Donor Stories

 

“I’m going to accept Christ,” Pugong said for many years, “but not yet. I’m still afraid of what the spirits will do to me.”

At one time a leading priest in his area, Pugong believed in the spirits’ power to bring success or failure, health or sickness, life or death to his community. He worked hard to appease them, faithfully performing sacrifices and rituals. 

Over the years, friends and family encouraged Pugong to accept Christ and abandon the opposing traditions. Wycliffe translator Anne West was one of those friends. She knew the dangers of spirit worship. When Pugong came home late at night after performing his priestly duties, which often involved drinking large quantities of alcohol, he would see Anne’s lamp still burning and felt that she was always waiting to see that he was safe.

Anne encouraged Pugong to accept Christ, assuring him that God was more powerful than the spirits. But despite the fact that his nine children and many of his neighbors became believers, Pugong continued to wait.

Finally, one day last September, thirty years after the New Testament was printed in Central Ifugao, Pugong finally made a decision.

“I’m ready to accept Christ,” he said, when a church group came to his home.

“Oh, wait until a pastor comes!” someone said.

“No, I don’t need a pastor,” Pugong replied. “I can pray now.”

Pugong did pray. And he insisted on being baptized, although it meant squatting low in a drum of water. Then he did something the spirits really hated—he burned his altar, rice god, and other religious paraphernalia. At his request, Pugong’s fellow priests were present. “I truly have become a follower of Christ,” he told them, “and you must do the same.”

This milestone brings new energy to Central Ifugao translators who are working to complete a translation of the Old Testament for their community. One of those translators is Pugong’s son-in-law, a local pastor who looks forward to the day when every Ifugao-speaking village experiences Christ’s power over the spirits, just as Pugong did.