Stories from the McFarlands ( by Bruce, from his 20008 Wycliffe speaking tour.)
"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ,
he is a new creation;
the old has gone, the new has come!"
-- 2Corinthians 5:17
One day in mid-2007, Sivini, the feared warlord of the Usarufa people came to Ukarumpa looking for farm equipment. Unbeknownst to him, at the same time there was a Translators Training Course ready to begin at Ukarumpa. The purpose [of the workshop] is to teach … translation teams the skills they need to work independently to translate God’s Word into their own language and also to become translators for other languages in PNG. Men from Sivini’s language group were to be a part of this workshop, but some of them were not able to come. Since they needed more participants from the Usarufa language, and Sivini was there at Ukarumpa, they invited him to join them in the workshop. When Sivini agreed, he had no idea that this was the hand of God working in his life … so that he could hear God’s message of salvation!
The course began and the intense study and translation of God’s Word gave Sivini a new understanding of who God is and taught him that he could have a relationship with Him.
When the students were reading the story in Genesis about Cain killing Abel and Abel’s blood calling out to God from the ground, the words pierced Sivini’s heart. He felt as if the blood of those he had killed was calling out to God from the ground.
You see, Sivini is a leader in his community and the fight commander for the Usarufa people. When someone in his village is attacked by people in a neighboring group, it is his responsibility to lead Usarufa men in seeking revenge. In this way he had killed many people. There were many times when bullets should have caught him, but they did not. For this reason, people from Sivini’s village, both young and old, respect him.
But when the students were translating the story of Cain and Abel, God spoke to Sivini’s heart. He knew he had been wrong and he wanted to be clean from his past. The next Sunday at the Pidgin-language church service in Ukarumpa, Sivini went forward to repent of his past and to ask for prayer. God lifted the burdens he had carried for many years. David Wake, the Summer Institute of Language Advocate for his language group, says even Sivini’s looks have changed since he accepted Jesus because now he no longer carries the weight of the guilt from his past. Who but Jesus could do such a wonderful thing?
Sivini knows he cannot continue as the fight leader in his village. Instead, he wants to spend his time helping the translation team in turning God’s “talk” into the Usarufa language, so that his people can know the Lord, too. He wants them to find peace, freedom and forgiveness from sin – just like he has!
