A Radical Change

11. How did Christianity change this culture?

Christianity entirely transformed the Sawi culture. When many people in this culture began believing in Christ, they formed new morals, and their personalities altered.

First and foremost, after the amazing God entered into the Sawi culture, the Sawi shed their habit of being treacherous and tuwi asonai man, fattening people with friendship for slaughter. They no longer began to deceive their friends to gain fame and began to love each other. Instead of doubt, trust was in between two people’s relationship. This trust helped end the tension and hatred between two tribes and the wars tribes frequently had. Also, since the Sawi now believed that God had sent His one and only begotten son Jesus Christ, peace and trust between two nations or people was possible even without a human tarop tim, a peace child.

God also helped the Sawi end some of the immoral and horrid practices. For example, the Sawi used to have a custom of gefam ason, or touching the stench. In this custom, the Sawi relatives of the deceased would breathe in the stench of the rotting corpse while one would dance below the corpse until the maggots and flesh landed on him, insert his hand inside the corpse’s body, and with this hand, eat freshly cooked sago, a type of food. The Sawi performed these acts to express their sorrow, and they believed that if they did these acts, then the deceased will be able to resurrect. However, knowing God and His power over death, the Sawi understood that these actions would not bring resurrection and ceased to perform this custom.

Although the book Peace Child does not mention these changes, I believe that the Sawi also stopped the custom of killing the second twin. The Sawi used to practice this custom because they believed that the second one was a devil who was in guise of a human. Now that the Sawi believes in the one and only God and has more knowledge, I think they realized that the second twin was not a devil and took care of the second child just as much as they did the first child.

The drastic change in this Sawi culture truly portrays God’s power. It is rare to find a person or a society today that changed so radically. I truly believe that God has created the Sawi to show the world His amazing power and love.

There are others in this world who do not believe this awesome God exists, but… if God is not real, how could this drastic change occur?