Commander-in-Chief
Life‐Witness of
Wolfgang (Dan) Lunow
TEAM Mission
Box 969
Wheaton, IL 60189-0969, USA
Cover photos:
BACKGROUND OF FRONT AND BACK COVER
Mountain station of Anggi Lake, altitude 6,100 feet, interior of the Bird's
Head area of Papua, Indonesia.
FRONT
Dan in post-war Germany
Dan introducing the Sougb New Testament,
BACK
Dan & Barbara Lunow
Lunow Family 1975
Chapter 1
Living under Hitler’s Influence 7
Chapter 2
Checking out the Yankees 11
Chapter 3
Finding a New Commander-in-Chief 15
Chapter 4
Bringing God’s Word to Dutch New Guinea 19
Chapter 5
The Book of Life for the Sougb 31
Afterward
Filling in the Gaps 37
Life Events
Time Line 45
6 Dan Lunow
Chapter 1
Living under Hitler’s Influence
My name is Dan Lunow, or Wolfgang Lunow, and every
time I stand behind a pulpit I still can hardly believe it, because
the last thing I ever wanted to be was a Christian. You see, I
grew up under someone by the name of Adolf Hitler.
I was born two months after Hitler became chancellor
of Germany. And for you who know history, you know that he
became chancellor in February of 1933. I was born in April of
1933, and so the first 12 years of my life were spent listening
and absorbing everything that Hitler had to tell us, and to tell
me especially, because my parents were atheists and I had no
Christian upbringing whatsoever.
On the contrary, I was cautioned never to get roped in
by the Christians, because there is no God. There is no Jesus.
Only what is in this world is what is real. When you die, that’s
the end of the story. Everything else is a figment of our
imagination. Only people who cannot face life anymore make
up this pie in the sky stuff to help them cope with life. And so,
you who are here in this room are here because of a figment of
your imagination. It is all something that you have made up
your minds. You only think there is a heaven. I don’t know why
my parents and their friends especially were so intent on
telling me all that, because I wasn’t about to become a
Christian anyway.
You see, I wanted to become one of Hitler’s special
people, one of his SS soldiers. In order to do this, you had to
start out in what was called Hitler’s Youth. You had to be eight
years of age. So the day I turned eight, I told my dad, let’s go
down now to the clothing store and get the uniform that we
8 Dan Lunow
needed to become one of Hitler’s Youth. The brown shirts, the
swastikas, the special belt buckle which had ‘blood and iron’
written on it, and all the other paraphernalia. And man, there
was no greater day for me than the day I joined Hitler’s
Youth—to march, to be indoctrinated, and to absorb what
Hitler had for me.
You see, Hitler had gotten hold of the philosophy of
someone by the name of Nietzsche. And Nietzsche taught
there were only two types of people in the world, the ones to
rule, and the ones to be ruled. And, of course, we Germans
were the ones to be the rulers. Hey, I tell you that was great
stuff!
Hitler also told us that we were going to conquer the
world. Many, many days after school we would put on our
uniforms, march through the streets of Germany, and we
would sing “Today we conquer Europe; tomorrow, the whole
world!” There were lots of other songs that we sang that I
don’t even want to think about now, because they where
blasphemous, shaking our fists at God, defying everybody in
the world. But, you know, there is one song I still sing, that is,
“Today we conquer the whole world.” There is only one
difference. I have a new commander‐in‐chief. It is no longer
Hitler, because there was a day when I signed up again with
someone by the name of Jesus. But that was in the future.
And so, for four years I marched in Hitler’s Youth and
all I ever wanted to do after high school was to become one of
Hitler’s SS soldiers. That was my goal. I was tall enough, I had
blue eyes. I did not have blond hair, but Hitler would have
made an exception. He wanted me, and I was ready, body and
soul. I have always, even when I was little, wanted something
that I could live for, and I thought Hitler was the one. And my
parents, being atheists and neutral, said to go ahead.
Life-Witness 9
Well, 1945 rolled around, and all that I had lived for,
and all that I had hoped for was no longer. And I can still
remember the day when the English soldiers marched into my
home town. I thought, no way! You see, Hitler had promised
me we would conquer the world. There was going to be a
thousand year reign. How he was going to make good on that
promise, I didn’t know. But I swallowed the whole thing. I
completely trusted that what he was saying was true. We were
supposed to be the conquerors. We had already divided up
America from the north to the south. The western half of the
map had the rising sun of Japan on it, and the eastern half
showed the swastika of Germany.
It now appeared that all of Hitler’s promises were lies.
His kingdom never lasted a thousand years, but only 12 years.
We never conquered the world. The world conquered us. All I
felt now was a deep sense of betrayal. And from that day on, I
promised myself I would never ever give my life to anybody
else again. Don’t you ever make a promise like that. It’s not
going to work. Not if Jesus is going to be after you.
And I want you to see something else. I firmly believe
that from my mother’s womb, God had separated me unto the
gospel. Because in the next few years, it became apparent to
me that either my dad or I had to move out. We couldn’t both
continue to live under one roof. I mean, we had knock‐down,
drag‐out fights, and one of us would have gotten killed. I have
the scars on my head to prove it. I remember in one of our
fights that my dad threw me against a hot stove. I stood up and
shook my fist in his face and told him, “Dad. When I get big
enough, I am going to kill you.” He didn’t hit me after that, but
we still fought. This was real.
But my dad wasn’t going to be the one to move, so I
had to move. And the only way I could move in those days was
to hire myself out on a farm. My dad had been a sailor, so
10 Dan Lunow
farming was not in our family. But I actually liked it. We did all
the work by hand. And in the summer we worked outdoors
from sunrise at 4 AM, to dusk at 10 PM. But in the winter, the
farmer sent me to agricultural school to learn the other aspects
of farming. There were 40 of us in the class. In the third winter
of school, one day the teacher looked us all over and said,
“Lunow, come here.” Then he called up somebody else and
said “I have a letter here from a former student who is asking if
I know of two young men who would like to come to America
for two years to work on a farm, one in Minnesota to take his
place, and the other in Wisconsin. Would you be interested?”
My first thought was, “Who wants to go to America!” You see, I
was still a Nazi in my heart and we were going to conquer you.
But my dad had been a sailor and at least he knew the ports, so
I went home and asked him what he thought about going to
America. He said “Why don’t you go for two years and see
what the Yankees are like.”
Life-Witness 11
Chapter 2
Checking Out the Yankees
So in January of 1954, I came across to America, across
the North Atlantic. Anybody in his right mind would not go in
January! I was so sick. We had hardly left the harbor and I
spent the next 11 days feeding the fish. And the closer I got to
America, the colder it got. I got to New York and it was 30
below zero wind‐chill. I didn’t have any money. Otherwise I
would have turned around and gone home again. The taxi
driver read my address paper and deposited me at the Railway
Agency Office, instead of taking me directly to the railway
station. The man there made me to understand the bus would
be back at 5 PM and take me to the train. I walked around
looking and went through Times Square. But it was so cold that
when I got into the Empire State Building, I went up to the
observation deck and spent the rest of the day there.
After a day and half on the train, I got to the farmer in
Wisconsin on a Tuesday. We managed to talk and
communicate. He knew quite a bit of German, because his
mother was a second generation German. But then came
Sunday. That was when the fun started. The farmer made me
understand that we were going to go to Kirche (church), and I
thought okay, here it comes. I am glad my dad and everyone
else had warned me, and so I said, “No, I will not go to church.”
He said that I was new to the community, that this is where I
would meet people. They are carrying in a covered dish meal
for you. We are famous for this in America, aren‘t we? So I
said, “Okay, this one time I will come.” And you know I thought
then that it was the best thing I ever did.
But listen well. It is not what you think at all. Ten
minutes after we got into the church the farmer fell fast
asleep. He slept through the whole church service. The young
12 Dan Lunow
people whispered with each other and were all chewing gum.
And if any of you chew gum, you’d better put it away. I am very
sensitive to that. You see, there was a man standing up there,
reading out of a book, and trying to say something. No one was
paying much attention to what he was saying. Then there was
someone way back in the last pew who was cutting his
fingernails. I am not making this up, this actually happened. To
this day, I can still hear the “clip, clip, clip.” That was my
introduction to Christianity!
What impression do you make on unbelievers? But you
know what really put the icing on the cake for me was when
they told me there was a Book called the Bible. And they said
this Book was given to us by God. And even in my unconverted
state, I thought to myself, “Well then, why don’t they pay more
attention to this Book?” You know my dear brother and sister,
If this is the Word of God, and it is, then this is the most
important Book in the universe. Now you are saying amen. But
how much do you read it? Do you read it daily? Do you feed on
it? Do you feed your soul to get stronger in the inner man so
you can go out and tell others about Jesus? Now I am
preaching, but you need it, we all need it.
Well, after that introduction to Christianity, I got out of
church and said to myself, “I’m glad I came. My dad was right
all along. These people don’t believe a thing.” It is all a sham. It
was a cultural thing, just something they do on Sunday, all
external. It didn’t mean anything to them. I never saw my
farmer ever read his Bible. And yet every Sunday, there he was,
going to church. And I never could understand why he went to
church to sleep; he had a perfectly good bed at home. And so
from that day on, every Sunday, he wanted to get me to
church, but I only went when there was a covered dish meal, or
some activity for the young people. Fourteen months we went
like this every Sunday. Finally, the second Sunday of March
1955 I told the farmer, “Don’t you get it, don’t you
understand? I don’t want your Jesus! I don’t want any of it.
Life-Witness 13
Leave me alone.” I worked six days a week and I was tired. It
was a dairy farm with milking, doing the chores. All I wanted on
Sunday was to pick up the Sunday paper, listen to some music,
and relax.
The farmer grumbled and went on to church. And I
thought, ah, finally, this is over. Well it’s never been over since!
When I was done with my chores, I went into the living room,
grabbed the Sunday paper, turned on the radio, and laid down
on the couch. You see, it was the worst thing I ever did! Eleven
o’clock came and what happened at eleven o’clock on Sunday
morning 50 years ago? Every station had a full church service.
It was the most holy hour in America. I thought I can’t believe
this, another sermon. I wanted to get up and turn the thing off,
but I thought well, it’s going to be over pretty soon. How wrong
I was.
You see, that Sunday morning there was no farmer to
sleep in the pew. No young people to chew gum and talk. No
one to clip his fingernails. There was just Jesus and me. Half an
hour earlier I had said, “I don’t want you, Jesus.” But that did
not change His love for me. I don’t remember the sermon
exactly, but the best thing impressed upon my soul was that
Jesus said to me, “You know, I love you. Do you want to sign‐up
again?” And that was the exact thing that I had vowed I would
never do again. It was not especially about my sins. But it was
about who was going to be my commander‐in‐chief? Who was
going to run my life again? And that was one thing I did learn
under Hitler. So something good came out of my Hitler Youth
years anyhow. When we signed‐up, Hitler demanded what is
called Kadaver‐Gehorsam, the obedience of a dead person, the
obedience of a corpse. The moment you signed‐up, you had no
more right to anything. Hitler, and Hitler alone, told you where
to go and what to do. By the end of the broadcast, I was sitting
on the edge of the couch and this stoic German was crying like
a baby. The farmer came home right then, and I quickly dried
my tears and pretended that nothing had happened.
14 Dan Lunow
But a couple weeks later it was my weekend off. The
farmer asked me what I was going to do and I told him I
wanted to go to Minneapolis. I wanted to go to that church,
because the sermon had so affected me. I got there by train
and spent the night on a bench in the railroad station, because
I didn’t have any money to stay in a hotel.
The next morning at 11 AM, I sat in the back row of
that church. Again the Word of God spoke to my heart. And
Jesus said to me, “Who is it going to be, you, or me? Again, I
don’t remember the sermon, but when the preacher was
closing in prayer, I said to Jesus, “I don’t even know who you
are. But if you want me, here I am.” And that was my
conversion experience.
Life-Witness 15
Chapter 3
Following a New Commander-in-
Chief
And soon after that as I was reading my Bible, I read
that this Jesus had said, “Him that comes to me, I will not cast
out.” He accepted me that morning, but I was like a baby. I
didn’t even know the first commandment. I knew nothing. But
something changed in my heart. I knew that I was a different
person because first of all, I had an insatiable thirst and hunger
for the Word of God. And in any one of you who are truly
converted there ought to be that hunger.
The second thing that happened was that God took
away two of my besetting sins. What a liberating thing that was
for me. I grew up being insanely jealous, and I lied all the time.
About a month after I became a Christian, I heard of something
really good that happened to an acquaintance of mine. And
just like that, I said, “Praise the Lord.” It so shocked me that I
said to myself, “What did I just say?” As for lying, as I grew up,
it was easier to lie than to tell the truth because if I told my dad
the truth, he would just beat me to a pulp anyway. So, why tell
him the truth? How thankful I am that God helped me in this,
because it came home to me how it was of the utmost
importance that I be truthful and transparent when I started
my missionary career.
One day when we were on our station, the mission
airplane came in to bring us supplies. We had a grass airstrip,
and as the pilot was trying to land, a big pig ran out on the
strip. The pilot called me on the two‐way radio and in no
uncertain terms told me to get that pig off! While he circled
overhead one more time, the people chased the pig off the
airstrip. The plane landed, the pilot jumped out, and was he
mad! As he should have been because if he had hit that big pig
16 Dan Lunow
coming in at 70 mph, he would have killed himself and wrecked
the airplane too. He made some very unflattering remarks
about the people, because they knew they were supposed to
clear the pigs away before the plane came in. When he left, the
head of the tribal church council came to me and said, “What
did the pilot say to you?” And there it was. The pilot had of
course spoken in English, so I could have sanitized his
comments. But I had vowed to myself that I would never ever
lie to our people, because lying had been one of my besetting
sins. And lying just happens to be one of the Sougb people’s
besetting sins, too! So I told the council leader exactly what
the pilot had said, and do you know what his reply was? “We
knew that. We just wanted to see what you were going to tell
us.” Always be honest. Always be honest. It’s the best way to
live. That became my defining moment on the mission field,
because it literally opened up the tribe to me. Because from
that day on, whatever I told them they believed. They said this
missionary does not lie to us, so what he says about the Bible
must also be true. And now there are 90 churches, about 9,000
baptized believers in a tribe of some 13,000 people.
Well, back to my conversion story. Because I had this
burning desire to read the Word of God, and because God took
these two besetting sins away from me, that was evidence and
proof to my heart that God had accepted me and that I had the
Holy Spirit at work in me.
So after I was converted, then what? You see, the very
next night, after I got back to the farm in Wisconsin, I knelt
down by my bed and gave my life for missionary service.
Because I thought that all Christians were missionaries, there
was nothing else to be! And I also knew that all my plans,
whatever plans I had, had gone out the window. So, as I prayed
and read the word of God, I thought it might be good to
become a medical missionary. I wrote to the University of
Minnesota to enroll in pre‐medicine. How God got me into the
university is another miracle story, because I only had a 10th
Life-Witness 17
grade education. When I wrote to them they asked about my
high school diploma. I told them I didn’t have one. They said I
had to take a test. I had only been in America for 14 months.
So, when I took the test, I didn’t even know what half of the
vocabulary meant. It took me eight hours to finish. I thought
then and there that I wouldn’t get in. Well, it took them six
weeks to make up their minds, but then they wrote and said
“You can come”. This taught me one thing, if God opens a
door, no one can ever close it.
And so I started in pre‐med. Of course you had to get
outside work, and I did not know that either. I was utterly
naïve, you can’t even believe it. But when you are a babe, Jesus
can show Himself strong on your behalf. We in ourselves think
we know too much to let the Holy Spirit work. If we are empty,
He can fill our hearts with Himself. I tried hard to find a job, but
nothing doing. I was living at the YMCA and only had enough
money left for one week. One day I was sitting in the university
library, filled with 200 or so people, reading my Bible when I
should have been studying. A lady whom I had never seen in
my life and whom I have never seen since, walked up to me.
She put a piece of paper in front of me with a name and
address on it and quietly said, “Do you need a job?” I asked
her, “Who told you that I needed a job?” She said, “I have no
idea. I just felt compelled to come and give you this piece of
paper.” And I had my job. This is what Jesus does!
It was a job as a service station attendant. It was fall
and then winter and cold. I still did not have much money to
live on. During that time for several months, I bought seven
loaves of day‐old bread each week, ate one loaf a day and
drank water. Once a week I bought a pint of half and half milk
and drank that down with my bread. God wants us to trust Him
in the lean times as well as when all seems to be going fine.
Then while I was pumping gas, I met a young man who invited
me to his house once a week where he cooked a wonderful
gourmet meal for me. Eventually this man’s mother invited me
18 Dan Lunow
to stay in a small room at their house, free of charge. After my
gas station job ended, she introduced me to the man who
offered me a job at a hospital washing dishes. But since I was
studying in pre‐med, he helped me to become a hospital
orderly and I worked in the surgery department.
While I was working at the hospital and studying at the
university, I read a mission magazine that asked for nine
couples to do translation work in what was then called Dutch
New Guinea.
It was just as if the Holy Spirit said to me that this was
what He wanted me to do. I contacted the personnel director
of TEAM (The Evangelical Alliance Mission), which is the same
mission we are with now, and asked him what I had to do in
order to do translation work. He directed me to the Summer
Institute of Linguistics (under Wycliffe Bible Translators). After I
attended one summer session, I knew I would never be a
doctor. I really felt that translation and languages were the
gifts God had given me. And after getting my B.A. degree from
the university, I began taking more linguistic studies.
Life-Witness 19
Chapter 4
Taking The Word to Dutch
New Guinea
It was also while working at the hospital that I met a
young lady from Iowa, Miss Barbara K. Halbach, who was in the
nursing program. We fell in love and were married, and
together, in 1968, we went out to New Guinea (by then called
Irian Barat, then later Irian Jaya, and now Papua, Indonesia) to
work in a tribe of some 13,000, called the Sougb people.
Barbara, gave me five wonderful children, three boys
and two girls. The perfect help‐meet. All that has been
accomplished in our work in New Guinea has been because I
had her as my wife. While I mostly did translation work and
teaching church leaders, listen to what she did. Besides
bringing up a husband and five children, she put all of the
Sougb language New Testament and shortened Old Testament
into the computer. Plus correcting all the numerous changes,
numerous being the key word. After the fifth change, she told
me, “If you change this one more time, I am not going to type it
again!”
In our early missionary days, she set up and worked in
a village clinic. Later, she and our nurse coworker translated a
medical course and taught about, plus or minus, 200 village
medical workers. She worked out a six‐year Sunday School
curriculum; three years Old Testament, three years New
Testament. She taught a weekly widows’ class. She got the kids
ready for boarding school.
Out of all the things we ever did, the latter was
perhaps the hardest. We had to send our children away to
school when they were only six years of age. First through
eighth grade, they were 500 miles away on our island. Ninth
through twelfth grades, they went to Manila in the Philippines.
20 Dan Lunow
We only saw them summers and Christmas breaks. In the
elementary grades, we did visit them at school for two weeks
each semester, but we couldn't do that in the Philippines. And
Barbara got them all ready. For two days after the kids left, I
knew enough to leave my wife alone. People often said to us
“You know, after a while it gets easier, doesn’t it?” No way! It
never ever gets any easier. That was a hard one, and yet the
grace of God is sufficient. She got everything ready, plus the
daily meals, and all I did was translate. If you have the right
wife, everything is going to work out. Thank you, my wife.
And after 35 years, as I told you, we have about 90
churches, 9,000 baptized believers. In 1997 the New
Testament was done. In 2003, the shortened Old Testament
was printed. And I have one more thing to do. I want to edit
and print all the church leaders’ lessons I prepared over 30
some years. Tribal people do not think as we do in the West,
putting things in order 1, 2, 3. So I took Scripture passages and
made preaching points with a corresponding memory verse,
and taught the church leaders as they came every four months,
and then sent them out. Of course, this was all translated into
their tribal language.
Now you have to understand that when we got to New
Guinea, there were very few written languages among the
tribes. On the Indonesian side of the island, there are some
300 language groups, and there are about 400 languages on
the Papuan side. All these languages were only spoken before
missionaries arrived. Our translation of the Sougb New
Testament was the 26th one to be printed on our side of the
island.
So, how do you get the language written down for a
tribe. You take one language, and you start looking at each
other…they don’t know your language, you don’t know their
language…and you start pointing. You begin by making long
lists of words. And then you put some of the words together
into sentences and try them out on the people. Fortunately for
Life-Witness 21
us, we could also use the Indonesian language to a certain
extent, because some of the men also knew Indonesian. At
first, you translate simple Bible stories and verses, and
eventually you translate the Bible. At the same time that I was
translating, I developed lessons and taught them to the church
leaders. And as you go along, you also teach the people to read
and write their own language. It was when the Bible was
translated into their own tongue that the Sougb people really
understood about God and Jesus.
One thing that was so interesting in those early days
was that when people heard there were white people at this
village making little black dots on paper, and they are teaching
lessons about God from these black dots, they came from
villages everywhere. They would ask, “Do you still have this
paper with black dots on it?” And I said, “I still have some.”
“Can you teach us?” “Well, can you read?” “No.” “But you can
teach it to us anyway.”
The tribal people have an amazing capacity to absorb
oral teaching, because they are an oral society. With no written
language, they had to memorize everything, and they did. So
these men took the lessons and preached them to their own
people in their villages. If they found someone in the village
who could read Indonesian, that person became the church
reader in the Sougb language. What was so interesting was
that only a few of these men were Christians at the time. It
showed me the wonderful power of the Word of God that even
if an unbeliever, or an atheist, preaches the Word of God, the
Spirit of God will take it and speak to the hearts of people and
convict them and call them to repentance. The Word of God is,
indeed, the power of God unto salvation for everyone who
believes. Many were converted, not through me, but through
the Bible lessons, because the Spirit of God convicted the
people as they heard the Word of God.
And so it was that after sending lessons to them for
three years, the villages sent word that they were ready for us
22 Dan Lunow
to come and baptize them, because they felt that they had
become Christians. And so I, and other pastors, trekked to
those villages to gather in the harvest. Upon examination,
many did have a clear testimony that they had become
Christians, especially the women. But one curious thing was
that a number of those who had come for the lessons for those
three years and then brought them back to their people
couldn’t get baptized, because it was obvious they hadn’t
accepted Jesus yet.
One man in particular came to me and said, “For four
days I walked over the trail, then stayed three days with you
for teaching, and then I walked four days back. I was hungry
those many days. I taught your lessons to my people. I did this
for three years. And you don’t want to baptize me!” I told him
that it does not depend on what you do, but on what Jesus had
done for us. “You have not accepted Jesus yet by confessing
your sins to Him. But don’t be afraid. We will explain it and
teach you some more about the way to heaven so that you
understand. After you have accepted Jesus, then we will
baptize you.” Six months later I was sitting at my desk when I
heard his voice outside. I opened my door and looked at his
face and I knew exactly what had happened. He ran to me,
threw his arms around me and said, “Thank you, missionary,
for not baptizing me before, because I did not know Jesus then.
But now I do!”
Life-Witness 23
Aerial views of the mountain station at Anggi Lake, altitude 6,100 feet, in the
interior of the Bird's Head area of Papua, Indonesia, the Lunow’s home for
nearly 40 years..
24 Dan Lunow
A traditional Sougb house built high off the ground for fear of evil
spirits getting into the house
Village Life
26 Dan Lunow
Life
Translating
the Word of
God into the
Sougb language
Dan and translation team for the New Testament, left to right are
Hengki, Petu and Urias
Life-Witness 29
Dan presenting the first copy of the Sougb New Testament at its
Dedication Service in 1997; Center, the New Testament; Below, a
young girl reads New Testament to her brother.
30 Dan Lunow
Chapter 5
The Book of Life for the Sougb
People ask us why we go to the mission field. Well, first
of all, I believe that the Bible is the Word of God. And the Bible
says that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
None is righteous; no, not one. No one can get to God on his
own merit, because we are sinners. And the penalty for sin is
the separation from God for all eternity. So God sent His Son,
Jesus, to die for our sins because Jesus is without sin. He died
on the cross and was buried. On the third day he rose again
from the dead. To be what? To be our lawyer. That is what
Jesus is. He is our advocate. He has opened the door to heaven
for us, and anyone who confesses his sins, Jesus will take his
case before the Father God. And you know what? Jesus has
never lost a case yet. Hallelujah. Thanks be to God. Everyone
who comes to Him will get a full pardon.
I always tell my people there are six things that happen
the day someone accepts Christ and confesses his sins. First of
all, his sins are forgiven, none are left. Second, his sins are
washed away. God remembers them no more. Then God
reconciles us, He shakes hands with us, as the Sougb people
say. Fourth, God makes us His very own sons and daughters.
And there is a beautiful ceremony for this in our tribe.
When a man wants to adopt someone, he gets everyone
together and before these witnesses cuts his finger. Then he
holds his finger over the head of the one to be adopted. As his
blood drops on this person’s head, he says, “This is my blood
drop, this is my adopted son/daughter.” The first time I heard
this, I had shivers run up and down my spine. What a picture of
Jesus that is. Each one who comes to the cross, and confesses
his sins, Jesus’ blood drops on her/him and we become God’s
blood drops, His adopted sons and daughters. What a message
we have. But that is not all.
32 Dan Lunow
The fifth thing that happens when we accept Jesus is
he sends us the Holy Spirit to help us walk in this new life that
we have in Christ. And finally, He crosses our name out of the
Book of Death and writes it in the Book of Life. All those six
things happened on that day we believed in Jesus. The Sougb
people understood this, saying to me, “It is the blood of Jesus
only, and us turning away from our sins that gives us life
everlasting.”
This is what we believe, and this is all that we have
ever taught. And God has used it, because it is the truth, and
He uses the truth of His Word to convict the hearts of people.
Over the years, we have seen some wonderful changes
in the lives of the Sougb people. They always believed that
when somebody died, their spirit would just kind of float
around in the air. A number of the people who died were their
enemies. Now you have all of these enemy spirits floating
around, looking to do you harm. In order to avert this, it is
necessary to appease the evil spirits. So you hang beads,
armbands, or other gifts in trees as an offering. Then you chant
incantations, like, “Look, look, this is what I give you. Now be
good to me and don’t kill me.” They also wear amulets and
charms on their arms or around their necks in order to ward off
evil.
But now we are seeing that they are no longer afraid of
these evil spirits. Why? First of all, they found out from the
Bible that when humans die, their spirits are not floating
around. Ever thought of that? Where do people go when they
die? Where do the unbelievers go? Not to hell yet, but to a
place of death, which is called Hades in Greek, or sheol in
Hebrew. And the Christians go where? To paradise, as Jesus
said to the man on the cross next to him, “Today, you shall be
with me in paradise.” They also found out that Jesus was the
big Spirit above all evil spirits, and that the evil spirits could not
do anything to the Christians unless Jesus allowed it.
Black magic was another big thing in the culture that
we had to deal with. The people were afraid of each other
Life-Witness 33
because they could kill each other by black magic. They
thought that certain things had evil power in them and could
kill them. For example, someone would put a special root
down on the path, cover it up with leaves, and the intended
victim would walk over the root, and the power of the root
would go into his body, and he would die. They would take a
certain powder or ashes in their palms and hide beside the
path. When the victim came along, they would blow these
powders at them and actually kill them with their magic. I don’t
know how it works, but it works, people die. Eventually the
Christians trusted that Jesus could take the power away from
this magic stuff, and they did not have to be afraid of each
other any more. Hallelujah.
Thirdly, we have seen that women became people. In
the early days, the people would ask us why we were
preaching to the women. We said that Jesus died for the
women too. “How could He; they don’t have a soul!” And
when the men found out that God had also made the women
and given them a soul, and that the women were God’s
property, they did not like it at all. Because I had told them
before that they had to be very careful how they treated
someone else’s property. It also meant they had to love their
wives, not take a machete to them, or beat them, because
their wives belonged to God.
Many times we saw a woman walking down the
airstrip carrying a big net bag of sweet potatoes slung on her
head, a two‐year‐old on her shoulders, with a baby tied in front
and firewood curved in one arm. The man would be coming a
few paces behind, with his bow and arrow, protecting her, so
he said. I got so mad sometimes. When I told him to carry the
bag of sweet potatoes, he laughed as if it was the funniest
thing he ever heard. In those days, we had to make long lists of
what it meant to love your wife. The men did not have a clue.
They thought they bought their wives, because they gave
money or cloth to their father‐in‐law, and so the new wife
34 Dan Lunow
became their property. Just like you go to the supermarket and
buy something. First of all, I said, “You don’t buy your wife!” I
tried to make their dowry payment more like a thank you
offering to the in‐laws for their wives. “You just give your
father‐in‐law something because you are taking his daughter
from him and she is his old‐age pension.” But we are seeing
changes. Women have become human beings. We can see
sometimes now how a man will even take the baby, while the
wife goes out digging sweet potatoes. I like to tease them
about this and so have asked, “Is your wife out digging sweet
potatoes?” “Yeah.” “Are you loving your wife?” “Yeah.” Boy, is
being a Christian ever hard!
Another great change we have seen is that which is in
the womb has become a human being. The old culture says
that which was in the stomach was an “it.” And when it was
born, it was still an it! From the time the mother was in the
birthing hut, until she went back up to the regular house, she
could do with that little baby whatever she wanted. Many
times in the past, especially if she wanted to get even with her
husband for something, she would dig a hole and bury the
baby alive, or she would fill the mouth with stones and
suffocate it. Why? Because it was an it. In all the great changes
we have seen, this was one of the greatest, when the
Christians realized that which is in the womb is what God
himself is putting together. This new life has a soul. God has
given it certain abilities and talents. God has a plan for each life
that is born. They are not its, but God’s creations. And we have
no right whatsoever to terminate them!
The great irony is, that here in America, it used to be a
human being and now the baby in the womb is an ‘it’. What are
we trying to do? Are we greater than God? Oh, there are going
to be a lot of people who have to give a terrible account for
changing light to darkness. Redefining words, calling darkness
light, and light darkness. What is in the womb is God’s
property, not our own.
Life-Witness 35
We have also seen a real change in what people
consider important. Before, it was the stuff that they had on
this earth that was important. Now what is important is what is
up there, in heaven.
The Christians are also showing a willingness to
forgive. Before, if somebody sinned against me, I made them
pay. There was no forgiveness whatsoever. And now they are
forgiving each other with the blood of Jesus. Hallelujah. It is a
tremendous economic loss, but it is according to the will of
God. People should not get rich from someone else’s sins.
The last change, and I left it until the end, because it is
the one the Sougb people, the men especially, appreciate the
most. That is in their attitude towards death. Before they were
deathly afraid to die. But now, again and again they come to
me and say, “Missionary, thank you for coming, now we know
where we are going.”
And we have seen some tremendous home‐goings.
Two older women died; one was a believer and the other a
non‐believer. And the difference was this: at 11 o’clock in the
morning the unbelieving woman was dying and she called out
to the pastor at her side, “It is dark, it is dark. Come, open the
door for me.” But the pastor said, “It is not too late. Many
times I have told you that you can come to Jesus, but you
yourself must open the door.” “No, I cannot, I cannot.” “Yes,
you can.” “No, I cannot, you open the door for me.” And that is
the way she passed into eternity.
At 4 o’clock in the afternoon the Christian woman lay
dying. She called out, “Can you see Him, can you see Him? It is
Jesus; He is coming for me. And He has a little pot with red
blood in it, and his angels are with him.” Then she lifted up her
arms and said, “Jesus, thank you,” and she was home.
Hallelujah. What a home‐going.
And we have heard of others. One man was dying and
he said that Jesus told him, “Tell your people,” and I tell you
this because I like this one really well, “Whatever the
36 Dan Lunow
missionary has told you is the truth. You listen to him.” When I
heard this I said thank you, Jesus. This is what the missionary
wants to know; what Jesus thinks of his preaching. And Jesus
said I was telling the truth. Hallelujah. It is worthwhile.
A most wonderful thing now is that we have ten
couples in five different tribes that are repeating what I did in
the Sougb tribe so many years ago. And they are bringing many
people to Jesus, using teaching materials that I translated. God
has been good.
I am glad I have Jesus as my Commander‐in‐Chief now.
Hitler never kept his promises to me. But this commander‐in‐
chief, Jesus, all his promises are yea and amen, and he will
make good on every one of them. Hitler never went with us
into battle, but let us go by ourselves. Jesus went with me all
the way, giving me wisdom and strength, because I was no
match for the enemy. We will conquer this world and reign
with Jesus. Hitler’s kingdom lasted only twelve years, but Jesus’
kingdom is for eternity. Jesus is all I ever wanted and thought a
commander‐in‐chief should be. And I do not ever want to
follow anyone else but Him.
God bless you.
Life-Witness 37
Afterward
Filling in the Gaps
What was so enthralling about Hitler that you wanted to
follow him?
We listened to Hitler on the radio all the time. His speeches
were compelling and almost mesmerizing to hear. My
parents remained neutral. My dad was older and was not
even considered for military service until the last days of
the war. But as I grew, I began to listen to the content of
Hitler’s speeches. If I joined up with him, he offered me to
be a ruler of the world. That was pretty heady stuff. His
pictures were posted everywhere, he was someone to
follow. Even as a child, I always needed a cause to live for.
Maybe that was what God put there, a longing to fill the
emptiness I felt in my heart.
Did you know anything about the Jews and the concentration
camps?
We heard very little, a few rumors that Hitler was rounding
up the Jews. A neighbor was a soldier and worked in one of
the camps. He was home for a rest one time, and I asked
him about this. He told me not to ask any questions, I was
too young to hear. Even after the war, we only heard very
little information on the radio. It wasn’t until I came to
America that I began to hear about the treatment of the
Jews. In school, we were taught that all the economic
problems of Europe were because of the Jews, from way
back to the Middle Ages. In Hitler’s Youth we were taught
even more propaganda against the Jews, and we accepted
it and believed it all.
My only direct contact with a Jew was a young man who
worked in the produce store near my school. He always
wore a yellow patch with the Star of David on his shirt
38 Dan Lunow
pocket. After awhile he didn’t work at the store anymore.
Another time I went skiing with friends and we saw men
working on the road and they all had yellow patches with
Star of David on their shirts.
I had older cousins who were both in Hitler’s elite SS
troops. They remained indignant about what the world
had to say about the Nazi’s treatment of the Jews, saying
that it was all a lie. In 1968 we visited Germany on our way
to the mission field. I confronted them with the number of
Jews killed by the Nazis. Their response was that it was
only 600,000, not 6 million, who were killed. They had no
remorse about any of it. They were still Nazis in their
hearts. What can you say in response to that kind of
brainwashing?
Did you attend school during the war?
Yes, I went all the time. We had separate schools for boys
and girls. As the war was ending, most of our fuel was
used for the war. In the winter the schools didn’t have
heat and so we went to school to receive our assignments,
then went home to study. After the war, in 1945, we
didn’t have school for almost a year. We were busy trying
to survive, getting enough food to eat and fuel to keep
warm.
What was it like after the war?
Food: We were able to get some food during the war. We
didn’t have much, but the stores honored the ration cards
and gave us what was allowed. We had very little protein
in our diet. It all went to the soldiers. When the war ended
in May 1945, the store keepers began to hoard food and
commodities, because our money was not worth anything.
They still had to honor ration cards though, but we could
only get a little bread and milk, subsistence level only. My
brother and I were always hungry. We went looking in
garbage cans for anything edible. If we found potato peels,
or things like that, we ate it. We boys hopped on trains to
Life-Witness 39
the country and tried to trade goods for food with the
farmers. We broke into a dry goods store and stole stuff
and offered that as barter for the food. If we didn’t get
enough in trade, we went out and dug potatoes from the
fields. The farmers watched for us and chased us away
when they saw us. When the orchards got fruit, mostly
apples and cherries, we traded or paid the farmers and
they allowed us to pick fruit.
This lasted for three years, from 1945 to 1948. My mother
cried a lot during that time. She was a very moral person,
even though she was an atheist. And it hurt her to know
that her sons were stealing. Our health suffered also, and I
remember getting sores that lasted for months. Our legs
were covered in bandages. Finally the government was
able to readjust the money so that it was worth something
again. The farmers grew their usual crops again, and the
stores put back their hoarded goods on the shelves. To this
day, I remember the hunger and have a hard time to see
any food wasted.
Fuel: After the war, Germany was forced to make
reparations of coal for fuel to the countries north of us.
Every day the trains went right through our town. The
winter of 1945‐1946 came and it was the worst in memory.
Many people died, especially the older people. They froze
to death, because we Germans had no fuel for ourselves.
At night we boys would go into the woods and cut down
trees and drag them home for fuel. When the trains came
through and had to stop, my brother and I and some other
boys would hop on the trains and throw coal down and
then gather it up after the trains left. I remember one time
I jumped up and pulled the lever down on the side of the
car and it opened the side gates. The coal poured out onto
the side of the tracks. The train men saw us and chased us.
I jumped into the icy cold river and swam across to get
away from them. They never caught us, but I didn’t do that
again.
40 Dan Lunow
What did you study at the University of Minnesota?
As my life‐story tells you, I studied pre‐medicine. I got my
degree in psychology, with a minor in anthropology. Then
during two summers, I took linguistic studies with Wycliffe
Bible Translators at the University of North Dakota. After
that, I took advanced courses towards a Masters degree in
linguistics at the University of Minnesota. Later, my wife,
Barbara, and I went to Columbia Bible College in South
Carolina to prepare ourselves for missionary service.
Did any of your family become Christians?
My Father: My father died in 1974. I had one brief
opportunity to tell him of my conversion when we went
via Germany on our way to the mission field. He listened
to me until I got to the part where I told him I was a sinner
and needed Jesus to save me. Then he laughed and
rejected it, and he refused to ever discuss it again. He also
never ate with us again, but took his meals in another
room. He never got over the fact that instead of becoming
a doctor, I became a missionary. He told me I was
throwing my life away. I am convinced that if I had not
come to America, I would never have become a Christian
in Germany. My father was very authoritarian, and he
would never have allowed it.
My brother: When my father died, I went from the mission
field to Germany to help my brother clean out my parents’
apartment. We also put my mother in a nursing home at
that time. I had one evening with my brother then and he
asked me what I was doing as a missionary. After I
presented the gospel to him, he said, “Yes, I know that this
is what I should do (accept Jesus), but I’m not willing to
quit sinning. And I know this is what would have to
happen. You go back to the mission field and when I am on
my death bed, I will call you.” I never saw my brother
again. Relatives located him for my mother’s funeral and
Life-Witness 41
sent me pictures. But I have no idea if he is alive today,
despite efforts of friends in Germany to find him for me.
He made his choice. I do not know if God gave him another
chance. But I wish I could have brought him to Jesus that
night. Why wait?
My Mother: We placed my mother in a nursing home,
because she was mentally unstable and could not care for
herself after my father died. My brother made it clear that
he would not do anything more for her. So I went to the
little evangelical church that we as a family connected with
on the way to the mission field the first time. There was
one couple, in particular, who befriended us and kept in
touch with us. They, along with the church elders, told me
to go back to the mission field. They would take care of my
mother, visit her, and see to her needs. This couple and
another woman, especially, were faithful to visit my
mother to the point that she eventually recognized them.
For nine years they did this. I was able to see her only once
during that time. In the fall of 1982, our friends noted that
my mother was failing. The couple, especially, felt the Lord
telling them to try to talk to her about believing in Jesus.
After prayer and fasting, they asked the Lord for 4 things:
1) That they, husband and wife, would be of one spirit
and one mind.
2) That mother would be in her right mind when they
came.
3) That she would be alone in her room.
4) That God would show them the right day to visit her.
All of these things God arranged for them as He showed
them what day to go. My mother smiled, and greeted
them, and knew them. When they told her they came from
someone who loved her very much, she asked if her son,
Wolfgang had sent them. “Yes, your son loves you very
much, but we have come from Jesus, who also loves you
very much.” Then they asked her if she would accept Jesus
42 Dan Lunow
that day and she said, yes! So they led her in the sinner’s
prayer and she followed after them, word for word. They
laid their hands on her and asked for God’s protection over
her and that Satan would not have power over her mind,
that it would remain clear. They gave her a daily calendar
containing a few scriptures to read and then left.
Not long after that, we received a letter from these friends
telling us that my mother had accepted Jesus and she was
clear in her mind. We were so thrilled that we sent out a
prayer letter about it. We forgot that my cousin who had
been in Hitler’s SS would receive it too. He had asked to
receive our letters, because he knew English from when he
had been a prisoner of war in Arizona. Well, when he got
the letter, he didn’t believe it. He decided to check it out
for himself and so he went to visit my mother in the
nursing home. Then he wrote me a long letter about his
time with her.
My cousin concluded his letter with these words,
“Whatever happened to her, I do not understand it. But
your mother is a changed person. She is clear in her mind
and she can follow conversations now.”
I was very thankful to God for his letter, because it
confirmed to my heart that my mother had a true
conversion experience, that I will see her in heaven some
day. Not long after that, in the spring of 1983, my mother
died. I was unable to go to Germany for the funeral. But
the little church in Pinneberg, my hometown, made all the
arrangements and buried her for me.
Where did you live and work during your missionary career?
We were assigned to the mountain station of Anggi Lake,
which was at an altitude of 6,100 feet, in the interior of
what is called the Bird's Head area of Papua, Indonesia.
The temperature was very nice, ranging from 50‐85
degrees, with an average rainfall of 6 feet per year. We
lived at Anggi station our entire time there. But as the work
Life-Witness 43
progressed, I trekked to all the villages throughout the
tribal area. It was a great expanse of territory, ranging from
the rainforests in the mountains, going all the way down to
the jungles with winding rivers and mosquito infested
swamps.
Were you and Barbara the only missionaries working with the
Sougb people?
No, we were actually not the first missionaries assigned to
the Sougb tribe. We arrived in November 1969, just after
missionaries Henry and Margie Bock had returned to the
States because of illness. They were the ones who first
entered the tribe and established the first churches. I am
deeply grateful for the work they did in preparing the soil
and planting the seeds of the Sougb church. I came along
and watered, and the Lord gave the increase. During our
time there, two single women worked with us. Susan
Moers lived on our station and was in charge of the literacy
program, teaching the people how to read and write. Pat
Fillmore, a nurse as well as a translator, lived on another
station within the tribe. Besides handling an extensive
medical work and teaching, Pat translated courses and set
up the Sougb Bible School. How thankful I am for my wife
and these two women. Because the many tasks they
performed so faithfully over the years allowed me the time
to concentrate on translation and church leadership
teaching.
After spending your adult life as a missionary translator,
would you do it again?
Yes, I would do it all over again. Why? What else is there?
To me, it’s a matter of obedience. Obeying God is what
started me on this path, and it still holds true today. I have
no other ambitions than to do what God wants me to do. I
believe Jesus is the only way to heaven and people need to
know this. Someone has to tell them. So God led me to the
Sougb people to translate the Word of God into their
44 Dan Lunow
language. And there were many who responded and
believed in the message of Jesus. Thanks be to God alone
for this.
I would still go, because no matter your personal
deficiencies, God will provide people to help you. I didn’t
feel adequate to translate and do linguistics. But there
were handbooks and consultants who helped me to
translate the Bible into the Sougb tongue. God promises
to be there with you in the work He wants you to do. You
are not alone, and that has been a great comfort to me.
In addition to my wife, we had two single women co‐
workers who also helped in the overall ministries of Bible
teaching, medicine, and literacy.
I would do it again, because I know it does not depend on
my abilities, my personality, or my teaching/preaching
skills. I just have to be faithful and careful to teach the
truth of the gospel to the people and to walk in holiness
before them. Then the Spirit of God will take this truth
and convict people. We just have to be faithful to plant
and water the truth of the Good News about Jesus in
people’s hearts. It is God who builds His church, and He
enables us to accomplish the task.
I would go again, because I found God is faithful to supply
all that we needed. He cared for us, and he kept us safe.
And He still provides for our needs to this day.
Now that I look back, not one of my new Commander‐in‐
Chief’s promises has failed. He gave us 40 years to bring
the Light of the Gospel to a whole tribe of people. And I’m
glad that God, in His grace, asked me to become one of
His soldiers to help conquer the world for Him.
Life-Witness 45
United States of America 1954‐1968
1954 Immigrated in January to work on a farm in
Wisconsin
1955 Accepted Jesus Christ as Savior in March
Attended University of Minnesota
1960 Married Barbara K. Halbach
Our children are Lorraine, David and
Jonathan (twins), Marie, and Matthew
1963‐64 Attended Bible College in Columbia, SC
1965 Appointed Missionary with
The Evangelical Alliance Mission (TEAM),
Ministry in Bible translating, church
planting, and leadership training, Barbara
in medical ministry
Papua, Indonesia 1968‐2008
1968 Arrived in Irian Barat, Indonesia, (also
known as Irian Jaya and Papua) with family
1973‐1999 Church development and growth of the
Sougb tribe, including teaching of Church
Leaders Lessons in three sessions per year
Translation projects during this time
included; Church Leaders Lessons, Church
Leaders Handbook, Christmas‐Easter
Booklet, Catechism Book, and Sougb
Culture Book
1997 New Testament printed
Shorter Old Testament printed
2003 Old Testament printed
46 Dan Lunow
2005 Lessons for Matthew‐Mark‐Luke‐John
printed
2006 Retired (putting on new tires!) but still
translating—Final translation project is to
print the rest of the New Testament Church
Leaders Lessons/Commentaries (Romans‐
Revelation), which we hope to accomplish
in 2009
1997‐2008 Commissioning of 12 Sougb missionary
families who have gone to several new
tribes
Dan with the early church leaders during his first
term of missionary service among the Sougb in New
Guinea. Today there are 12 couples in five different
locations who are repeating what began in the
Sougb tribe so many years ago.
Life-Witness 47