A Water Buffalo: Christ in an Unreached Culture
When we think about foreign lands where the name of Jesus has never yet been spoken, it is hard to understand where God has been working there all this time. What our missionaries on the field often find is that God has been patiently laying the foundation of His heart into their culture, their stories, their hearts for centuries.
Consider this story of the Buffalo Skin, written by one our field workers, who heard and recorded it on behalf of the Akeu people:
The Akeu people have been handing down the "Buffalo Skin" legend for 800 years. It is told like this: God called all the people groups before Him. He gave each people group His Word in a different way. To the Akeu, God chose a high priest to give His Word written on a Buffalo skin. (Buffaloes are a highly esteemed animal to the Akeu, like a bald eagle would be to Americans.) On his way home, it began to rain and the rain made the buffalo skin wet. Also, it began to smell. The high priest was afraid the writing would disappear and the smell of the buffalo skin made him hungry. So he roasted the buffalo skin and ate it. He ate the Word of God. Therefore, the Akeu say they carry the Word of God in their stomachs.
Or, as Jeremiah put it: "Your words were found and I ate them! And Your words became the joy and rejoicing of my heart!" (15:16). Similarly, Jesus described Himself as the Word of God, emphasizing also that we must live on Him: "Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God," and, "Anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I'll raise that person up on the last day" (Matt. 4:4, John 6:54). Tribal words from a God who loves every people group!
Here is an example of God working even in the midst of a difficult people group! God did give His Word to every people, even if just through creation as it says in Romans 1. So God's fingerprint is indeed embedded somewhere in this legend, and in other parts of the Akeu culture.
How to help the Akeu see that Jesus is the Buffalo skin? That Jesus is the Word of God? One of the most effective ways is to connect their culture— what they already are familiar with— to the Bible. In other words, redeem the parts of culture that keep them in darkness and leave intact what parts are neutral. And, celebrate all that is good!
The goal is never to Westernize a people group. Rather, it is to learn from them, to recognize and to highlight the face of Christ living among them.
Another Akeu belief is about the four gates around their village. There are no fences, so one could just walk right up to the village, but the Akeu absolutely insist on walking through the gates. "That's how the evil spirits fall off," they say.
So, Jesus is the gate. In fact, he said so: "I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be rescued, saved. They'll go in and out and find rest and peace: pasture" (John 10:1).
Our team has been recording Akeu legends with them directly, in the Akeu language. We then get help from S., one of the three Akeu believers, to retell the same stories in Akeu but relating the legend to Jesus. Sitting in the chair of an Akeu, John 1:1 would read: "In the beginning was the Word, Jesus, and the Word was God. So Jesus is the Word of God written on the buffalo skin." The Akeu, an oral/illiterate people group, have carried God's Word in their stomachs ever since the high priest ate the buffalo skin. And now they know the name of that Word!
We have not changed the character of Jesus at all, but redeemed their legend in a way that relates to their culture and what they are already familiar with. God spoke a story to the Akeu hundreds of years ago pointing directly to Jesus. The task before a missionary is to see where God is already working in a people group and connect it to Jesus in a relevant manner. It is so exciting to carry on the work God has been laboring at in their hearts from ancient times!
How have you seen God "write the story in advance" in your own life? Do you have a story of how God put an image of Himself in your memory before you even met Him? Let us know!