Word: dani
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...Dillingers trained local preachers from the first wave of converts, and Leon established the Dani Bible Institute, which now graduates 75 preachers a year. Says he: "Our greatest success is to work our way out of a job. In all developing countries, the goal should be to teach people to be self-reliant and not to rely on the big white Santa Claus...
...recently the Dillingers stood in a mountain pasture greeting hundreds of nearly naked black Dani tribesmen and women who had gathered for a traditional pig feast. The two missionaries seemed as much at ease as they would be at a church potluck supper in Leon's home town of Souderton, Pa. Leon chatted with the last man in the village to accept Christianity: the son of the sorcerer. Lorraine sampled food that a Dani woman had just pulled from the braising pit hollowed out of the ground for the occasion...
Each year brings new delights and surprises for the Dillingers. Last December, it was the Christmas pageant in costume, staged by the Danis. As the drama proceeded, it became clear that the tribespeople were portraying not the Nativity in Bethlehem but Christ's Crucifixion, complete with catsup for blood. When it was over, a Dani chief explained, "Why not? Jesus was born to die for us on the Cross, so it's all the same thing." The Dillingers understood. It is difficult not to admire the zeal of the Dillingers and thousands of other missionaries who have dedicated...
Leon Dillinger has had similar success in another obscure corner of Asia: the interior of Irian Jaya (formerly Dutch New Guinea and now part of Indonesia). Dillinger, 51, and wife Lorraine, 48, work among Dani tribesmen cut off from the outside world by crocodile-infested, malarial lowlands and mountain ranges that soar to 13,000 ft. It is against Indonesian law to convert any person who already has a religion, and 88% of the country is Muslim. But the government does allow Christian missionary work, Minister for Religious Affairs Haji Alamajah Ratuprawiranegara acknowledged to TIME, "as long...
Among the baffling problems facing missionaries today is how to convey scriptural concepts in the tongues of Stone Age tribes. The experts who were trying to translate the Bible for the Dani tribe in Indonesia were thrown by the verse "All we like sheep have gone astray" (Isaiah 53:6). Reason: most of the Dani had never seen a sheep. "So," says Linguist David Scoville, "we thought of using a pig as a 'cultural equivalent.' " But then the missionaries had to contend with the succeeding verse, believed by Christians to foreshadow the Crucifixion, describing a lamb that...