In Irian Jaya's remote Snow Mountains lived the Yali--cannibals who called themselves "lords of the earth." Yet in terror and bondage they served women-hating, child-despising gods. Bowing to the kembu spirits, Yali men rendered fearful obedience, even executing children.

When missionary Stan Dale dared to enter the domain of this stone-age people, he embarked on a course that would swiftly bring him, his wife, and his companions into a bloody life-or-death struggle with the Yali's complex religion. He did not know what chilling hazards awaited him, nor at what cost the Yali would at last know the love of their Redeemer....

In 1962, Don and Carol Richardson risked their lives to share the gospel with the Sawi people of New Guinea. Peace Child tells their unforgettable story of living among these headhunters and cannibals who valued treachery through "fattening" victims with friendship before the slaughter. God gave Don and Carol the key to the Sawi hearts via a redemptive analogy from their own mythology. The "peace child" became the secret to unlocking a value system that existed through generations over centuries, possibly millenniums, of time. This analogy became a stepping-stone by which the gospel came into the Sawi culture and started both a spiritual and a social revolution from within. With an epilogue updating how the gospel has impacted the Sawi people, Peace Child will inspire a new generation of readers who need to hear this unforgettable story and the lessons it teaches us about communicating Christ in a meaningful way to those around us....

Among the headhunting Sawi of Irian Jaya, treachery was an ideal that generations of their people had perfected. The heroes of Sawi legend weren't those who took the greatest number of heads in battle or ambush, but those who were the most deceitful in befriending their victims before they took their heads.

When missionaries Don and Carol Richardson searched for the key that would open the gospel to the Sawi, God moved in a stunning way. He revealed His true Peace Child--the ideal fulfillment of the Sawi's own redemptive analogy. "Peace Child" chronicles the agony--and the triumph--of the Richardsons' unforgettable sojourn among this people loved by God....