In Search of the Source, by Neil Anderson,
with Hyatt Moore (Multnomah Press, Portland, Oregon,
USA, 1992. Out of print, but available from Wycliffe Bible
Translators, price in pounds: 3.25)
Not many of us will have the privilege or
opportunity of visiting remote places with dense rain
forest populated by unsophisticated peoples, and such
is the country of Papua New Guinea. Neil Anderson,
however, takes us on a virtual reality journey of
exploration recounting descriptively and graphically
its forests, simple people, their struggle for a
livelihood and their deep-seated traditional fears
and taboos. He also writes most vividly, leading us
through his, and his wife Carol's, years of
painstaking work with the Wycliffe Bible Translators,
ably helped by the enthusiastic local Christians, to
come to grips with the language of the Folopa people
and bring them a translation of parts of the Old and
New Testament.
He writes: "The Folopa people are not
concerned with getting back to basics. They never
left." For them the basic concept and source for
everything is Bete, the "verb of being, the most
basic metaphor in the entire language." This
book is not just an account of Neil and Carol's life
with the Folopa, nor a travelogue through Papua New
Guinea, nor an interesting look at a different
people, nor even a study of coming to grips with
religious and cultural ideas. It is all this and far
more, one of the most interesting missionary books I
have read for a long time combining so many strands,
well-written, and including fresh insights into
scripture truths as they are unpacked for the Folopa
and yet which brought a new thrill to me too.
"But when we came to that part where God gave
proof to all men by raising one Man from the dead, it
all came together. God knows us. He knows our legend.
Now the legend makes sense, and best of all, because
of what God has done through Jesus Christ, it is
fulfilled. They were exhilarated beyond words with
the massive discovery that God had been with them all
along, that He had left His footprints where they had
never seen them before. From that moment on, the
Bible became their book."