Years ago, a good friend of ours who’s long been committed to supporting and visiting missionaries all over the world introduced us to this story via Don Richardson’s video production, also titled Peace Child. In it, his Sawi converts from Netherlands New Guinea play-acted their own story for the camera while Richardson narrated, showing the audience the wickedness of their traditions and the beauty of Christ’s story unexpectedly woven throughout.

I’d always wanted to read this story for myself, to dig deeper into the true-life drama that this “stone age” people group experienced and how God allowed a Canadian missionary like Don Richardson to interpret their own culture through the lens of redemption. When I organized a summer reading program for my church based on our library’s biographies, I finally got the chance.

Summary

Part One of this book introduces readers to the Sawi people in the dark depths of their unconverted culture. In what’s essentially an ethnographic study organized almost like an action novel, Richardson details some of the strange and violent quirks of this people group. They honored, for example, treachery to such an extent that anyone who could befriend, betray, murder, and eat a member of another tribe would be considered the greatest of heroes.

Part Two, titled “When Worlds Meet,” introduces Richardson’s own background in moving his family to this harsh and hostile jungle world. While he and his wife and son were able to befriend some of the natives and impress them with their tools, lifestyles, and ability to learn the language, they realized that there were cultural roadblocks that they simply could not surmount. They watched helplessly as the Sawi warred and injured each other, how they committed atrocious acts against each other and even celebrated betrayal, death, and cannibalistic acts. In fact, when he shared the Gospel of Jesus with them, the Sawi people viewed Judas Iscariot as the hero of the story! How in the world could he share the grace of Jesus with a people whose worldview had been turned so entirely upside down?

In Part Three, “A World Transformed,” Richardson details his deepening understanding of the strange cultural cues of the Sawi, especially a key practice, the only ancient practice in fact that could end the hostility of treachery between the villages. This practice was the offering up of a “peace child.” To end the killing, one member of a tribe would offer to an enemy village his own child, and as long as that child lived, peace would reign. When Richardson witnessed this transaction (a painful sacrifice made by both mother and father), he suddenly saw the beauty of God’s own sacrifice illustrated. When he called Jesus God’s own “Peace Child,” the people finally understood. When he then described Judas Iscariot as the person who would dare betray this sacred trust, they recognized him for the vile character he was. They understood, and many of them believed.

A Question

The remainder of the book describes how Richardson uncovered other correlations between Sawi tradition and biblical theology, as well as the progress of the Gospel in the villages surrounding. It’s an exciting book and I’m glad to have read it finally, though I am left with one major question.

I want to know how Richardson described sin, guilt, confession, and repentance to these Sawi people whilst describing the redemptive analogies that God had allowed to survive their centuries of tradition. After reading the book and thinking back, I don’t recall reading about this important part of the Gospel. I recall reading that the people suddenly believed in Jesus and became Christians, which sounds great, but what really happened there? Is belief in God and His Son Jesus really the Gospel? Is belief in God’s power really all that’s required for salvation?

Take passages like Romans 8:9-10, Ephesians 2:8-9, or Titus 3:5 for example. Each of these talks about how belief or faith in Jesus saves us by the grace of God. While “sin” or “repentance” aren’t specifically mentioned, they are, however, implied. Each passage mentions how a person can be “saved” (which is why born-again Christians love this descriptor so much), so we have to ask, “Saved from what?” The person who, by God’s grace, confesses Jesus and puts his faith and trust in Him and his resurrection, will be saved…from sin, from slavery to sin, from death, from Hell, from eternal damnation. The implication then is that “whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” from sin and death, and if they’re calling according to the Scripture’s dictates, then they clearly understand the Gospel.

I write all that to suggest that, even if Richardson didn’t explicitly state so in his book, I believe he shared the Gospel in its entirety with the Sawi people, including the reality of sin and separation resolved by the atonement of Christ. I also think, however, that he missed a major opportunity in this book, failing to mention this important aspect of the Gospel. If the Sawi people (or anyone else on Planet Earth) merely exchange their false gods for a new One simply because He’s more powerful, who’s to say that they won’t be swayed to worship the sky once the next violent storm hits? On what is their faith actually based?

“You say that you believe in God, and you do well. The demons also believe and shudder” (James 2:19). Belief in God is essential, but it cannot save unless it includes belief in God and what He has said and done through Christ.

Conclusion

I really enjoyed this book, though I can’t tell which was more teachable, this or Richardon’s Lords of the Earth. Both include powerful teachings about deep-jungle mission work, both educate us as to the perils of serving God in the uttermost parts of the earth, and both inspire us towards greater effort in missions until all hear. I look forward to reading Richardson’s other books some day, but for now, I’ll let this one settle in my heart and mind.

©2021 E.T.

Read More Great Missionary Stories:

• Raymond Lull by Samuel Zwemer (1902)
• The Romance of Missionary Heroism by John C. Lambert (1907)
• By My Spirit by Jonathan Goforth (1929)
• Adoniram Judson by Faith Coxe Bailey (1955)
• Green Leaf in Drought-time by Isobel Kuhn (1957)
• By Searching by Isobel Kuhn (1959)
• Among the Savage Redskins of the Amazon by Harold Wildish (1961)
• Arrows of His Bow by Sanna Morrison Barlow (1966)
• Peace Child by Don Richardson (1974)
• Lords of the Earth by Don Richardson (1977)
• From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya by Ruth Tucker (1983)
• John and Betty Stam by Kathleen White (1989)
• Let My People Go by A.W. Tozer (1990)
• Torches of Joy by John Dekker (1992)
• An Ordinary Man—A Great God by Joy Mielke (2011)
• Mountain Rain by Eileen Crossman and M.E. Tewskesbury (2013)
• Beneath the Ancient Dust by Melissa Meyers (2018)
• Daring Dependence by M.R. Conrad (2022)