Piedmont Baptist College Online
Piedmont Online Education
A Students’ Perspective
October 2010
“Lord, you want me to go to Bible College?” I said with great emphasis during a prayer time several years ago.
I had been asked by a local bible camp to join their team, but one major thing stood in the way of joining them, I needed to go to Bible College!
That was going to be a problem! I am married, working a full time job, I didn’t want to relocate and the college of my choosing had closed its doors years ago! Did I mention that I was 48 years old at the time?
I tried to wriggle out of going to college, I even met with the national director who was in town from headquarters, but I could not work at the camp as a full time missionary without going to college!
Okay, I have accepted the assignment that lay before me, I will go to college, no more kicking and screaming at God, I would willingly do as He asked. Next step, which college should I attend locally?
Living in central Florida, evangelical Bible Colleges are hard to find. In north Florida, we have Pensacola Christian College, Clearwater on the west coast has Clearwater Christian College and central Florida had Spurgeon Baptist College, but they had closed and I was not aware of Piedmont Baptist College yet.
Moving on, what about taking online classes? I had tried a demo course online briefly and was not in favor of that type of learning! I was willing not to proceed with going into missions work if I had to go to school over the internet! “Thank you missions group for the offer, but my faith was not big enough to see this through to the end!” I thought.
When God gives His child a job to do and we refuse to do it, the Holy Spirit will make us extremely miserable! Many of you can well attest to that predicament! Being only three years old as a true believer at that time, I hadn’t learned that lesson yet!
When you use your favorite search engine to find an online Christian college, you are bombarded with a myriad of choices to wade through. As an exercise, try it and see for yourself. The danger I found in this process is knowing if the colleges’ doctrine was compatible with my own!
Then I remembered an old standby Bible college, Moody Bible Institute! They offer distance learning programs! The reason I know this is that they advertise on their radio network of which I am a listener.
I still wanted to go to Spurgeon Bible College. I soon found that they had merged with Piedmont Baptist College in 2004. It didn’t take long to find out that they offered online courses.
Here are some fast facts about Piedmont taken from their website.
Established: 1945
Location: Winston-Salem, NC
Accreditation: TRACS
Student to Faculty Ratio: 9 to 1
Faculty: 74% are full time 47% have terminal degrees
Financial Aid: Over 93% of students receive aid
Library: George M. Manuel Library preserves 50,000+ books
Athletics: Member of NCCAA Division II
Technology: 80% of the college offers wireless internet connection
College Verse: Colossians 1:18 "...that in everything he might have the preeminence."
Enrollment: 425
Countries Represented: 10
States Represented: 26
Let me take you through a fast paced overview of the online program as I experienced it. I was enrolled in the Biblical Studies Certificate program. That course of study is 31 credit hours long and I took on the average, 5- 6 credit hours per 7 week session, plus a 3 credit hour class during the first summer session., that helped to keep the pace of study flowing.
Go to the college website, www.pbc.edu, there is a large red button that leads you to the online program choices. Take time to explore the multiple sub buttons that cover many areas such as admissions, tuition and financial aid and the undergraduate and graduate programs offered.
Explore further and you will find a list of biographies of the faculty and other bits and pieces about the college.
Once you make that first telephone call to the receptionist and you are connected with Jeremy Pattisall in the admissions department, the staff treats you like family!
An example of this is when the college president Dr. Charles Petitt visits my church. I get a huge hug from him, not a handshake; I truly look up to the man! He’s taller than I am. He has given my wife and I nicknames, she is Trouble and I am Double Trouble! We give nicknames to those we care about. As an older student, that helped me to feel at ease with what I was doing.
Once you are enrolled you receive your course syllabus! Those with a weak constitution need not try and read one! I nearly quit before I had begun, that is how bad it scared me!
I later learned from my pastor (when I went to him in a panic) and showed him the multi-page document, he inferred that it was intentionally done; it’s a type of tradition in the academic world as based upon his experience!
The syllabus gives you an outline of the work to be done and has a time table for when to have it done by.
Once class starts, there are chat rooms to attend, failure to participate results in lost grade points. There are reading journals to keep, the dreaded discussion boards that all of my professors required to be done.
There are weekly quizzes in some classes; others just have mid-term exams and the final exam. Some have a class participation grade. There was also my least favorite assignment, the course research paper written in the MLA format!
One night I was having an extremely hard time with a research paper, as a writer, why do I have to do it this way? Why can’t I write it my way?
In a fit of anger, I wadded up my paper and threw it across the room and stopped for the night! Within a few minutes the telephone rang and a big voice on the other end identified himself as Charles Petitt! I am thinking quickly, I vaguely of knew him, he’s the college president?
He reassured me that I wasn’t in trouble as far as he knew. He was on the road in between speaking engagements and was calling some of his online students; my name was on the list!
The whole time he’s talking I’m thinking that the Holy Spirit ratted me out! After our talk I went back to work on the paper and the words seemed to flow from my pencil like hot wax down the side of a candle and I finished it in no time at all!
I will be totally honest with you, taking classes online is difficult. I have spent hours “locked away” from my family working at the computer, bent over a table writing a report or reading journal, or in the family reading chair trying to make sense of an author who is long winded and I’m tired from working all day, I don’t know how many bottles of eye drops I went through!
Some classes are easier than others, in one series of classes that I took, there were roughly 100-150 pages of reading each week! “I had two complete eye transplants performed that session; I wore them out reading so much!” When you type what you just read as a joke to a professor, the joke sort of gets lost in cyberspace!
Let me draw this to a close, would I recommend Piedmont Baptist College, Spurgeon School of Online Education to anyone?
My answer is no! To those who want something easy and a new set of letters at the end of their name or on a resume, don’t waste your time as well as the resources given to the college by its faithful supporters and God!
To those who seriously desire to follow God and His plan for their life at that moment, then I strongly encourage you to contact the college by any means!
You will be treated with every care afforded to an heir of the kingdom of Christ! You will come to know and love the staff and faculty as I have; they are there to help you!
To the older person maybe considering going to college for the first time as I was, please don’t hesitate to make contact with the college!
What will you take away from your time with PBC? Confidence that you have achieved a goal you set out to reach! A new and refined knowledge of scriptural principals and how they can be applied to our everyday life, and maybe, just maybe, you may find you come away with a love of learning as I have!
If you would like to contact PBC, see the advertisement in this magazine or contact them at www.pbc.edu or (800) 937-5097.
You may also contact me for more information from a student’s perspective at [email protected]
A Students’ Perspective
October 2010
“Lord, you want me to go to Bible College?” I said with great emphasis during a prayer time several years ago.
I had been asked by a local bible camp to join their team, but one major thing stood in the way of joining them, I needed to go to Bible College!
That was going to be a problem! I am married, working a full time job, I didn’t want to relocate and the college of my choosing had closed its doors years ago! Did I mention that I was 48 years old at the time?
I tried to wriggle out of going to college, I even met with the national director who was in town from headquarters, but I could not work at the camp as a full time missionary without going to college!
Okay, I have accepted the assignment that lay before me, I will go to college, no more kicking and screaming at God, I would willingly do as He asked. Next step, which college should I attend locally?
Living in central Florida, evangelical Bible Colleges are hard to find. In north Florida, we have Pensacola Christian College, Clearwater on the west coast has Clearwater Christian College and central Florida had Spurgeon Baptist College, but they had closed and I was not aware of Piedmont Baptist College yet.
Moving on, what about taking online classes? I had tried a demo course online briefly and was not in favor of that type of learning! I was willing not to proceed with going into missions work if I had to go to school over the internet! “Thank you missions group for the offer, but my faith was not big enough to see this through to the end!” I thought.
When God gives His child a job to do and we refuse to do it, the Holy Spirit will make us extremely miserable! Many of you can well attest to that predicament! Being only three years old as a true believer at that time, I hadn’t learned that lesson yet!
When you use your favorite search engine to find an online Christian college, you are bombarded with a myriad of choices to wade through. As an exercise, try it and see for yourself. The danger I found in this process is knowing if the colleges’ doctrine was compatible with my own!
Then I remembered an old standby Bible college, Moody Bible Institute! They offer distance learning programs! The reason I know this is that they advertise on their radio network of which I am a listener.
I still wanted to go to Spurgeon Bible College. I soon found that they had merged with Piedmont Baptist College in 2004. It didn’t take long to find out that they offered online courses.
Here are some fast facts about Piedmont taken from their website.
Established: 1945
Location: Winston-Salem, NC
Accreditation: TRACS
Student to Faculty Ratio: 9 to 1
Faculty: 74% are full time 47% have terminal degrees
Financial Aid: Over 93% of students receive aid
Library: George M. Manuel Library preserves 50,000+ books
Athletics: Member of NCCAA Division II
Technology: 80% of the college offers wireless internet connection
College Verse: Colossians 1:18 "...that in everything he might have the preeminence."
Enrollment: 425
Countries Represented: 10
States Represented: 26
Let me take you through a fast paced overview of the online program as I experienced it. I was enrolled in the Biblical Studies Certificate program. That course of study is 31 credit hours long and I took on the average, 5- 6 credit hours per 7 week session, plus a 3 credit hour class during the first summer session., that helped to keep the pace of study flowing.
Go to the college website, www.pbc.edu, there is a large red button that leads you to the online program choices. Take time to explore the multiple sub buttons that cover many areas such as admissions, tuition and financial aid and the undergraduate and graduate programs offered.
Explore further and you will find a list of biographies of the faculty and other bits and pieces about the college.
Once you make that first telephone call to the receptionist and you are connected with Jeremy Pattisall in the admissions department, the staff treats you like family!
An example of this is when the college president Dr. Charles Petitt visits my church. I get a huge hug from him, not a handshake; I truly look up to the man! He’s taller than I am. He has given my wife and I nicknames, she is Trouble and I am Double Trouble! We give nicknames to those we care about. As an older student, that helped me to feel at ease with what I was doing.
Once you are enrolled you receive your course syllabus! Those with a weak constitution need not try and read one! I nearly quit before I had begun, that is how bad it scared me!
I later learned from my pastor (when I went to him in a panic) and showed him the multi-page document, he inferred that it was intentionally done; it’s a type of tradition in the academic world as based upon his experience!
The syllabus gives you an outline of the work to be done and has a time table for when to have it done by.
Once class starts, there are chat rooms to attend, failure to participate results in lost grade points. There are reading journals to keep, the dreaded discussion boards that all of my professors required to be done.
There are weekly quizzes in some classes; others just have mid-term exams and the final exam. Some have a class participation grade. There was also my least favorite assignment, the course research paper written in the MLA format!
One night I was having an extremely hard time with a research paper, as a writer, why do I have to do it this way? Why can’t I write it my way?
In a fit of anger, I wadded up my paper and threw it across the room and stopped for the night! Within a few minutes the telephone rang and a big voice on the other end identified himself as Charles Petitt! I am thinking quickly, I vaguely of knew him, he’s the college president?
He reassured me that I wasn’t in trouble as far as he knew. He was on the road in between speaking engagements and was calling some of his online students; my name was on the list!
The whole time he’s talking I’m thinking that the Holy Spirit ratted me out! After our talk I went back to work on the paper and the words seemed to flow from my pencil like hot wax down the side of a candle and I finished it in no time at all!
I will be totally honest with you, taking classes online is difficult. I have spent hours “locked away” from my family working at the computer, bent over a table writing a report or reading journal, or in the family reading chair trying to make sense of an author who is long winded and I’m tired from working all day, I don’t know how many bottles of eye drops I went through!
Some classes are easier than others, in one series of classes that I took, there were roughly 100-150 pages of reading each week! “I had two complete eye transplants performed that session; I wore them out reading so much!” When you type what you just read as a joke to a professor, the joke sort of gets lost in cyberspace!
Let me draw this to a close, would I recommend Piedmont Baptist College, Spurgeon School of Online Education to anyone?
My answer is no! To those who want something easy and a new set of letters at the end of their name or on a resume, don’t waste your time as well as the resources given to the college by its faithful supporters and God!
To those who seriously desire to follow God and His plan for their life at that moment, then I strongly encourage you to contact the college by any means!
You will be treated with every care afforded to an heir of the kingdom of Christ! You will come to know and love the staff and faculty as I have; they are there to help you!
To the older person maybe considering going to college for the first time as I was, please don’t hesitate to make contact with the college!
What will you take away from your time with PBC? Confidence that you have achieved a goal you set out to reach! A new and refined knowledge of scriptural principals and how they can be applied to our everyday life, and maybe, just maybe, you may find you come away with a love of learning as I have!
If you would like to contact PBC, see the advertisement in this magazine or contact them at www.pbc.edu or (800) 937-5097.
You may also contact me for more information from a student’s perspective at [email protected]
My Past in Pictures
Wyoming
Camp Gilead, Florida
Peace Child
Peace Child
Don Richardson
Summary of the book
In 1955 at Prairie Bible Institute, Mr. Ebenezer G. Vine challenged a group of students to look within their heart to see if God was leading them to go into foreign missions, primarily, Netherlands New Guinea.
Seated in that audience that day was a young man by the name of Don Richardson, as a believer of only three years, Don felt the Lords call to service; he would go, though at the time he didn’t know where!
It was while still at PBI, he met his future wife, Carol Soderdstrom, she too had felt the Lord moving in her heart during that eventful meeting.
As time progressed, they met and began praying about a future together and where the Lord was leading them to serve Him at.
A few years later, in 1962, they set out with the help of Regions Beyond Missionary Union, later renamed World Team to Irian Jaya.
Once there, Don quickly set out in search of new people groups who lived amongst the deep jungle and seemingly endless swamps of southwest Irian Jaya who had never heard the good news of the gospel.
His attention quickly turned to the Sawi speaking tribes; they lived next to the Kronkel River. Being highly feared by the outside world because of their practice of being head hunters and cannibals, outside contact with them had very limited.
Don wanted to live amongst this tribe as a witness for Christ. This work meant establishing a written alphabet for their language; theirs was one of oral traditions, passed down from man to man over the span of human memory.
Before long, Don and his colleagues found a site to build their first long house. With the help of trusted natives, the house was quickly built and Carol and their infant son Stephen were soon on board a dugout approaching the village for the first time.
Imagine the shock of the gathered villagers to see a white woman for the first time! This was a race of dark skinned, Stone Age people, living just south of the equator!
In the months and years that followed, Don and Carol sought ways to bring the message of Christ’s redemptive work to the Sawi. They had no word for “God”.
After some time had gone by with no results, the Richardson’s had grown tired of the fighting that took place in the village, they had resolved to leave and move to an area where the people might be more receptive to their message. Unless they could find a way to bring about peace between the two tribes living in the village, they would leave the next morning.
Throughout the night, the Sawi and the Haenam men could be heard making plans to prevent them from leaving. The next day amidst a great uproar and generally chaotic scene, a way had been found to keep the missionaries with them!
There was a long tradition of offering a male child from each warring tribe as a peace offering. As long as the child lived, so the peace treaty held, should the child die, the treaty was null and void. So all participants took great care of the child they had been entrusted with.
Now Don had found a way to communicate the love of God to these people by using the familiar to communicate the unfamiliar. Myao Kodon “the greatest Spirit” was now being introduced to this people for the first time, using their own Language.
Another term that came to have much importance to the tribes was tarop “peace child”. This was the name given to Jesus. He came to earth to bring peace between Myao Kodon and all the peoples of the earth.
Through this and other examples taken from their language, the Richardson’s where finally able to start seeing the results of countless hours of work. Much of Dons work centered on understanding the complexity of their language so that he could engage in Bible translation and teaching.
Over the years in Irian Jaya, the once small group of believers has gained many converts who still remain as a testimony to Christ to this day.
Don and Carol returned home in 1977. In 2004, Carol went home to be with the Lord in glory after a prolonged battle with cancer.
Principals Learned
1. Preparation for service.
Having been saved for only three years, Don was in Bible College, during that time he was engaged in seeking the Lords plan for his life through prayer and Bible study. During the meeting at which Mr. Vine spoke, he knew it was Gods desire for him to go to Irian Jaya.
This is similar to my experience, so this is of interest to me! Someone else with a similar experience! By practicing the basics of the faith, God has our attention in short order when He desires to make something “Large” happen. The scope of the work the Richardson’s were called to could not be seen from their place in Canada, it took a wilting servant to go where God desired!
2. Cross cultural ties.
The initial team that first went to Irian Jaya was composed of people from North America, England, Germany and Australia.
Upon their arrival, they enlisted the help of friendly indigenous people to work as guides and translators. It was this partnership that helped the team to establish camps further into the swamps where the Sawi people lived.
3. Culture shock.
How does one prepare to leave the twentieth century and live in a Stone Age culture? Where are the training camps for such a venture, how about language schools that we have grown accustom to attending when leaving the English speaking world?
There was none of these yet in place when the Richardson’s arrived. No clean drinking water or sanitation, no electricity, no modern transportation! Food, yuck! Sago flour, and roasted Sago grubs, fish, wild boar and bird meat! What, no ice cream! Where’s the beef?
Consider this for a moment, no effective form of insect control. Mosquito netting was close as it got to pest control. They had help from the lizards and frogs that lived on the walls and ceiling and the bats at night helped with the flying insects that gathered because of the light.
There was also the separation from others who spoke English. Day after day, hearing a foreign tongue can wear one down.
Isolation caused by the sheer remoteness of some of the Sawi villages. Often the only way to civilization was by dugout canoe. On occasion, the MAF (Missionary Aviation Fellowship) seaplane would come in with supplies or in case of extreme medical emergencies.
4. Language differences.
Don and Carol wanted to communicate to the Sawi the Love of God, but because there was limited contact with the tribes, those who could speak Sawi where very few and often reluctant to become involved with such a venture! After all they are cannibals and head hunters! You can go! I’ll stay here where it’s safe!
It took Don and Carol several years of linguistic work to develop a system that allowed the Sawi to hear and read the scriptures in their own tongue.
5. Ideological issues.
The Sawi, being cannibals and head hunters looked at life in a much different way than that of a North American.
The spirit world held power over them. The river had a spirit, the trees had spirits, spirits were everywhere! It was easy to offend them; they would then cause something bad to happen to the people.
As believers in the true God, Don and Carol were not afraid of the spirits because the Holy Spirit of Myao Kodon was bigger than their spirits.
Another issue that at first prevented some from coming to know Tarop Myao Kodon was that the ancestors had never done it this way! What would our ancestors think if we did something they didn’t like, we would be punished for turning away from them.
Once while relating the story of when Judas betrayed Jesus, the Sawi decided that Judas was some kind of super hero! He had used cunning and deception to betray the Son of Myao Kodon!
In their society, lies, deceit, treachery, revenge vengeance and violence were character traits to be admired, not shunned as in our Judaic-Christian societies.
It wasn’t until after the exchange of the tarop, that things changed and many men and women came to invite the Son of Myao Kodon in to their lives.
Lesson Learned
What intrigued me right away about this book is how closely it follows the book of Romans, then as the story progresses, it finds its way to 1 Corinthians.
As the book opens, the first five chapters set the stage for the natural condition of the hearts and lives of this select group of people. In these pages we find murder, betrayal, deception, violence and anger to name just a few. The tone is dark and foreboding, almost oppressive as you read of killing after killing!
We see in vivid detail the murders of many men, the beheading and consumption of their bodies! Is there any wonder why my fifteen year old daughter didn’t like this book?
Romans 1-3 tells of mans’ condition before Christ enters his heart. Romans 1:19, 20 fit well into the story presented.
Now by the end of chapter five in the story, one is either intrigued to read on further or lay the book down and walk away from it!
Enter now Romans 5:8! Just as in the story, chapter five ends with the promise of the hope to come!
By chapters 15-20 of the story, we can clearly see Romans 7:15- 8:39 being presented.
In 1 Corinthians 15 we catch up with chapter 23 in the story. The Sawi concept of remon “regeneration” takes on the form of being resurrected in the life to come. Don was able to teach them about how the Tarop of Myao Kodon was our hope for remon!
That opened up more opportunities to share with them using common concepts that the Sawi could understand in order to see what the word of God says to us.
I find this book interesting as I prepare to enter missionary service next year. Though I will be stationed here in Florida, the ones I will be ministering to need to be made aware of the love of God in ways they can identify with.
Don Richardson
Summary of the book
In 1955 at Prairie Bible Institute, Mr. Ebenezer G. Vine challenged a group of students to look within their heart to see if God was leading them to go into foreign missions, primarily, Netherlands New Guinea.
Seated in that audience that day was a young man by the name of Don Richardson, as a believer of only three years, Don felt the Lords call to service; he would go, though at the time he didn’t know where!
It was while still at PBI, he met his future wife, Carol Soderdstrom, she too had felt the Lord moving in her heart during that eventful meeting.
As time progressed, they met and began praying about a future together and where the Lord was leading them to serve Him at.
A few years later, in 1962, they set out with the help of Regions Beyond Missionary Union, later renamed World Team to Irian Jaya.
Once there, Don quickly set out in search of new people groups who lived amongst the deep jungle and seemingly endless swamps of southwest Irian Jaya who had never heard the good news of the gospel.
His attention quickly turned to the Sawi speaking tribes; they lived next to the Kronkel River. Being highly feared by the outside world because of their practice of being head hunters and cannibals, outside contact with them had very limited.
Don wanted to live amongst this tribe as a witness for Christ. This work meant establishing a written alphabet for their language; theirs was one of oral traditions, passed down from man to man over the span of human memory.
Before long, Don and his colleagues found a site to build their first long house. With the help of trusted natives, the house was quickly built and Carol and their infant son Stephen were soon on board a dugout approaching the village for the first time.
Imagine the shock of the gathered villagers to see a white woman for the first time! This was a race of dark skinned, Stone Age people, living just south of the equator!
In the months and years that followed, Don and Carol sought ways to bring the message of Christ’s redemptive work to the Sawi. They had no word for “God”.
After some time had gone by with no results, the Richardson’s had grown tired of the fighting that took place in the village, they had resolved to leave and move to an area where the people might be more receptive to their message. Unless they could find a way to bring about peace between the two tribes living in the village, they would leave the next morning.
Throughout the night, the Sawi and the Haenam men could be heard making plans to prevent them from leaving. The next day amidst a great uproar and generally chaotic scene, a way had been found to keep the missionaries with them!
There was a long tradition of offering a male child from each warring tribe as a peace offering. As long as the child lived, so the peace treaty held, should the child die, the treaty was null and void. So all participants took great care of the child they had been entrusted with.
Now Don had found a way to communicate the love of God to these people by using the familiar to communicate the unfamiliar. Myao Kodon “the greatest Spirit” was now being introduced to this people for the first time, using their own Language.
Another term that came to have much importance to the tribes was tarop “peace child”. This was the name given to Jesus. He came to earth to bring peace between Myao Kodon and all the peoples of the earth.
Through this and other examples taken from their language, the Richardson’s where finally able to start seeing the results of countless hours of work. Much of Dons work centered on understanding the complexity of their language so that he could engage in Bible translation and teaching.
Over the years in Irian Jaya, the once small group of believers has gained many converts who still remain as a testimony to Christ to this day.
Don and Carol returned home in 1977. In 2004, Carol went home to be with the Lord in glory after a prolonged battle with cancer.
Principals Learned
1. Preparation for service.
Having been saved for only three years, Don was in Bible College, during that time he was engaged in seeking the Lords plan for his life through prayer and Bible study. During the meeting at which Mr. Vine spoke, he knew it was Gods desire for him to go to Irian Jaya.
This is similar to my experience, so this is of interest to me! Someone else with a similar experience! By practicing the basics of the faith, God has our attention in short order when He desires to make something “Large” happen. The scope of the work the Richardson’s were called to could not be seen from their place in Canada, it took a wilting servant to go where God desired!
2. Cross cultural ties.
The initial team that first went to Irian Jaya was composed of people from North America, England, Germany and Australia.
Upon their arrival, they enlisted the help of friendly indigenous people to work as guides and translators. It was this partnership that helped the team to establish camps further into the swamps where the Sawi people lived.
3. Culture shock.
How does one prepare to leave the twentieth century and live in a Stone Age culture? Where are the training camps for such a venture, how about language schools that we have grown accustom to attending when leaving the English speaking world?
There was none of these yet in place when the Richardson’s arrived. No clean drinking water or sanitation, no electricity, no modern transportation! Food, yuck! Sago flour, and roasted Sago grubs, fish, wild boar and bird meat! What, no ice cream! Where’s the beef?
Consider this for a moment, no effective form of insect control. Mosquito netting was close as it got to pest control. They had help from the lizards and frogs that lived on the walls and ceiling and the bats at night helped with the flying insects that gathered because of the light.
There was also the separation from others who spoke English. Day after day, hearing a foreign tongue can wear one down.
Isolation caused by the sheer remoteness of some of the Sawi villages. Often the only way to civilization was by dugout canoe. On occasion, the MAF (Missionary Aviation Fellowship) seaplane would come in with supplies or in case of extreme medical emergencies.
4. Language differences.
Don and Carol wanted to communicate to the Sawi the Love of God, but because there was limited contact with the tribes, those who could speak Sawi where very few and often reluctant to become involved with such a venture! After all they are cannibals and head hunters! You can go! I’ll stay here where it’s safe!
It took Don and Carol several years of linguistic work to develop a system that allowed the Sawi to hear and read the scriptures in their own tongue.
5. Ideological issues.
The Sawi, being cannibals and head hunters looked at life in a much different way than that of a North American.
The spirit world held power over them. The river had a spirit, the trees had spirits, spirits were everywhere! It was easy to offend them; they would then cause something bad to happen to the people.
As believers in the true God, Don and Carol were not afraid of the spirits because the Holy Spirit of Myao Kodon was bigger than their spirits.
Another issue that at first prevented some from coming to know Tarop Myao Kodon was that the ancestors had never done it this way! What would our ancestors think if we did something they didn’t like, we would be punished for turning away from them.
Once while relating the story of when Judas betrayed Jesus, the Sawi decided that Judas was some kind of super hero! He had used cunning and deception to betray the Son of Myao Kodon!
In their society, lies, deceit, treachery, revenge vengeance and violence were character traits to be admired, not shunned as in our Judaic-Christian societies.
It wasn’t until after the exchange of the tarop, that things changed and many men and women came to invite the Son of Myao Kodon in to their lives.
Lesson Learned
What intrigued me right away about this book is how closely it follows the book of Romans, then as the story progresses, it finds its way to 1 Corinthians.
As the book opens, the first five chapters set the stage for the natural condition of the hearts and lives of this select group of people. In these pages we find murder, betrayal, deception, violence and anger to name just a few. The tone is dark and foreboding, almost oppressive as you read of killing after killing!
We see in vivid detail the murders of many men, the beheading and consumption of their bodies! Is there any wonder why my fifteen year old daughter didn’t like this book?
Romans 1-3 tells of mans’ condition before Christ enters his heart. Romans 1:19, 20 fit well into the story presented.
Now by the end of chapter five in the story, one is either intrigued to read on further or lay the book down and walk away from it!
Enter now Romans 5:8! Just as in the story, chapter five ends with the promise of the hope to come!
By chapters 15-20 of the story, we can clearly see Romans 7:15- 8:39 being presented.
In 1 Corinthians 15 we catch up with chapter 23 in the story. The Sawi concept of remon “regeneration” takes on the form of being resurrected in the life to come. Don was able to teach them about how the Tarop of Myao Kodon was our hope for remon!
That opened up more opportunities to share with them using common concepts that the Sawi could understand in order to see what the word of God says to us.
I find this book interesting as I prepare to enter missionary service next year. Though I will be stationed here in Florida, the ones I will be ministering to need to be made aware of the love of God in ways they can identify with.