Unraveling the beads
The Akolet people of Papua New Guinea waited two weeks to find out what a string of beads represented and on Monday they got their answer.
They thought they would find out a week earlier about the beads but another village meeting was called that postponed their scheduled meeting with missionaries Adam and Julie Martin and Ryan and Sarah Warner.
Everyone in the audience listened intently as the missionaries began unwinding the multi-colored beads. They only unraveled about 700 of the 6,010 and then called upon one of the oldest men in the village, Aiglas, to come and tell them what year he was born.
Without explaining that each bead represented one year, the missionaries told the people that the string represented time. They asked Aiglas to guess where on the line of beads he was born.
He and everyone else in the audience estimated that since he was so old he must have been pretty far back on the beads. They were surprised to find out that he was only in the first 100 beads.
The missionaries then mentioned other events that the people were familiar with -- Papau New Guinea’s Independence Day, World War II and the first airplane. The earliest date they referred to was when the Bible was first translated into English by John Wycliffe.
Next week the beads will be unraveled the rest of the way and the people will be encouraged to come hear about the creation of all things when evangelistic Bible teaching begins in January.
Aiglas will finally get to hear the teaching he has been asking for. He first requested New Tribes Mission to come teach in his village in the 1990s, but there were no missionaries to send at the time. In September 2001 a survey was done among the Akolet people and Aiglas again confirmed that he wanted missionaries to come.
A final survey was done in May 2006 and shortly thereafter missionaries entered the tribe to begin the process of bringing the Gospel to the Akolet people.
Please pray that the missionary team will be able to clearly present God’s Word to the Akolets and that the hearts of the people will be ready to receive it.
They thought they would find out a week earlier about the beads but another village meeting was called that postponed their scheduled meeting with missionaries Adam and Julie Martin and Ryan and Sarah Warner.
Everyone in the audience listened intently as the missionaries began unwinding the multi-colored beads. They only unraveled about 700 of the 6,010 and then called upon one of the oldest men in the village, Aiglas, to come and tell them what year he was born.
Without explaining that each bead represented one year, the missionaries told the people that the string represented time. They asked Aiglas to guess where on the line of beads he was born.
He and everyone else in the audience estimated that since he was so old he must have been pretty far back on the beads. They were surprised to find out that he was only in the first 100 beads.
The missionaries then mentioned other events that the people were familiar with -- Papau New Guinea’s Independence Day, World War II and the first airplane. The earliest date they referred to was when the Bible was first translated into English by John Wycliffe.
Next week the beads will be unraveled the rest of the way and the people will be encouraged to come hear about the creation of all things when evangelistic Bible teaching begins in January.
Aiglas will finally get to hear the teaching he has been asking for. He first requested New Tribes Mission to come teach in his village in the 1990s, but there were no missionaries to send at the time. In September 2001 a survey was done among the Akolet people and Aiglas again confirmed that he wanted missionaries to come.
A final survey was done in May 2006 and shortly thereafter missionaries entered the tribe to begin the process of bringing the Gospel to the Akolet people.
Please pray that the missionary team will be able to clearly present God’s Word to the Akolets and that the hearts of the people will be ready to receive it.