Tuesday, January 16, 2007

How do I relate to faith? How did Don Richardson relate to Faith? How do the Sawi relate to faith?




Sawi Village
The faith covers variety of concepts that it is sometimes complicated to develop the understanding of faith. The faith covers belief in anything, as code of ethics, standards, merits, and doctrines. In reading this book, I realized that Sawi’s faith was special one and they had strong faith in what they believed in. Sawi had faith in their traditional way of living; the belief that if they keep their living as the way that their ancestors did, they will be prosperous and could maintain their living. In keeping their faith, they had to live in accord to their accentors, thus, they continued with “practices” that descended from their ancestors. For instance, the people adopted Cannibalism, nomadic way of living, and created a society where treachery was a norm. Due to this unstable environment no one had enough courage and strength to challenge the environment established by the “authority”. Thus, their faith was well reflected in their actions. As for me, Sawi’s faith and my faith is somewhat similar because as an individual in the society, I tended to accept the common belief or faith established within the society, thus, Sawi and I were conformed to the way how majority believed in. However, the difference between Sawi from “our modern culture” was that our society with variety of community enabled to accept more of a difference between each community and allowed more liberal ideas to spread, that led to the progresses from our ancestry way of living. While the Sawi advocated traditional measures that they lived the way how their ancestors lived. Don Richardson’s faith was beyond ordinary, he had strong faith in God in which he even made a decision of giving up the security of the family as a household in order to spread the word of God. He had faith in God that he would protect him and his family as well on the journey to the dangerous society. I believe Don Richardson’s faith exceeded that of Sawi’s faith in keeping their traditional way of living because Don Richardson successfully converted many Sawi tribes into Christianity by speaking louder than that of Sawi faith that God was the savior of the World. In doing so, Don Richardson cleverly divided bits of information about Christ into Sawi cultural practices to enhance the understanding. Thus, his faith was strong enough to change the principle that the environment had been practicing for a long time.

1 comment:

African Globe Trotters. said...

I really appreciate the way you have considered the concept faith. You are right about Don Richardson's faith being extraordinary; yet we should strive to be as single hearted and sincere as he is. Mrs.Mc.