Emma Grace's Song

My daughter shared this modern day miracle story in a letter and I've asked her permission to condense and share it. It's a small peek into what inspires MAF families to live in proximity of remote villages that can be reached by air.

In the town they live, our grandchildren attend a school along with nationals, expats and other missionary kids. One of their friends has spent years in an interior village among the Moi people, but the family is now living in town to be closer to school.

While this family was living in the village, a young Moi girl got married and conceived. For most of the pregnancy her husband was away.  When he returned, he was furious to find that his wife had given birth to a healthy baby. The Moi tribal people of Papua believe that when a woman gets pregnant, the baby will not grow unless the mother continues to be sexually active. How then could their baby have grown unless she had been unfaithful? The husband ordered his wife to kill their newborn. Broken-hearted, but resigned to tradition, she took her wee baby girl and wrapped jungle vines tightly around her neck and body, leaving her in a net bag outside their hut to die.

When the missionary heard what was happening he rescued the baby in the bag, and ran with her to get help. They worked quickly to free the newborn from the strangling vines and she survived! Going back to the parents’ hut, they tried to explain that babies are precious gifts from God, but they refused to receive her back.

So the missionaries bathed and cared for the infant, naming her Emma Grace. Eventually, God used the story in Exodus 1, which had recently been translated into the Moi language, to speak to Emma Grace’s father. (This is the passage which tells of the Hebrew midwives who were blessed because they spared the lives of the Israelite baby boys, even though Pharaoh had ordered the babies killed.) This father became a believer in Christ and accepted his daughter back into their family.

In the meantime, missionaries have opened schools in several villages for children who have no opportunity to receive an education. The video I'm sharing shows Emma Grace leading the group of children at the opening ceremony of a brand new school in her village. Hope School (Sekolah Harapan) is just finished, built with supplies and teachers flown in by MAF.




What first intrigued me about this story is that age-old tribal customs are slow to die off and we easily wonder, how can this be? But the second thing that I had to think about is that many in our modern, educated society also have no regard for the sanctity of life. Here it is expressed in other ways, but is it any different? With all that we know, what excuse do we have?

May this story inspire us to live out truth, no matter where we live.