After showing the video Ee-Taow!, I often hear comments such as, “How nice it must be to work with a people group who are ready to receive the Gospel!” “I would like to work with people like that!” “Missionary work in Papua New Guinea must be easy.” I often hear comments referring to the Mouk as “a prepared people.”

What people don’t realize is that the Mouk people had their own very strongly held system of beliefs.

There is no doubt that God did prepare the hearts of the Mouk people. But you may not have seen the prayer, hard work, and other Biblical principles or patterns that God used through His messengers to bring that about. These principles were implemented long before Bible teaching ever began.

Urgency

Persistent, faithful, diligent hard work. “A very important message is coming, and I am working hard to bring it to you.” Especially the Zooks, and many other people on the missionary team, worked diligently day and night to communicate God’s message to the Mouk people.

Intentional relationships

Mark and Gloria diligently invested themselves in the lives of the Mouk people, caring for them as individuals: treating their wounds, working in their gardens, discovering their personalities, learning their fears, identifying with their sorrows, and discovering their relationships and their life challenges.

What changed the hearts of the Mouk people was the Word of God, carefully and specifically applied in the context of loving relationships, under the power of the Holy Spirit, to the strongly held false beliefs which were holding them captive. They responded with faith when their views were lovingly contrasted with God’s written word. As they responded a little at a time, their faith in God grew to the response you saw in the video.

“Ready” is not something a people group simply is. It is something years of urgency and relationship, under God’s hand, make them become.

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