Entry #7

What reflections and connections can you make with this novel?

After thinking, I have found that when I look at the Sawi culture alone, it seems horrible, disgusting, unbelievable. But, when I took a step back and looked at the big picture, I see minor underlying difference in the way the world is today and the way the Sawi were. Now the Sawi's way of living is not common in the world today, but other things are. Other ways of believing and surviving. Other ways of preparing food and dead bodies. Other ways of handling disputes. Other ways of being sheltered and centered around "your world". No the world today is not always seen as in desperate need of help, but we are. We are in actuality, in the same need of help and peace. For the Sawi, it took Don Richardson and the other faithful missionaries involved in hundreds of thousands of hours working with them; but for us...what does it take? Does it take tragedy, death, money, happiness, peace, love, what? Many people in the modern, healthy, good world today, are just as hurt, just as in dire need of a peace and new way of life.

The world today tries to find answers in material things. The world today isn't corrupted in the sense of cannabalism or head hunting, but in the necessity of material goods. The constant cry for more and more and more. When we think of cannabalism, we think horrible, terrible, awful, shameful. We think despair, and corruption. But really the world today is horrible, terrible, awful and shameful. We just don't think of those things because it is what we know. It is what the majority tells us. That we need to be more concerned with what we have and who is better and who makes more. But, we need to be concerned with how things affect others, how they help us become better people. Jesus helps us to see the big picture. To finally find that inner peace and overwhelming joy despite the circumstances of the world. Jesus helps us to become the better people without the materialistic "needs" that are thrown at us in every direction.

Well, that was a lot of rambling, but that is one way that I see a connection to the world in which we are living and the world in which Don Richardson exposed us to...the world of the Sawi. The Sawi were so concerned with "their world" that they weren't even aware of the other world that was developing around them. We are that same way if we become so involved with "our world" that we become unaware of what is surrounding us and what living really means.