A Wycliffe translator, along with her son, his wife and a friend, took a trip into the Amazonian Indian village where she and her husband work. During their stay, they spent a number of restless nights.

Appeasing the spirits

The Indians sing to the spirits when the moon is full. They sing and dance all night long for five nights straight, and they fight to keep themselves awake during the day to cause sleep deprivation, which makes them more susceptible to the spirits. No one hunts or fishes, so they are all hungry, especially the children who cry constantly. They drink a fermented homemade drink, and a lot of immoral behavior goes on.

Songs to a Different Spirit

One evening, our translator and her companions decided to sing and dance too! They formed their own circle, singing worship songs exalting Jesus. The Indians soon stopped their singing, one by one, to watch the Christians.

The next night the Christians did the same thing, and eventually the Indians joined them. When our translator was tired and couldn't think of anything more to sing, one of the village men stepped in and took the lead. Instead of going back to their spirit worship, everyone went home, and it was quiet for the rest of the night.

Let's continue to pray that God will deliver these Indians from the dominion of darkness into the kingdom of His dear Son.

Sung Speech About Christ

Our translator corroborated the above story, and added, "And now we are translating Scriptures into sung speech, as the language group does not want to have their language written, and they are responding with understanding to Christ's claims for the first time via sung speech."

We asked, "Why do these people not want their language to be written?"

Our translator responded, "The spirits tell the people that their language is not to have a written form. Why? One reason the spirits give is that marks on paper are dead; they have no life. The people told us that if we were to tell them about our God it could not be with dead marks on paper."