The Abu boy picked his way through the sticky jungle with some other children, despite the tribal fighting going on between their people and a neighboring group, the Mbore. Perhaps the children were stalking through the undergrowth using their homemade slings to shoot flying foxes. Maybe they were shouting simply to hear their own muffled voices echoed back to them. They might have been aimlessly wandering while they peeled the skin back from a sugarcane stalk, stopping occasionally to suck the fiber dry of its sweet juice. Or perhaps they were on an indispensable errand for their mothers, moving quickly and quietly in an effort to evade the exact tragedy that befell them.

Whether they were heedless of the risk or doing their best to avoid it, danger found them when the Mbore came upon the group and kidnapped them. The Mbore and Abu viewed each other as far less than human and practiced cannibalism, an act which induces little remorse when you liken your enemy to an animal. The Abu children faced this horrific fate when they were taken. How can a story so dark be worth telling?

One child, one boy, was noticed by the wife of an Mbore leader. She and her husband had no children, so instead of choosing a child to cannibalize, they chose a son. The other children were killed, but the boy was brought into the home of his captors; and so the Abu boy grew up to be an Mbore man. He married and stayed among his new people. His children were raised with Abu blood, but as Mbore children. One of his sons, John*, grew in stature and became a leader in the Mbore community. He is now one of the most faithful members of the team working to finish the translation of the New Testament into their language, Mborena Kam.

Several years ago God started pulling the hearts of the Mbore people to reach out to their neighbors in a new way. They were seeing the end of their translation program fast approaching, and instead of continuing with the Old Testament for themselves, they chose to ask PBT to help them give the New Testament to the language groups around them. Through God’s power, the Mbore people exchanged dark hate with a selfless love manifested in their desire to spread the Hope they had been given to the very same groups they historically fought.

The Mbore live in the Lower Ramu area. There are four other languages in this area that are linguistically related to Mborena Kam. The Abu language is geographically close, but not linguistically related to Mborena Kam. PBT and the Mbore wanted to engage the four groups linguistically related to Mborena Kam in a project where members of each community would come to town and learn the mechanics of translation while being guided through the translation of the Gospel of Mark. The Mbore team intends to be involved as advisors, learning how to teach translation while helping the new students face the trials of the work.

Brian surveyed these languages to gauge language vitality and community interest. Through his work he found that one of the four language communities had little interest in participating and low vitality. After prayer and consideration, PBT decided to engage the Abu people in the project instead. Despite some internal strife, the Abu have joined together in saying yes, and will move forward with the Lower Ramu Project in 2017.

Last month, a PBT translator went out to the Abu language community in order to encourage them and help them better understand the Lower Ramu Project. Along with this translator went the chairman of the Mborena Kam translation committee, John; the son of the stolen child, the Mbore man with Abu blood. He knows his Abu family, and is a link between the Mbore people and the Abu people, forged in the horrors of their mutual past and mutual sins. Through this tie stained in sin, God is creating eternal bonds.

When I balk at God’s redeeming power, when I question his ability to take all that is dark about our world and turn it into light for him, I’ll think of this story. The reality of the cross can be so distant to me; the redeeming power of it felt, but not understood. The Mbore people’s heart towards their neighbors transformed from a desire for bloody revenge to a desire for their neighbors to know God through his Word, a desire so strong that the Mbore are choosing to help their past enemy at the expense of continuing to develop materials for themselves. That sacrifice and the bleak place it started helps me understand the cross just a little bit more. And it leaves me in awe of God’s redemptive powers.

*Name changed