NTM - New Tribes Mission | Planting Tribal Churches

God is at work in Dao tribe of Indonesia. After six days of trying to think of a cultural way to explain some of the deeper truths of Ephesians 3, missionary Scott Phillips the Dao Christians if they understood what the passage was saying. God gave them the answer.

Here is the very exciting email from Scott recounting this eureka moment:

It never ceases to amaze me how the truths of God’s word are applicable in any culture! It wasn’t but a few weeks ago now that I was faced with the task of finding a way to explain to my fellow Dao teachers some of the deeper truths of Ephesians three. Specifically some of those hard to understand statements in verses two through nine like “By revelation he made known unto me the mystery;… 5 Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men…6 That the Gentiles should be fellowheirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel:…9 that all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery…”

We always try to come up with cultural illustrations of the things that we teach on so that the Dao believers can better understand what is being taught, but this specific passage was really posing a challenge for me. I thought “How can I explain to the Dao people that don’t even barely know that they are a part of the country of Indonesia because they are so far back in the jungles, that through a great ‘mystery’ they were once just Gentile people but have now been undeservingly given the place of ‘fellowheirs’ of the gospel and have become the same as Jewish people?!!” I was just plain stumped. I thought and thought about it for about six days and finally just kind of threw up my hands and said “God, I am just gonna try my best to teach this, but I don’t see how they will understand it unless you do something special this week to guide them to the right understanding”

When we gathered together the next day with the Dao Bible teachers to review the lesson I started by simply reading the verses and then I asked them “What do you think about these verses? Do you think you know what they are talking about?” They sat there in silence for a few seconds thinking about what I had read to them and then Daapoi was the first to speak. He looked at me with a sort of half-grin on his face and said “I think i get it”. I told him to go on an explain what he was thinking.

“Well, you see there are two types of pigs here in our lands. The domestocated pigs we call “ekena” but the wild pigs we call “tapiyaa”. When we are out hunting a wild pig, every so often after we kill the pig we find that it has a few young wild piglets. So we take these little wild piglets, put them in our string bags and carry them back to our house. When we get to the house we will take the pig and find the teeth that will eventually turn into it’s tusks and we yank them out. Then we put the piglet back in the bag and just leave it hanging on the wall of the house until it gets used to its new surroundings. We begin to mash up sweet potatoes and feed the baby wild pig by hand until it is used to our presence and understands that we take care of it. Then we teach it to recognize our voice and our pig calls so that when we call the other domesticated pigs, the wild pig will also respond to our calls and come running to us. We wait and watch and feed it until it learns and responds to our pig calls. Then at the moment it begins to respond to our calls and knows our voice and sees us as it’s caregiver we say ‘This is no longer a ‘tapiyaa’ (wild pig) but from this point on it is an ‘ekena’ (domesticated pig)!’” (Top center picture – Waiyoo with one of the young pigs she is raising)

The other three Dao bible teachers present (top left photo – Debatoma and Kogipiyaa and top right photo – Paatoma) began to take turns chiming in – “Yeah! That is exactly what God did for us isn’t it!”…” We Dao people are not part of the Jewish people but are Gentiles and so we were like wild pigs that had no place with God’s group of people.”…”But He has taken us from the jungle and transformed us and given us a place in His home”… “That’s right! and He has taken care of us and fed us by His hand, and He has taught us His words and now calls us His own even though we were once nothing but wild and undeserving!”… “That is what these verses are talking about isn’t it?!” they asked. And I couldn’t help but laugh out loud with joy at this awesome cultural illustration! I had just spent nearly six days wracking my brain for a way to explain this to these guys and couldn’t think of anything! And then God’s Spirit working inside them through His Word turned around and led them to this awesome truth in a matter of seconds. God is doing His work. Jesus is alive. God’s Spirit is still working in places like Dao and all over the world even today changing hearts. God’s Spirit Himself is the greatest teacher of all teachers, teaching people in ways that we missionaries never could! As the Dao people would say, “Taking people from the jungle and changing them from wild ‘tapiyaa’ into wonderfully transformed ‘ekena’.”

Last week I received this update from the Dao tribe where our coworkers are ministering.

“No man knows the day that I will die, but the Creator knows. Will I die while I am young? Will I die while my wife and I have only cut the cords of two children? Will I die when I am old and have lived a long life? No man can know such things, but the Creator knows. And if I die while I am still young, then the Creator has chosen that for me. I am ready to go up to that good place above the sky and live with Jesus.” – Wikipai

Most people get all the nice things said about them after they have already passed away. This last week however the exact opposite took place in the Dao Valley.

We were recently told that we needed to plan on coming out to town for a couple weeks so that we could sign our yearly visa renewal papers. We also around the same time heard from some dear friends of ours, Simon Tanner and his family, who head up the organization called Helimission, that they would soon be coming from Switzerland to Indonesia for a conference. The Tanner’s said they would love to come and visit Dao while they were in Indonesia so that their family could see first hand the people that their organization serves. We told them “Come on in! We would love to have you!” and we made a plan to go out to town via helicopter to do our visa paperwork after their visit. The Dao believers were likewise very excited to have an opportunity to thank Helimission for providing these interesting dragon-fly-looking contraptions called “heli’s” that have played such a huge part in bringing them the message of Jesus.

The Sunday before the Tanner’s arrival the Dao believers discussed with us a plan to have a feast in honor of Helimission in order to show their appreciation. After the Sunday service that all left for their various gardens and then showed up a few days later with lots of different garden foods along with some very expensive pig meat to celebrate the occasion! The next day, after the Heli arrived … we all gathered together and the Dao believers had a few of the more prominent men stand up and share. We translated from the Dao language to English for them.“…If it wasn’t for you people that carry the heli around, we would still this day be living in darkness with no knowledge of what Jesus has done for us. We thank you for carrying the message bearers here so that we could hear of Jesus!” spoke out Kopeedi in the midst of everyone gathered.

Then it was Simon’s turn. He stood up and pulled two small shiny packages from his pocket. After sharing for a little while about how it was Helimissions privilege to be a tool which God uses to carry the gospel message to those who have never heard, he said that he had something to say specifically about Wikipai and Daapoi. “There are two men here that I have heard many things about. I have heard of how they have been faithfully teaching God’s Word here…I have heard about how they have encountered many challenges and sicknesses in they’re trying to carry the Message of Jesus to the Taomi people…I have heard about how the enemy has been working against them…and I have great respect for these two men who have been faithful despite these sicknesses, challenges, and attacks from the enemy. We have come here also to show our appreciation to them….And that is why I want to present these two, small, special gifts to Wikipai and Daapoi to show our admiration for them this evening and encourage them to not give up in well-doing!”

You should have seen the smiles on their faces when Simon reached out his hand with those little shiny packages in them and presented to Wikipai and Daapoi two brand new, bright red, Swiss-made knives, hand carried-from Switzerland especially for them. The Dao people thought that they had gathered for a special feast just to honor Helimission but it had been turned around on them and ended up being a feast that the visitors had used to honor the first two Dao Bible teachers and evangelists, Wikipai and Daapoi. They were lifted up in front of their own people and all those gathered for their faithfulness despite all of the hardships and sickness that they have recently encountered in their endeavor to spread the gospel. Four days later we received Word that at approximately 5:00 a.m. on this last Wednesday morning, God took Wikipai home.

It is hard to explain with words how we feel right now. As I am sure it is hard for anyone to explain how they feel after they have lost a close friend. We don’t pretend to know why God chose this specific path for Wikipai. We don’t understand why God saw fit that Wikipai’s wife Moipi and their two kids Tawekabo and Damekauwo would be left without their father at such a young age. But one thing we do know and that we do not for a single second doubt is that for His own Glory and for the Dao people’s good, (Romans 8:28) God soveriegnly chose this for Wikipai. After all, If God for our good and His own glory, prophesied for hundreds of years beforehand about and then chose death for His only Son Jesus (Isaiah 53) – Why wouldn’t he choose the same for Wikipai?

Wikipai knew these things as well. As we slowly walked along the airstrip site together only about a week before he died, in his sickness he looked at me and said to me with a smile on his face “No man knows the day that I will die, but the Creator knows. Will I die while I am young? Will I die while my wife and I have only cut the cords of two children? Will I die when I am old and have lived a long life? No man can know such things, but the Creator knows. And if I die while I am still young, then the Creator has chosen that for me. I am ready to go up to that good place above the sky and live with Jesus.” …

If there is anything I have learned from watching Wikipai these past couple months as we have seen him spend his last days trying to carry God’s message to the people in Taomi that have not yet had a chance to hear. And then watched him slowly waste away in his sickness but never stop smiling and giving God glory despite his suffering, I feel like he has shown me how to Die well. Because when I die, I want my last weeks to have been spent on the front lines. I want my last days to have been spent commending Jesus to the unreached with a smile on my face no matter how much pain I may be in. And I want my last words to have been spent pointing my family, friends and all those around me towards the Creator so that He is the one people are left looking at – not me.

Please pray for the Dao people and specifically for Wikipai’s wife and children – Moipi, Tawekabo and Damekauwo. Pray that they will glorify God even in this great loss and that they as well as Jennie and I will depend on the strength God provides as we work our way through this sorrow and learn to live and function as a church without Wikipai.

(PS. I know we said in the last update that we would write about the house building project in this update. I found it very hard to write about such things when we have experienced such a great a loss. We are sorry for the miss-communication and will write about the building project soon.)

Because He said “GO!” – Scott and Jennie Phillips – Luke 9:60/17:10
Click here for more pictures and information on the Dao ministry: sjphillips.org