types of trees.<\/p>\n
Keep praying with us that God would open the people\u2019s eyes to the Truth and free them from the bondage they live in. Pray also for our team as we labor each day to understand the people\u2019s worldview and try to put God\u2019s Word into their heart language!<\/p>\n