Peace Child

describe Don richardson's culture shock experience and show he coped with it

describe Don richardson's culture shock experience and show he coped with it

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In this book, Don Richardson tells the story of his own life as a missionary among the natives in Netherlands New Guinea. As a young man, he felt led by God to share the gospel of Christianity with the Sawi tribe in the Asian pacific.

The first tasks Richardson has upon moving to the jungles of Guinea are to build a house for his family and learn the previously unrecorded language of the Sawi. He then sets out to explain to them the unknown doctrines of Christianity. Richardson discovers that many Sawi traditions directly contradict these doctrines, namely the tradition of tuwi asonai man. The treachery and cannibalism of the practice idolizes characters such as Judas Iscariot, the betrayer of Jesus Christ.

However, Richardson eventually discovers the redemptive analogy of the peace child, in which a village offers an infant to an enemy village to represent a peace treaty between the two peoples. Richardson equates this practice with Jesus as an eternal peace child. The coupling of Richardson's teachings and his own personal actions in the face of danger touch the hearts of the Sawi. After months of work and preaching, the men of the Kamur village begin to accept the new gospel. Richardson rejoices at the peaceful change that sweeps through the jungle as more Sawi villages accept the gospel. He credits the redemptive analogy of the peace child for the conversions. He also discusses other redemptive analogies from other cultures, which provide the keys for communicating Christianity to previously unreached cultures. Richardson serves for years among the native in Netherlands New Guinea, raising his two sons among the newly converted.