Introducing the Akolet Tribe

The Akolet (pronounced "AH-koh-let") tribe is a group numbering between 1600 and 1800 people. They live scattered over 8 villages on the south coast of West New Britain. In April or May, Adam and Ryan will be taking a several day trip to visit the Akolet tribe and find out as much as they can about them. Why?

In 2001 they expressed serious interest in having a missionary go live with them, learn their Akolet language, and teach them the truths of the Bible in that language. Since that time they have requested missionaries over and over again, but until now the personnel has not been there to provide the Akolet people with their own missionary. They still remain in spiritual darkness.

But is that all about to change? It's too soon to tell yet, but that is what Adam and Ryan hope to find during this survey trip. Please pray with us as we seek to find if these are the people to whom the Lord would have us go. Pray for His clear direction and guiding, that the needed information would be found out during this trip, and that the people would be open to lending us ground to build our houses on. (This in particular is often a big obstacle for missionaries.) Please also pray that if this is not where the Lord has us that we would have peace about that and know what other tribal groups to go visit next.

Thank you for joining us in this work. Stay tuned for more details!

A Major Miscommunication

Recently Adam and I were sitting with several PNG men and women visiting and practicing our language skills. I spied a flower bush in the "yard" that resembled a rose bush. Thinking that I would have a little fun trying to explain a concept that is very familiar to me and not to them, I started talking about how back in America, a guy might use flowers to attract a girl. He might give her this certain kind of flower, a rose, to show her that he likes her. And if he really likes her, he may give her red roses. I said that's just like telling her that he really likes her.

When I finished, one guy spoke up and said, "Oh, yeah, we do that here too." That seemed strange, because never have I heard of a guy giving a girl flowers to show his affection. I'd always thought how "Western" that was. Surprised, I asked more about it. They all agreed that there were certain kinds of flowers or plants that they would use to attract a girl they were interested in.

Only much later did I clue in to what they really meant. Here on the island of New Britain there is a type of "love magic" that a guy will use so that a girl will find him irresistible. Part of this magic consists of gathering special plants and saying incantations with the girl's name over them. If done properly, this will cause the girl to be irresistibly attracted to him.

So while I used the right words to explain the concept of using flowers to win a girl's affection, the words were interpreted by what is familiar to them. “Using flowers� to us means romance. To them, it means something entirely different - a magic spell. Talk about a major miscommunication! (And for those of you wondering, as far as I know they do NOT give flowers to a girl like we do in America.)

Now this is just a small example to illustrate the importance of knowing culture. It's one thing to mess up a small story like how to get a girl's attention by using flowers. It's completely different when you think of the ramifications of one day teaching the Bible using all the right words. All the right words cannot make up for a lack of understanding of their culture and how they're going to interpret God's message.