~ finding the right voice ~
The Sawi people of the former Netherlands New Guinea are one of an estimated four hundred tribes in the western half of New Guinea now called West Irian or Irian Jaya. In 1962, Carol and I went to live among the Sawi. In recognizing that the idealization of treachery was a part of the Sawi view of life, we understood why we felt a certain culture shock in living among them. Yet we had been sent there by God to win them, to overcome within a few short years this idealization of treachery which had been part of their way of life over centuries, possibly millenniums, of time. The key God gave us to the heart of the Sawi people was the principle of redemptive analogy -- the application to local custom of spiritual truth. As Carol and I ministered to the Sawi by means of the "peace child" and other redemptive analogies, we watched in suspense to see if the Spirit of God would actually use this means of communication for the regeneration of these cannibalistic, head-hunting people. He did! Peace Child chronicles the agony -- and the triumph -- of our attempt to probe one of the world's most violent cultures to its foundations and then to communicate meaningfully with members of that culture. - Author's introduction.