Steve
Saint talks about his dad's death, the people who killed him 60 yrs ago, and
what transpired since then. His dad, Nate Saint, was one of five men, Jim Elliot, Roger Youderian, Ed McCully, and Pete Fleming, who, on Jan 8, 1956 were
killed by Woudani tribesman in Ecuador. His aunt Rachel, and Betty Elliott, the
wife of Jim Elliot went to live with these violent Auca Indians. As children,
Steve and his sister join them there. His
dad's killer named Mincaye, became Steve's adoptive grandfather. For many years
Steve and Mincaye have travelled and told their story. In 2012 Steve suffered a
paralyzing injury when testing an experimental flying car. It still limits his
activities yet his impact as a communicator continues.
If you want to witness love, then take a few minutes to see and to hear The End of the Spear, Steve Saint, son of Nate Saint, tells you how as a boy he grew up among the tribespeople who had killed his father, and Mincaye, the Woudani tribesman who speared his dad is beside Steve and has become his grandfather.
I
commemorate this 60th anniversary because of its impact upon me personally.
I
was 14 years of age when news was received that on January 8, 1956 five
missionaries were killed in Ecuador as they attempted to make contact with a
violent Indian group known as Aucas. The men's names were Jim Elliot, Nate Saint, Roger Youderian, Ed McCully, and Pete
Fleming. The tribe were known as Woudanis.
 |
| Marj Saint (wife of Nate) & Mincaye |
Our
family's church supported a missionary named Dr. Art Johnson, and he too was
posted in Ecuador. Art was a member of the search party looking for these men
and who found their lifeless bodies in the water and on the banks of the river
at a site dubbed Palm Beach. In 1960, four
years after the event, five of my friends and I drove to Chicago, to the
University of Illinois, the site of the1960 Urbana Conference for young
Christian senior high school and college age adults. Assembling with 10,000 people in one location
was awesome but the draw was a movie called 'Through Gates of Splendour.' It
told of the two courageous women who lived with this tribe after the killings.
Following the movie, there they stood, Rachel and Betty and one of the killers,
in person to give testimony to what happened. When I was a young father, my
wife Christine and I travelled to Ecuador with Cari and Jeff, our two small
children, to visit friends and also to visit Shell Mera, the home base for the
five families. Then just a few years ago when Steve and Mincaye came to
Missionsfest Conference at the Pan Pacific in Vancouver, I was blessed to hear
a more complete rendition of that distant event and all that has transpired
since then.
