Light in the Kamis Darkness
For the last five years, SIL* has been supporting a project translating the New Testament into Kamis, one of many languages in South America’s Amazon. The translation team considers it their mission to bring the light of God’s Word into the darkness of Kamis culture. The Kamis people know darkness — the visible kind that comes from a lack of electricity, and the spiritual kind that comes from a perpetual fear of mercenary spirits called the jai, who control their fate.
The Kamis people look to the jaibana, shamans who influence the jai, to bring good luck or administer retribution to their lives. The Holy Spirit is new to them, so they question his power. Is he stronger than the jai?
These questions are being answered every day.
Recently, a Kamis woman was bitten by a deadly snake. A believer in Christ, she invited fellow Christians to pray for her. As they prayed throughout the night, the news of her condition and her unconventional treatment spread. “If she dies,” village leaders said, “it will be because the jai are more powerful than the Holy Spirit.” By morning, she was still alive. She eventually fully recovered, and today her story testifies to the power of the Holy Spirit in her village.
The local Kamis translation team has recently translated the book of Philemon, which challenges the pervasive Kamis culture of retribution. In Kamis communities, petty criminals are punished harshly, often by spending several days in the stocks, vulnerable to weather, pests and ridicule; to murder a thief or debtor is not considered unjust. In this context, local translators were shocked to read how the Apostle Paul recommended a thief so highly — that he would even take on the thief’s debt as his own. Paul’s behavior demonstrated a kind of forgiveness rarely found in Kamis culture.
One of the translators recently shared how this new biblical concept of forgiveness has changed his life.
A neighbor stole a pig from me, and I was ready to kill him; I even went looking for him on the mountain with my machete. But on the way, a voice told me, "Don’t do it." I fell to my knees and wept. When I got up, I went to his house and forgave him. When he asked me why, I told him because that’s what Jesus would do. He asked to be introduced to Jesus, and he is now a follower of Jesus like me.
The Kamis translation of the New Testament is still incomplete, but its light is already piercing the surrounding darkness. Members of the translation team are gaining a reputation as Bible experts; local pastors are increasingly coming to them to clarify the Word and rectify false teachings. As they come to know the Word of God for themselves, their light shines bright into the Kamises’ darkness, and the power of that darkness is beginning to wane.
