In 1973 Hart and his wife Ginny set out on the adventure of their lives. They became missionaries. Intent on serving God, they chose Bible translation as their strategy to help take the Gospel to another culture. Their assignment was to live with and begin a Bible translation project among the Kalinga people, a tribe described by an anthropologist as “headhunters.” This is their story:

We entered into our mission and adventure with enthusiasm, naiveté and a sense of cultural superiority. Our faith tradition had conditioned us to assume that we were there to rescue and bring “salvation” to a people group “lost” in spiritual darkness. One of the first things that struck us about this “primitive” community was their generosity and hospitality. As we visited people in their homes in our efforts to learn their language, we were invariably sent home bearing gifts - not gifts coming out of their surplus supply, but out of their poverty. Their generosity was truly humbling and was demonstrated not just in material gifts, but also in their friendship and care for us as people.

When we began to translate the Gospels into their language, our new family and friends were eager to help. One of our best friends and co-workers in this endeavour was Pedro. As we continued to work on the translation of the Gospels, we came to John 15:13 where Jesus says that “the greatest way to show love for friends is to die for them.” That was just one of many difficult sayings of Jesus for us until the night that Pedro literally gave his life to protect our translation team from bandits. It had never occurred to us that our mission to live and engage with another culture would cost our Kalinga friends so much more than it cost us. Nothing we had to give could ever repay his gift. This reality, and the superficiality of our understanding of the Gospel, crashed in on us in a most unsettling manner when Pedro’s 9 year old daughter Christy, who addressed me as uncle, sent me this note: “Apay si Apudyus ud nangipalubus un pinatoy da si dadi?” (Why did God allow those people to kill my daddy?)

We had come to live with the Kalinga people to bring them the Good News about how much God loves them. Now, we were confronted with the heart wrenching cry of our little niece. We had no answer to her cry. The only thoughts that came in this time when we felt as abandoned as Christy did, were the words of Jesus when he hung on the cross and cried, “My God, my God, why did you abandon me?” A fuller understanding of the nature of God’s Good News emerged. We realized that this was the moment when Jesus, the incarnate son of God, demonstrated how much God loves us in the most compelling way possible.

Expressions of Pedro’s genuine nature and original commitment to follow Jesus’ way of enemy love, rather than revenge, came in subsequent years when Pedro’s widow and each of his 3 lovely daughters found themselves in situations where they could have taken revenge for his murder. In demonstration of the power of the Gospel, each one chose to forgive, rather than keep the poison of hate alive.

In our time with the Kalinga people, we truly learned more from them than we were ever able to give to them.

Our experience with them started us on a journey of learning more about the Gospel of the Kingdom where Jesus is Lord. It is so much more than just a personal decision to accept Jesus into our hearts. The Gospel is truly Good News about a new way of living – an “upside down Kingdom” where:

“You are blessed when…
…you're at the end of your rope. With less of you, there is more of God and His rule.
…you're content with just who you are - no more, no less. That's the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can't be bought.
… when you get your inside world - your mind and heart - put right. Then you can see God in the outside world.”