Meet Gabewa, our language helper! Click the picture to enlarge.

Dobu – Our main practical course this past semester was to study the language and culture of the Dobu people of Papua New Guinea for 6 weeks. As part of the training, we hired a "native language helper."  This guy, named Gabewa, looked very much like one of our instructors in a tribal costume, with grease paint on his skin and dark sunglasses and a big curly wig. He was at our school in the mornings, disappeared in the afternoons, and this made us a little bit suspicious! But we didn't want him to know that we were suspicious! So instead we did what we were supposed to, and asked him questions, and got him to tell stories so we could learn about his culture!

One of the type of things we asked about had to do with the terms he used to call different people in his family. We found out that he called his mother sinana as well as calling his mother's sister sinana. In the same way, he called his father tamana, and his father's brother tamana. His tamana, however, was not responsible for raising him when he grew up, but his mother's brother was, whom he called wana. He also told us he wasn't related to his tamana. Hmm… Why do they think that?

When we got to a point with him that we could "speak his language" he asked us if we would tell him the message we came to tell him! That sounded exciting, right? I mean, the whole reason we are doing this is to tell people about the message of Christ! Before we were about to share the gospel with him, he told us to make sure he could "speak the words just right" so that he could get "lots of stuff." Oops! That's not the message of the gospel! We decided that maybe he wasn't quite ready to hear the message, and continued to work on building a relationship with him.

At the end of our Dobu study, we gave Gabewa a gift of appreciation: a gerbil. Since he didn't eat the gerbil, we decided he must not be a real tribal person, and was just our instructor dressed up to play the part!

All in all, it was a very good exercise, and we are glad to have gone through it. We have learned all these skills to help us become better missionaries, but it is still the Lord working through His Holy Spirit that will actually accomplish the work in the tribe! May we never think that we are sufficient in ourselves apart from Christ to teach others about the savior!