Two deaths stir up Yembiyembis
"Papa, where am I going? Where am I going? I think you have fed me bad sago (lies). Where am I going? Where am I going?"
Osia, sick with a serious heart condition and asthma, was slipping in and out of consciousness before he uttered these last words.
Two minutes later, he died.
Since the missionaries arrived in this Yembiyembi village in Papua New Guinea, Osia's father forbid him to attend the Bible teachings.
"Mostly because his father had threatened to stop feeding him if he did," missionary Brooks Buser wrote. "A week later when Osia was fading, an Yembiyembi man had gone up to the house … and requested to give Osia the 'talk of life,' but the unbelievers in the house would not allow him to come in."
When Osia died, his father was shaken by his son's last words. Before, he was strongly against the teaching. Now he wants some of the believers to come talk to him about what they believe.
Another death in the village has affected believers and unbelievers within the village and outside of it as well.
Kevin, one of Brooks' translation helpers, who was not a believer died of malaria.
Kevin understood he was a sinner and that God would judge him someday, but he refused to agree with what the missionaries were teaching. He took a strong stand against the believers and told many of the first ones to be baptized, that God would kill them within a few months.
"Kevin was a strong leader of the opposition and his death churned up a lot of outsiders (from five other villages) to come 'investigate' what killed him," Brooks wrote. "This means that the changes that have been happening in [the village] are going to come under the judgment of some of these outside leaders and there will be lots of blame handed out for his death."
One Yembiyembi man, Robert, told Brooks that he discussed this future confrontation with believing leaders in the village and said: "This is not a bad thing. This will give us an even bigger chance to give them this talk. They will want to know what has happened and why we have changed. This will be a great opening for us. Leave this in our hands, we are ready, we have our spears ready (referring to God's Word). This is a chance and we will not miss."
Brooks and his wife, Nina, were on their way to a regional conference at this time of tension with surrounding villages.
Please pray that the Inanbimali believers will rely fully on God to show love and patience to opposing unbelievers.
Also pray for unbelievers, like Osia's father, who are curious about the teaching after witnessing these two significant deaths.