How to start a fight
Use the wrong word among the Moi people, and this could be the next thing you see.
When is a “bad word” not a bad word? When we look at another culture with our eyes.
In the Moi culture if you want to start a good fight—the kind with clubs, bows and arrows, some screaming and cursing—you can do it with just one word. Just start yelling someone's last name.
“The most taboo and inflammatory word in the Moi language is the family name. You don’t mess with it,” wrote missionary Stephen Crockett.
Perhaps that seems to make little sense. In western culture, we like our last names; in fact, we’re proud of them. But not the Mois, If you start flinging a family name around you’ve committed a grave wrong and started a big fight.
Recently, a man began yelling curses at Ketaya, a Bible teacher. Soon he threw the family name into the mix. When Ketaya heard his family name, he reacted. He grabbed his bow and stormed out into the yard ready to kill the offender. He was overcome with rage. It took five men to hold him back and keep him from doing harm. In his extreme anger he shook them all off and stormed into the jungle to cool off.
It looks bad—especially coming from a Bible teacher. Ketaya reacted in the flesh—in the normal way for a young man in his culture.
After a similar outburst he had shed tears of remorse. “Since when does a warrior cry and when would a Moi man hang his head in shame?” wrote Stephen.
Ketaya had messed up before because his culture had a strong hold on him. But the Gospel of love is shaking up his old ways, wrote Stephen.
“I have a confession to make – I think it’s messing with mine too,” wrote Stephen. “Last week, in our church service I developed a strange lump in my throat and tears in my eyes as I listened to these young Moi men preaching from Ephesians 3 about the love of God – in a way I’ve never heard it before.”
Pray for growth in the Moi church and that they will allow the Bible to form their lives.
Pray too for Stephen and Carolyn Crockett and Rich and Karen Brown as they disciple and teach the Moi believers and minister into their lives.