God is changing Hewa believers' lives
God is transforming the lives of Hewa men and women through His Word.
“The Hewa people traditionally believed that sickness and death were caused by a bad spirit inside of someone who would eat the spirit of others,” missionary David Pierce writes. “When someone died, the people would determine who had the bad spirit inside of them and would put that person to death.”
But David says that God is transforming the lives of Hewa men and women through His Word.
Though most people had followed the ways of their ancestors until recently, there were a few men who were the exception. These men had heard the Gospel as teenagers and had consistently not followed traditional Hewa ways.
Bible teaching had changed their perspective radically on many cultural issues. “They understood that sickness and death were caused by sin—starting way back in the Garden of Eden,” David explains.
One of these men teaches the Bible each evening in his home, a home that he built in the valley where traditional Hewa beliefs said that bad spirits lived. This man deliberately built his home with openings for light to come in—openings that had always been strictly forbidden by Hewa cultural tradition, which held that any opening was an opportunity for evil spirits to enter a house.
But, David says, this man lives in the reality of being freed from the bondage of those old fears. “He is truly a new creation and is free from the fear that used to dominate his life.”
David and his wife, Michelle, are deeply encouraged to hear testimonies of people who have been transformed by the Gospel of Christ. “Not because of Western influence or education or anything else,” David says. “It is simply God using His Word.”
Through David’s role in communications, he assists missionaries by putting “resources into their hands to help them represent God’s great work.” His background in photography, video and computers helps to accomplish this task.
David is reminded that it is the power of the Gospel that makes people into new creations; creations of God’s redemptive grace who can truly say with 2 Corinthians 5:17, “…Old things have passed away; behold all things have become new.”
“And that is why I came to Papua New Guinea,” David writes. “To see God change lives.”
Pray for David and Michelle Pierce as they support and help missionaries in Papua New Guinea. Pray that God will help missionaries to clearly present the Gospel to the end that Hewa lives will be released from fear, transformed and God will be glorified.