Posts Tagged ‘The Higaunon Church’s testimony: From Fear to Faith’

“Unripe Ones – From Fear to Faith” Part 1

Posted by Lance and Laura Ostman on Friday, March 30th, 2007

“We are the Higaunon (he-gah-oo-non) people. Our name means, “out of the water ones,” which is referring to the mountains that we live in being up “out of the sea.” Our spiritual name is cah-he-lau-one which means, “The unripe ones.” This is referring to when the first Higaunon man and woman were being created by the gods and an evil god came along and stole them away before they could be given the eternal life force.

As a result, we all remained mortal and when we die we go to the place of the evil god who owns us when we die. We are not sure what it is like there, but it is said to be a really terrible place of fear and pain. Death is the most terrifying thing for us.

Our only hope is the tee-noo-mah-nun which means, “THE FULFILLMENT.” This is when one of us receives a dee-wah-tah spirit guide who tells us what laws and rituals must be fulfilled to gain favor with the creator gods. If we can fulfill everything they give us to do, they promise that we will not die but be shown a pathway from this world into the eternal world where the creator gods live. This could be by a basket let down from the doorway in heaven, or a stairway up the side of a rainbow, or even an opening that appears in the side of a mountain.

“Only one person has ever been said to make it to heaven without dying, but he was sent back because he complained that there was no work for him to do there. In many ways, we fear the tee-noo-mah-nun because of what the spirits tell us we have to do, like having to sacrifice our seven year old children to them and going without food for long periods of time. They would have us go on long pilgrimages through the forest in search for a promised pathway to heaven. Many of our ancestors have died during the tee-noo-mah-nun, but we have no other hope. Mostly though, we end up not doing right what the spirits told us to do and so we are told by the spirits that we have failed and won’t receive the promise. But what else can we do? There is no other way!”

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“Unripe Ones – From Fear to Faith” Part 2

Posted by Lance and Laura Ostman on Friday, March 30th, 2007

Mr and Mrs Butnah Pea-nah-bee-gall

“We also fear the bahl-bahl spirits. These are wicked demonic spirits that live in the rocks and trees.

The bahl-bahl are the cause of all sickness and we have to be very careful about what we do so as not to offend them.

Our ancestors told us all about the different things that can make the bahl-bahl spirits angry enough to make us sick. We have to be careful about everything, even what foods are taboo and what foods must not be eaten together.

There are signs from the birds too, which warn us not to do certain things. Some of the old people have dreams which are warning signs of impending danger.

When we get sick, the shamans in the family can tell what spirit made us sick and they know what kind of divination to do to determine what will pacify the spirit and restore the person’s health. “It is really difficult to cure sickness because we don’t have many pigs and chickens which are needed for the sacrifices.”

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“Unripe Ones – From Fear to Faith” Part 8

Posted by Lance and Laura Ostman on Friday, March 30th, 2007

“My husband Monsing was the first one to go to another village to teach the message of eternal life.

“He learned from the missionaries how to teach and they gave him pictures and the stories in Higaunon. Monsing went to a village, a 2 day journey away and he was able to teach there often.

“After a while though he started getting visits from insurgents in that area who threatened to kill him if he did not stop teaching. Quite a lot of people were turning to the Lord and they did not like losing their followers. Monsing himself had been one of them before he turned to the Lord.

“Monsing really loved to teach the Gospel and he would not stop because of their threats. In 1985 they killed Monsing but the church there kept growing.”

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“Unripe Ones – From Fear to Faith” Part 9

Posted by Lance and Laura Ostman on Friday, March 30th, 2007

“About three years after Monsing was killed, there were quite a number of Higaunon men from our village involved in the ministry of God’s Word. Some of them had gone to other areas following Monsing’s example and there were believers now in each of those places.

“Others, including myself, were leading the church in our village and we often had conferences in our village with believers coming from the other outreaches.

“As the missionaries continued to teach us from the word of God and we were exposed to deeper truths about how we as God’s children ought to conduct our lives, we began to notice quite a number of our people openly reject this teaching.

“This was especially evident in situations where people wanted to continue on with sinful practices. To our surprise when they were confronted with sin like continued drunkenness or adultery, they not only rejected the exhortation but they got mad at those dealing with them and they began to slander the church and even persecute those who wanted to follow the Word of God. What tended to happen then is their believing relatives would take sides with them and this caused a lot of strife and division in the church.

“Through these things we have seen that not all those who claimed to be believers in the beginning were really genuine. Many simply followed the majority, but their motive was wrong. Then, because they did not have the Spirit of God to enable them to follow the Word of God, they turned away from it. Some of them have even gone back to the old spirit worship and others have joined false cults. We are sad about this but not discouraged because it is just like the parable of the sower.

“We have also learned that, though our old ways were broken by the introduction of the Word of God, many of our strong Higaunon family relationships still have a strong hold on those of us who are not making a determined effort to follow the Word of God.

“Family loyalties and the pressure of expected cultural behavior from our unsaved relatives and tribal leaders is often the cause of us choosing to deny the Lord rather than follow Him. We are sad about this because, on the one hand, we are so excited about our new life and all that the Lord has done, but then, on the other hand, there are so many of us that are still very weak in standing up for the truth.

“We have also struggled with the idea that we are not all equally as strong in the Lord because, in the tee-noo-mah-nun before we were saved, the whole group had to be equally committed for it to succeed.

“We know that this is not how it is in the Lord, but, because the group feeling is so ingrained in us, we get easily discouraged when some members of our church choose to follow their own selfish desires. We feel as if it is us doing it. We hope that anyone who reads this will pray for us in this area because we want things to go smoothly but there always seems to be problems.”

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“The Unripe Ones – From Fear to Faith” Part 10

Posted by Lance and Laura Ostman on Friday, March 30th, 2007

This is Tahak sharing during one of their weekly discussion times. They were talking about their problems and suffering. Read what he has to say:

“As we have continued on with the Lord we have begun to learn that it is through problems and suffering that God causes us to grow. We can see so many areas where we have grown in our spiritual understanding because of hard things.

“One difficult thing that happened was about 13 years after the church was first established in our place, our main church leader committed adultery with the wife of one of the deacons.

“When it happened it was as if we completely forgot our faith and we reverted right back to wanting to deal with it the way we would in our old ways. Adultery is the worst form of sin in Higaunon culture and it is punishable by death if the person doesn’t flee quick enough.

“Those believers who belonged to the ladies’ family wanted to take revenge on the family of the man who committed the adultery with her. It took a long time for us to get sorted out and we nearly ended up killing one another, but the Lord used lots of situations to show us that we were all walking in sin.

“Like when the river flooded really badly and we couldn’t cross it to go and take revenge and the Lord used that to speak to us. Since that time we have actually seen a complete reconciliation of everyone involved. This was absolutely unheard of before we were saved. We learned so much about God’s forgiveness and realized that there are still many things in our ways that are opposed to the Creator’s ways.

“This is another area that we hope that our fellow siblings in the Lord in other places will pray for us in, because we tend to be so stubborn when it comes to issues between family groups.

“We usually get along fine within the bounds of one family group, but when an issue comes up between two or more family groups we are so easily tempted to be loyal to our own family group even if they are walking in sin! We need a lot of prayer in this area.

“Another area that is affected by our family relationships is the church leaders. This happens when the church leaders are having to deal with an area of sin in someone’s life and if there is a church elder who is from that person’s family group, he is expected by his family group to take sides with the person being dealt with.

“This often causes a problem between the church leaders. If the church leader takes sides with the person because of his family group then there is a rift in the fellowship of the leaders. If the leader stays faithful to stand with the church leaders in dealing with the person’s sin, then there is a lot of strife and problems between him and his family group.

“Either way, it seems that this area of family relationships is something that Satan is really trying to use to destroy the fellowship of the Higaunon church leaders and teachers.

“We think that Satan is doing this because there are so many new groups of people who are asking to be taught the truth these days that he want’s to get rid of all the teachers and leaders so that there will be no one to tell them”.

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“The Unripe Ones – From Fear to Faith” Part 11

Posted by Lance and Laura Ostman on Friday, March 30th, 2007

“Please pray with us that the Lord will destroy the effectiveness of Satan’s attacks on us. We want to grow and not be controlled so much by our Higa-unon ways.

“Please pray that those of us who are church leaders will be able to recognize the tricks of Satan and stand against them in the Lord.

“We really want to be faithful to the Lord and we want to see the rest of our people reached with the Gospel. We really need help through your prayers, that we would overcome these areas of our culture that we struggle with.”

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“The Unripe Ones – From Fear to Faith” Part 12

Posted by Lance and Laura Ostman on Friday, March 30th, 2007

“One last thing that we want to ask you to pray for is our language. Our children are abandoning their Higaunon language because they want to be like the city people.

“Satan is bringing all kinds of things into our place through the contact of our young people with the city ways and they are being tempted with this.

“The worst thing, though, is that they don’t want to retain their Higaunon language and this makes it hard for us to teach them spiritual truth. Then they listen to false religions who teach in the city language and they don’t understand Higaunon anymore.

“We want our young people to know our language so that the church can continue to grow and be effective to reach out to the rest of the Higaunon villages.

“So please pray that the Lord will help us with this problem and that our children will want to retain their language and still be able to learn the truth about the Lord before they get confused.”

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“The Unripe Ones – From Fear to Faith” Part 13

Posted by Lance and Laura Ostman on Friday, March 30th, 2007

“Thank you for listening to our testimonies.

“The Creator has done so much for us and we are really happy about that. He is still doing so many things and yet we have a hard time living godly lives according to His book.

“I am reading His book quite often because there are still so many things in our Higaunon ways that are opposed to the ways of the Creator. We need to grow in our understanding of what He wants.

“That is all we have to say now. Thank you for praying for us. We hope that Jesus, the Creator, will bless you.”

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