Choose a representative passage from this novel that holds particular significance to you.

I was about to narrate the victorious resurrection of the Peace Child when I was interrupted by an anguished keening from Hato. The look on the one-eyed patriarch's face startled me. Stark sorrow.

Hato's son, Amio, explained. "Not long before you came my father gave a peace child to the Kayagar. THey took the baby and did not give one in return."

Amio winced as he continued, "Later we heard they killed the baby and ate it."

I drew in my breath sharply in horror. I reached out and touched Hato's hand and felt my being flow together with his in a mute sharing of anguish.

Near the edge of our cell of sorrow Amio's voice kept on explaining, "We learned then that Kayagar do not seal the peace by laying their hands on the living tarop, as we do, but by actually partaking of the tarop child's flesh. That was an accidental death of the child does not end the peace, because he is still living inside everyone!

"The people of Haenam and Yohwi chided us, saying, 'You Kamur people don't understand the Kayagar. You only understand the Auyu. If we had known you intended to give a tarop to the Kayagar, we would have warned you.'"

Someone else added, "That was the reason we almost started fighting with the Kayagar the day you arrived to build your home."

Stunned by this complex of revelations, I sat musing in silence, when Hato's voice came to me softly, "Myao Kodon nohop kahane savos kysir nide?"

My eyes swelled at his words. He had said, "Myao Kodon[God] must have been sad just like me."

To the novel, this passage is significant because it shows how the Sawi are making connections with their experiences to God. They are finally beginning to understand how much God loved us, enough to sacrifice his own son, just to have him get killed. To me, I can use this passage to kind of get a feel of what God was going through when he sent down Jesus to us. Even though I don't have a child to directly relate it to, if I had to tell my sister to go somewhere, knowing that she was going to be killed if she went, I don't think I would be able to let her go. I would have done everything to avoid my sister from going there. However, God wasn't like that. He didn't make excuses on why Jesus shouldn't go. He deliberately sent Jesus, knowing that he was going to die. At first, from churches and Bibles, I couldn't imagine the emotions of God, but now that I compare to an everyday example of sacrifice, I know how hard it would have been for God to do what he did, unless he loved us A LOT.