Tag Archives: Witness Men

Jabonep the Witness Man (Witness Men ch 6)

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I’m posting a chapter at a time of my most recent book, for about a week each.  Witness Men: True Stories of God at Work in Papua, Indonesia is due out in Spring 2013.

The teenage boys of the Dani tribe in the Pyramid Valley jumped and shouted outside the missionary’s house with such energy that their long black hair bounced on their backs. “Tuan Yon! Tuan Yon!”

Henry Young got out of bed and came to the door, where he could see the sun just beginning to peek over the horizon.

“Tuan Yon, you must hear!  In another village, near us, a man has come who can’t see. He is very short. The gun shot him many years ago. It went right through him, but he’s still alive!”

“What? What are you talking about?” Henry Young passed his hand over his sleepy eyes.

“Long times past, this blind man went away, but now he has come back! The river! The river waters stop and let him go by on dry ground!”

“Who is it?” Henry asked. “Where did you get this story?”

“Didn’t you hear about him?” one boy insisted. “If he dies, his family won’t burn him. They’ll just throw him in the river. Then he’ll come back to life!”

All the boys sucked in their breaths, their eyes wide.

“And then we’ll be able to see the spirits of the dead, Tuan!” another boy added. “They’ll look like you!” But the boys were too excited to laugh. They nearly trembled at the wonder of this amazing man. “Do you want to come see him?”

“You’d better believe I do,” Henry muttered. He got his clothes on and walked with the boys to the nearby village. They continued to chatter all the way.

From a distance they could see the crowd. How many here? Henry wondered. Must be thousands. They were still gathering, coming from villages all around. Everyone was chattering about the amazing stories they had heard.

This chapter was actually posted for way longer than a week because I forgot to remove it. Hope you enjoyed it!

Letter from a teacher

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A couple of weeks ago, I had the privilege of visiting a classroom of elementary students who had read together, as a class, a  preliminary copy of Witness Men, my most recent book and #3 in the Hidden Heroes series. It was a delight to talk with them. Later I received an encouraging letter from the teacher:

After the chapter toward the end where the missionary was martyred, we discussed martydom, Jim Eliot’s life, and the cost of following Christ.  We were all always close to tears as we finished a chapter, and did end up in tears as we read the last two chapters.  The responses were always that they loved each chapter better than the last, and they wouldn’t change a thing. I think we proved more valuable as admirers than critics.

I hope knowing that you have captured nine precious little hearts will make up for our lack of more formal critiquing.  And in capturing them with your writing, you have opened up new worlds to them, challenging those precious hearts to pray harder, to witness more diligently, to be more appreciative of their material and spiritual blessings, and to be open to being used as these missionaries have been.  Hopefully, their response and positive reception of the book is a good and encouraging sign to you of how well it will be received among children as well as adults. 

We pray for you and look forward to holding the finished product in our hands as soon as possible!

Praising God that He is already using these stories in the lives of children. I’m excited about working through the process of publication.

Nabelan Kabelan? (Witness Men ch 5)

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I’m posting one chapter a week of my newest book, Witness Men, which has just been accepted for publication. Chapter 5 has been removed from the blog (it was up for a week), but here is a brief excerpt.

“My son-in-law says that this Jesus will give life that goes on and on,” Lalok said anxiously. “Will my son-in-law live forever?”

“He won’t live forever on this earth, but after this life, he’ll have eternal life with the great God, Jehovah. That’s because Den no longer holds to his power pieces, but he looks to Jesus only for his power.”

“So maybe this is the nabelan kabelan of the Dani,” said Lalok.

“Tell me about nabelan kabelan,” said Gordon.

“The bird dies, of course. But the snake lives forever, as we can see by the new skin he gets again and again. Long ago the snake and the bird had a race, and the bird won the race. Our ancestors foolishly followed the bird and lost the way to live forever. But we believe that someday we will again find nabelan kabelan, my skin your skin. That is the forever life that our ancestors lost. Then we will have no more death, no more fear, no more hard work, no more war. Maybe what you tell me is this.”

“I can’t promise no more hard work. I can’t promise that you won’t die. But I can promise that in Jesus Christ you can have no fear. I can promise that in Jesus Christ you no longer have to have these terrible wars. I can promise that in Jesus Christ you can live forever after death.”

Identify this missionary kid . . .

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Who’s the taller one in front, the ten-year-old?

One evening last summer Tim and I were both lounging in bed, both reading. Suddenly I said, “Hey, look at this.” I covered the caption of the picture and showed him. “Who do you think that goofy (but loveable) looking ten-year-old boy is?”

Tim barely looked up from his engrossing novel. “I have no idea.”

“No, seriously!” I said. “Look at him! Can’t you tell who it is?”

“Am I supposed to know?”

“Yes! You should be able to tell!”

He sighed. “Give me a hint. What year is it?”

“It’s 1973.”

Tim squinted at the picture and acted like he was going to turn back to his book again. Honestly, I couldn’t get his attention away from it for two seconds.

So I reminded him that I was reading this book as part of my research for Witness Men. Then I showed him the cover. It was Torches of Joy, by John Dekker, a missionary.

“All right. Now, who’s that boy?” I raised my eyebrows in anticipation.

“Is it Ted Dekker?”

“That’s it! Ted Dekker at ten years old! Remember, his parents went to work among the Dani people in Irian Jaya, I mean Papua, and he says that growing up in that jungle is part of what gave him the background for his. . . .”

But Tim had already turned back to his gripping novel. I think he didn’t even hear me.

What was that compelling book that drew him like a magnet?

Oh, yes. It was Obsessed.

By Ted Dekker.

Power Pieces (Witness Men ch 4)

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“Tuan!” the boy called. “Tuan Botemon!”

Tom Bozeman came out of his little pole-and-bark house to see the bright-eyed boy. Tom had lived here among this Dani tribe a few months, and had learned enough words to begin teaching the people a little bit.

“Greetings!” he said, snapping his fingers with the boy’s. “What’s your name?”

“I’m Hilitu,” the boy said. “I saw you at the cannibal feast yesterday.”

I’m posting one chapter at a time of this children’s book of true stories. Each chapter will be up for about a week and then will come down. Read along with me to get a taste of what the book will be like when it’s published!