Irresistible Requests

In the Pacific, where I lived as a boy, there was the term bubuti (to request) which has no equal in English. It is a request which cannot be refused. One dictionary calls it a "very efficacious" request. There is something similar in Africa, which I did not understand when first entering multicultural ministry. When one asks someone of European stock for something, they generally see themselves as individuals with a personal choice in the matter, and they will consider it. If one asks people of certain cultural backgrounds for something, they may take it as a powerful claim on them, and may find themselves in a conflict of conscience if they cannot meet it. What I did was to make it clear what was meant by requests.